Krista Rogers

Starting with a love of J-Pop and J-dramas when she was 13, Krista Rogers has left her quiet New England hometown in the States both to study abroad in Tokyo and to work on the JET Program in beautiful Yamagata prefecture. She misses chatting in the local dialect and staging Kamehameha battles in the hallway with her students. Although she's currently working on her master's degree in Boston, she will without a doubt be back in Japan before long and buying way too much at Book-Off and Tower Records again. When she needs a break from schoolwork, Krista enjoys eating yakiniku, figure skating, finding cute cafes, watching Big Bang MVs, and continuing on her quest to catch 'em all.

Posted by Krista Rogers (Page 44)

“My boyfriend is as stupid as ever” – Annoyingly cutesy messages a big hit in Japan

You know those displays of affection which just make you want to gag? They appear to be the story of one Japanese female Twitter user‘s life, who is less than impressed with her boyfriend’s sugary, lovey-dovey persona in the following two amusing conversations she shared between them.

It seems other net users can either relate to or chuckle from afar at their exchanges, since her original post has since been retweeted 37,600 times as of this writing!

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Introducing five of Japan’s most popular kid-hosted YouTube channels! 【Videos】

On a recent episode of TBS’s morning informational program Asachan! (あさチャン!), a segment titled “YouTuber Kids” explored some of the most popular Japanese kids in the world of online vlogging. Their videos are popular among both peers and parents looking for some fun activities to do, and the most popular ones have amassed millions of online views.

Today, we’d like to introduce you to five of the most popular and watched Japanese child YouTube stars out there. These mini celebrities have already become so famous in the span of their short little lives that we can’t wait to see where life takes them next!

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Attack on Production: Titan extras dish about miserable working conditions and arrogant staff

It’s looking more and more like the highly anticipated live-action adaptation of Attack on Titan released on August 1 will amount to nothing more than a critical flop, based on the majority of reports from Japanese film critics and fans of the anime series. Some of their reviews were even bad enough to provoke the ire of the film’s director and special modeling director into posting angry rebuttals on their social media accounts.

Now, adding even more fuel to the fire are the voices of dozens of Japanese extras in the film, who seem unanimous in their declaration that the film turned out the way it did because its production staff was incredibly arrogant and treated everyone like dirt.

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Kawaii Monster Cafe opens in Harajuku with a pop of color and, you guessed it, cute monster girls

Japan’s newest concept restaurant held its grand opening on August 1 in Tokyo’s Harajuku district, which is well-known as Japan’s mecca for zany subculture fashions and youth culture.

We haven’t had a chance to go to the Kawaii Monster Cafe yet, but based on the pictures of its lavish decorations positively bursting with color and Alice in Wonderland-esque bizarreness, we’d say it looks well worth the trip!

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7 more things foreigners do that Japanese people find amusing

As a foreigner in Japan, have you ever experienced a slightly awkward yet somehow humorous interaction with a Japanese person? Perhaps you were curious to know more about some aspect of Japanese culture and asked someone a rather random question, or conversely, a Japanese person was curious to know something about your culture and came to you for all the answers. Or maybe you were just out on the street and happened to witness an amusing exchange between some natives and the local gaijin.

Last year, we brought you 10 such tales of comical intercultural interactions, and today we’d like to introduce seven more fun, quirky, and interesting anecdotes as shared by Japanese Twitter users about their exchanges with foreigners. Have you ever been in a similar situation to one of these yourself?

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Will whiskey aged in space taste smoother? Suntory is set to experiment this month

Japanese brewing and distilling company Suntory Holdings Limited recently announced their plans to send samples of whiskey to the International Space Station in order to investigate the effects of zero gravity on the aging process.

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We bought a piece of a real, launched rocket for only 500 yen, and you can too! 【Pics】

Do you have any aspiring astronauts, astronomers, aeronauts, or cosmologists in the house? If so, you’ve just stumbled upon the perfect birthday gift for said person.

For only 500 yen (US$4.05), you can now purchase legitimate fragments of a Japan-launched rocket being sold under the moniker uchuu gacha (“space capsules”). In fact, it’s such a good deal that we just had to buy one for ourselves!

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Forget the flowers, these Japanese households are growing potted felines! 【Pics】

Don’t be alarmed if your kids aren’t exactly enthusiastic at your suggestion to grow vegetables in the backyard this summer. After all, why would you grow cabbage or tomatoes when you could just as easily grow a potful of kitties, like these Japanese families are doing?

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The JK business: Documentary examines the Japanese schoolgirl industry

From traditional culture to the latest in “Cool Japan,” Japan has a lot to boast about. Yet there’s another side to the island nation which has stirred up international contention over the past few decades.

Even those unfamiliar with specific components of Japanese popular culture have likely heard about the popularity of high school girls in Japan, as school uniform-clad girls often appear in the latest advertising, music videos, TV anime, and other forms of the country’s media. Dig a little deeper and you can also find a service industry which involves high school girls providing a range of services to older men in return for payment. Known colloquially as the “JK business” (the “JK” is derived from joshikosei, or “female high school student”), this phenomenon often includes such services as “JK walking” or “JK massages,” which may or may not be veiled fronts for prostitution in actuality.

Today, we’d like to introduce you to the darker side of the JK business through the lens of a short foreign documentary which has raised considerable debate online.

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Brace yourselves, because panty-scrunchies are now real, buyable accessories

Not that we like to brag or anything, but we totally called the newest fashion trend to hit Japan: panty scrunchies!

One year ago, we posted an article about how some Japanese net users were having a hard time seeing the difference between hair scrunchies and frilly underwear. It seems as if at least one pair of designers took that story to heart, since earlier this month they unveiled a new accessory based on that exact concept!

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Japanese photographer captures gorgeous photos of timeless building facades in Tokyo

It must take Hitoshi Kobayashi a long time to walk anywhere if his collection of photographs is any indication. The photographer has been gaining attention online for his galleries of photos dedicated solely to the facades of local buildings tucked away in the quiet streets and alleyways of suburban Tokyo. In fact, taking a stroll through his pictures is almost like being spirited away to another world and time altogether. 

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Counting in Japanese just became a whole lot easier with this handy infographic

One of the beautiful (or painful, depending on how you look at it) aspects of the Japanese language is its complex system of numbers and counting methods. For starters, there are two commonly used systems of numbers–often referred to as the Sino-Japanese numbers and the native Japanese numbers–that are used in different contexts, as well as a seemingly limitless number of counter words. Confused yet?

So how the heck do you become a master of Japanese numbers? Well, a good way to start is by checking out this handy-dandy infographic put out by Japanese Video Cast! 

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Four common workplace occurrences that could land you in hot water in Japan

A Japanese website recently published a list of four commonly occurring behaviors at work which are actually considered to be crimes by Japanese law. The scariest thing is that regardless of where you are in the world, you might have been doing them all along!

Perhaps take a moment to check whether you have explicit permission before doing any of the following four things at your place of employment, or else you could find yourself in a legal mess in the worst case scenario.

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Japanese net users amused by One Piece’s Luffy making hypocritical public service announcement

Japanese net users were amused after an advertisement which depicted Luffy (the hero of best-selling manga and anime series One Piece) warning readers not to shoplift began circulating online. In case that doesn’t quite strike a chord with you, all you need to know is that Luffy’s dream is to become the King of the Pirates–in other words, the ad is totally ignoring the fact that you know, stealing is kind of what he does, by profession.

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”How to distinguish Koreans” explores stereotypes through the eyes of the world 【Video】

After the success of his previous video, “How to distinguish Americans,” YouTuber sw yoon decided to poke fun at his fellow South Koreans with a new video titled “How to distinguish Koreans.” 

The follow-up is every bit as amusing as the first, but before you click that “Play” button just remember: in Yoon’s own words, “This series of video is stereotypical stereotype video. Don’t get too serious.”

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Cash, chickens, and other bizarre things blown in by the typhoon in Japan

Imagine that a typhoon is raging outside and you’ve just settled in for a nice cup of hot tea, when all of a sudden you hear a smack! on your veranda door. Taking a cautious peek outside, you discover that a plastic chicken has come to visit!

This is just one example of a strange object blown around by the current Typhoon 11 in Japan. Check out some of the other bizarre things that Japanese Twitter users have found outside their homes in this real-life case of cloudy with a chance of meatballs!

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This one-woman Jurassic World parody from Korea is the next blockbuster waiting to happen 【Video】

Take one of South Korea’s most popular Viners, throw in a few prehistoric reptiles, and you’ve got one heck of  a Jurassic World fanmade parody.

Korean internet celebrity Hozzah2’s recent Jurassic World Parody Fanmade Trailer has got just as much action as the Hollywood blockbuster without nearly the same budget. In fact, we just may even like this version more than the original! The hilarity ensues right after the jump.

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More tributes to Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata pour into popular Wii U game Splatoon

Since Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata’s passing a few days ago, fans around the world have been paying their respects to the Nintendo giant with a landslide of drawings and messages. Players of the team-based online game Splatoon have especially embraced this trend, leading to an outpouring of in-game tributes to the beloved president.

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Our Japanese reporter cleans his childhood room, finds all kinds of nostalgic treasures

Recently, our Japanese reporter Yoshio visited his parents’ house and decided to finally take a stab at tidying up his childhood room, which had been left untouched ever since he moved out. In the process, he was surprised to find many lost relics and treasures from his childhood, and became caught up in a wave of nostalgia for several hours. Needless to say, he didn’t get much cleaning done in the end…

If you’re the nostalgic type, perhaps you’d like to take a peek at the treasures that Yoshio dug up, some from over 20 years ago!

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“What would happen if all Japanese people could speak English?” Net users duke it out

Who doesn’t love debating hypothetical scenarios about the future of a country, especially in the anonymity of the internet?

In fact, a recent Japanese Twitter exchange has led to such an economic debate. One Twitter user with a large following sparked the initial discussion by posing the question “What would happen if everyone in Japan learned how to speak English?” That post has now been retweeted thousands of times, with hundreds of people eager to share their own opinions on the topic.

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