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Master Blaster

Writer / Translator

Master Blaster is the two-man translating team of Canada’s Steven Le Blanc and Japan’s Masami M, a pair who in addition to writing work are in English education and created the StudyNow app for Japanese students of English.

Together they have written somewhere around 1,500 articles for RocketNews24 covering such diverse topics as Chinese men selling sanitary napkins to each other and a Japanese guy dragging an ear of corn around the Tokyo train system. A few of these were actually good, but don’t take our word for it! Here’s what our beloved readers had to say:

“One isn't always in the mood for bold tastes. But when I'm in the mood for bold flavor I turn to you.”
“Stupid article. Who cares what the Japanese think it's cool. You don't call a monkey, "gorilla".”
“You know, this is about the most cogent explanation of how a turbocharger works that I have ever seen in the non-motorsports world.”
“Thanks for the article peter!”
“It's people like you who make exploitation possible.”
“It looks yummy and the story was great. Thank you for the smile.”

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Posted by Master Blaster (Page 117)

Japan’s largest all-you-can-eat-and-drink offer spans eight different restaurants in Osaka

Since 1 July, a small corner of the Chayamachi district in the downtown Umeda area of Osaka has been holding a huge deal: All-You-Can-Eat-and-Drink Alley. For a flat rate of 3,500 yen (US$28) you can have three hours to run wild and eat as much as you want from eight different restaurants in the alley, going back and forth among them freely.

Still not enough? Okay picky pants, how does also having all-you-can-drink of any drink from coffee to wine sound? We thought that would convince you! Let’s take a quick look at what’s in store (or stores rather) for you there.

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Japanese elves bring us a new snack cake with the great taste of old meat!

Japan never ceases to be the country of making something taste exactly like something it shouldn’t. In the land where you can get kimchi-flavored soft drinks and spaghetti-flavored ice candy, it would seem food companies are really just drunk with power when it comes to what they can and will make stuff taste like.

And now we have “the perfect snack cake for any meat-lover,” Momotan Aged Meat Flavored snacks. It’s in the form of a typical Japanese confection called manju with a cake-like outer coating and sweet been paste filling. However, these Momotan manju are heavily seasoned to make you swear you were eating a morsel of month-old meat instead!

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“Buddhists’ Disneyland” the Pure Land Cave is the trippiest place on earth

In Kaohsiung, Taiwan, there stands a massive Buddhist complex set up by the half-century-old sect Fo Guang Shan. It is a sprawling 30 hectares (74 acres) and contains the nation’s largest monastery, a 36-meter (132 foot) tall Buddha statue, as well as an enormous Buddha Memorial Center in the shape of a pyramid.

However, for our correspondent Kowloon Kurosawa the real action could be found in the Pure Land Cave. It’s an attraction rumored to have been patterned after Disney’s It’s a Small World ride. However, as we’ll soon see, Buddhism is not so much a “small” world as it is a creepy and psychedelic one.

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Beijing to enact “Good Person Protection Ordinance”

In a lot of major cities around the world, people are hesitant to get involved when they see an injured person. After all, if movies have taught us one thing, it’s that the people who go to check on the fallen hero are often the first to get picked off by a terminator or Mike Myers in hot pursuit.

At best stopping to assist someone with a wound will likely set you off on a journey that Peter Travers of Rolling Stone calls “an rip-roaring, edge-of-your-seat adventure” and seriously, who has time for all that?

That might be why Good Samaritans are hard to come by in big cities everywhere, and in Beijing the government is looking to change that by offering protections in what is casually being referred to as the Good Person Protection Ordinance. However, rather than killbots and monsters, this measure will protect helpful souls from a much more real threat.

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Japan’s oldest sushi train serves up unorthodox Blueberry Cream Sushi

Around the internet there is a Japanese term, majikichi, which is short for “Maji de kichigai jimiteru kara yamero” or “Stop because you seriously seem to be losing your mind”. Needless to say it’s a convenient word.

Perhaps a good example of majikichi is in the sushi world. With all of Japan’s less traditional sushi restaurants known as “sushi trains” competing for people’s attention, they often come out with some eye-catching toppings, and sometimes things go too far.

In the true spirit of journalism, our reporter Nakano has been out and about finding the most majikichi sushi in the land from bacon sushi to rice omelet sushi. Now his travels bring him to Japan’s first ever sushi train chain Genki Sushi and their latest offering: Blueberry Cream Sushi.

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Mr. Sato discovers the band of his dreams: this small box

Hardcore readers of RocketNews24 may have caught the very few instances where Mr. Sato has pulled out a guitar and started playing. It’s easy to miss, though, as Mr. Sato is what’s known as a bochi gitarisuto (lonely guitarist) who plays alone at home solely for his own satisfaction.

But now our reporter is all too eager to show of his guitar stylings after discovering the Trio Band Creator by DigiTech. It looks just like a normal effects pedal but actually adds an automatic bass and drum accompaniment based on your own playing.

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Japanese government recognizes equal salon rights, men now “permitted” to get haircuts in them

A huge victory in the metrosexual rights movement was made last week when the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare decided to abolish a guideline which stated that “men should not be able to get haircuts at beauty salons.”

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“Nintendo president assassinated by Freemasons” conspiracy theory floats around social networks

It has been five days since Satoru Iwata, the much beloved president of Nintendo, tragically passed away, and fans have been dealing with the sudden loss in numerous different ways – some with written messages, some with heartrending art.

They say there are five stages of grief that people may go through in times like this: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, according to an anonymous dissertation circulating around Line, someone found the magic whistle and warped all the way to grief stage 6: accusation of an omnipotent clandestine society.

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PanTea? This pair of granny panties in a teapot can be yours for only 1 million yen!

If you’re like me, then you certainly love gazing at a piece of modern art while sipping white wine out of a vinegar dispenser with a wilted rose floating inside. But if you’re one of those weirdos who doesn’t, then you may wonder why this pair of granny panties soaking in a teapot is on sale with an asking price of 1,081,728 yen (US$8,753).

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Sushi shop in Tokyo has no name, passes savings on to you with 10-yen sushi!

In Yoyogi, Tokyo, there stands an unnamed sushi shop which sells impressively crafted sushi at rock-bottom prices. It’s a fairly new restaurant, known to locals as “The Sushi Shop With No Name” or “That Sushi Shop That Still Doesn’t Have A Name.”

To us, it became known as “The Place That Serves Yellowtail Sushi For Only 10 Yen (US$0.08) A Piece!” Granted, that’s not the catchiest of names, especially with the conversion to US dollars, but it’s definitely enticing.

And so, our resident sushi expert Mr. Sato set out to find this shop with no name and see if their quality also makes this a place worth visiting.

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Soak yourself in 100% pure hot spring water at home for less than 100 yen!

In the land of earthquakes, typhoons, blistering summers and mountains of snow in the winter, Japan’s plentiful and luxurious hot springs are Mother Nature’s way of letting us know that she doesn’t totally hate us.

But the number of true hot springs – where water naturally comes from the ground rather than being pumped in and then heated – is lower than you might imagine. Many places such as the new “hot spring” being built in Shinjuku have their water shipped in from a real hot spring source.

And now, if you live in the Kanto area, you can ship in your own hot spring water too! Why pay entry into some huge complex when you can soak in your own home bathtub away from the leering eyes of RocketNews24 journalists or tattoo-prudes. Oh, and did we mention it’s ridiculously cheap?

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I scream, you scream, we all scream at “Soft Susheam”

If you’re thinking that one “would have to be out of their ever-lovin’ mind to mix sushi and soft serve ice cream,” then you’re not alone; that’s exactly what our reporter Nakano thought when he spotted an item called “Soft Susheam” on the menu of an Iwasaka sushi train restaurant in Okayama City. And yet, like a moth to a flame, he found himself unable to resist its lure.

Could something which sounded like a cross between soft-serve ice cream and sushi – two foods which, when served alone, have always been true crowd-pleasers – really work? Nakano simply had to find out.

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A lemon has infinite vitamin C: unofficial joint study of Soft Drink Association, Twitter users

For some reason Japanese people love them some excessive amounts of vitamin C. Go to any convenience store or supermarket and your sure to find competing brands of drinks all loaded with the recommended daily intake of the stuff several times over.

But really, how many of us know off-hand what the daily recommended intake is? That’s why back in 2009 the Japan Soft Drink Association (JSDA) came up with a new labeling system that measures the amount of vitamin C added in units of lemons. I’m not sure how that actually makes it any clearer, but at least its something.

However, in the process it seems they have inadvertently created a formula that shows how a single lemon contains an infinite amount vitamin C.

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Korea’s Mexicana Chicken offers fried chicken in strawberry, banana, and melon flavors

On 5 July, Korean chicken restaurant Mexicana Chicken unveiled their new selection of “Stoplight Chicken” which are small pieces of boneless chicken coated in flavored powders colored red, yellow, and green.

Apparently emboldened by the previous success of chicken nuggets coated in cheese powder, Mexicana has decided to go all out and add strawberry, banana, and melon to the available flavors for their fried chicken. However, according to online reaction, the result is not great.

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Leiji Matsumoto begins project to build real Galaxy Express 999

It’s been nearly 40 years since the Galaxy Express 999 first departed for the Planet Prometheum and all of the emotional existential adventures in between. It became a manga and anime series that filled viewers’ heads with fantasies of romantic space travel on a locomotive.

Now it seems series creator Leiji Matsumoto is tired of dreaming and is readying to construct a real Galaxy Express 999. Before you ask: No, he’s not high.

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Japanese cosmetic company Shiseido expects to have baldness cure on the market by 2018

Three more years…

For much of my life I’ve been waiting for this moment. Even throughout my youth I glanced at the hairlines of relatives and wondered what would become of me. At the same time I figured medical science would have to have developed something by the time my hair would start falling out.

However, as I entered my thirties and began to look more and more like an octopus was attacking me when my hair got wet, there still seemed to be no true cure for baldness on the horizon. They were out there cloning sheep and growing ears on the backs of mice, but they still couldn’t give me a little action up top.

And just as I raised my razor to go the Bruce Willis route, a ray of hope shone on my news feed. It said that the cure to baldness actually lies inside me and my delicious stem cells, and that the key to unlocking it would be available in just three more years…

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One-of-a-kind Ultraman violin to be sold this November

Coming to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Theater Concert Hall on 2 November is the Ultraman Symphony Concert 2015. At this event music from the high-culture tokusatsu masterpieces of Ultraman and related shows will be performed by a full orchestra.

It’s sure to be a luminous evening of sci-fi splendor, but to mark the occasion a single Ultra Violin, the only official Ultraman violin in existence, will be sold to one lucky buyer.

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While visiting friends who were a part of the recent Naruto stage production, Japanese film and music star Gackt was left with a bad feeling. Having watched one of the overseas Naruto performances, the singer couldn’t help but notice the lack of people in the audience.

Gackt doesn’t rule out possible flaws with the play such as too much material crammed into a short time. However, as he wrote in a recent impassioned blog post, he thinks the real culprit may be the Japanese government and their Cool Japan promotional program, which he feels is anything but.

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Hong Kong supermarket’s new offering may take crown as “murderer of sushi”

Hong Kong is famous for lots of great food, but it’s also famous for its avant-garde culinary creations like you might find at Akimasa Sushi (Japanese pronunciation). Last year we reported on their menu which included gunkan sushi topped with sweet beans and mayonnaise as well as fruit jelly and wasabi nigiri sushi.

Their creations have only gotten weirder since, and Akimasa Sushi has earned the nicknames “murderer of sushi” and “sushi hell” from locals. However, now the internet in Hong Kong is buzzing over a new sushi variant that some believe might strip Akimasa Sushi of those titles with its own uniqueness.

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Government begins study into tattoo bans in public baths

On 23 June the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) announced that it would be conducting a first-of-its-kind study into public bathing facilities such as onsen (hot springs) and sento (bath houses), and their rules regarding tattoos.

Visitors to Japan are often warned that if they want to visit one of Japan’s hundreds of natural springs or meticulously designed baths they can’t be inked up. But how widespread is this rule in Japan really, and is it doing more harm than good in this day and age? These are the things the JTA hopes to learn more about in the weeks to come.

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