Recently Shenzhen, Guangdong announced a new bylaw against “non-civilized” behavior in public toilets of the city. This means that guys for whom the act of urination turns into a Sunday afternoon with a wacky water weasel may face fines if caught.
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 155)
It would appear that China is experiencing an unforeseen side-effect of a one child-policy: overbearing parents. Thankfully, this isn’t quite at the embarrassing level of Japan’s monster parents making demands of all unfortunate souls who come in contact with their children.
No, in China it seems it’s just the wives who are bearing the brunt of their in-laws suffocating ways. It’s believed that the number of divorces filed due to irreconcilable differences between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are on the rise, but this book, which is packed with real-life wife-versus-mother-in-law accounts, might help.
A few days ago we reported on a series of whimsical Twitter warnings issued by Imuraya, makers of the Adzuki Bar. The tweets all advise consumers of the famous frozen sweet bean snacks that “Adzuki Bars are seriously hard, so watch your teeth!”
But how hard are they really? Hard enough to, say, drive a nail through a piece of wood? Our reporter Usagi-chan decided to find out.
Were you one of the millions playing the battery life out of Pokémon Red, Green, or Blue back in the late ’90s? If so, your days fishing for magicarp have probably taken a backseat to a 9-5 job and changing diapers. Perhaps you feel a little disconnected after the several iterations that followed the original games over nearly two decades and feel that the poké balls have been passed to younger generations?
If any of this applies to you, the people behind Pokémon want to say they understand and have prepared a special treat in store. Coming 2 October to TV Tokyo a new anime series will begin titled Pokémon the Origin and follows the storyline of the original set of games.
Growing up as a young girl isn’t easy, the problems both big and small, mental and physical seem endless. This coming-of-age dilemma is the basis of a new online game put out by girls’ manga magazine, Ribbon. Although, instead of a schoolgirl you take the role of a school nurse’s assistant charged with helping an onslaught of children unhappy with their smells and suffering nosebleeds in School Nurse’s Office.
Don’t let the cutesy artwork of the game fool you, this is deceptively challenging! At least zombies only want one thing.
Ah Shinto, you’re the stoner roommate of world religions. People pride you on your laid-back “everything is god” and “it’s okay to have other religions” policies. Often times they wish they could be just like you. However, when you forget to pay the internet bill for the fourth time that way of thinking gets old real quick.
In Shinto’s case, that ISP’s final warning came in the form of Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine which serves to hold the souls of those who died in the Japanese armed forces. When it came time to include some convicted war criminals among those souls, Shinto coughed and said, “Sure man, they probably did something good along the way.”
And so, Yasukuni Shrine has become a political lightning rod inspiring right-wing nationalists in Japan and spurning the nation’s neighbors. Thankfully, this Obon season, when Japanese people habitually visit shrines to honor those who have gone before us, bread-headed children’s superhero, Anpanman, flew into Yasukuni and lent some sanity to an otherwise volatile situation.
In Japan, the manga series Captain Tsubasa was a veritable bible for young aspiring soccer players now active today. Practically every J. League player on the pitch today was reading the series or watching the anime during the ’80s.
This wasn’t just limited to Japan though; the popularity of the soccer-themed comic had spread around the world touching the hearts of young athletes everywhere. Professional soccer player Lionel Messi professed his love for the story, as did Andres Iniesta, Francesco Totti… The list goes on and on.
Among these many pros, German forward Lukas Podolski recently found himself in the loving cyber-embrace of Japan after posting a picture of his new shin guards complete with image of Captain Tsubasa‘s Kojiro Hyuga.
On 14 August at approximately 11:55am, an explosion occurred inside a passenger vehicle in Choshi City, Chiba Prefecture. The main ingredient to this minor disaster was some cooling spray like the kind used by athletes.
We might expect this to be the work of some punk teenagers – with their newfangled Hanna Montanas and Donkey Kong video games – fooling around with matches and aerosols. However, the victims/perpetrators where actually a middle-aged man and woman… fooling around with aerosols and lighters.
RocketNews24 reporter extraordinaire Kuzo was feeling a little at half-mast recently and was looking for some ways to put some lead in his pencil, and fast.
Luckily he heard about some Taiwanese dishes that promise to boost stamina and went out in search of them. What he found was some snake, softshell turtle, and Asian ginseng soups. Par for the course for our gourmet reporter but these soups were also served with the bodily fluids of the animals such as blood and poison. If that doesn’t get Kuzo up and going we don’t know what will.
Foreigners visiting Japan for the first time might be taken aback by how widespread the use of umbrellas is. Sure, during rain storms umbrellas make sense, but even during pleasantly sunny days you’re likely to see enough women putting up parasols to make you think the Bauhaus were in town.
Even this is understandable as “the Land of the Rising Sun” is not just another pretty name. In the middle of summer the often cloudless skies leave us at the mercy of the sun’s unrelenting rays. Combined with a lack of trees in many urban areas there’s simply no escape. And with pale skin traditionally considered to be a sign of beauty and elegance, it’s no wonder so many women still carry a parasol, but it would seem that the heat is getting so bad these days that men, too, are bit by bit turning to a once exclusively feminine accessory for relief and protection.
Ginti Kobayashi is a writer who in recent years can be seen in the series, Kaidan Shinmimibukuro Nagurikomi! In these DVDs, we follow Kobayashi and his colleagues as they explore Japan’s most notoriously haunted places.
In the spirit of summer, when Japan likes to cool down by sharing chilling stories, Kobayashi sat down with Spa magazine and laid out his choices for the top 10 most frightening haunted places he has ever experienced.
This Thursday, 15 August marks the beginning of Obon in most of Japan. Obon is a Buddhist custom in Japan where families gather together and are visited by the spirits of their ancestors. Various festivals are held to welcome the ghosts with music and dancing, depending on the region.
However, one tradition that is fairly consistent across the country is known as Ohakamairi (visiting the grave). This custom involves the family going to their grave to clean it and give presents to their deceased ancestors.
People change and places change given enough time, but have you ever seen a revolution of a skyline like this? China’s growth in the world stage can’t be ignored, and this simple photo comparison says it all.
Ishigaki Island has a few well known specialty foods such as Ishigaki beef and Yaeyama soba noodle, but aside from these delicacies a little-known snack food has been making waves across the nation. They call it onisasa.
Onisasa should be mistaken for some gimmicky new flavor the city of Ishigaki has concocted just to drum up tourism. This little hidden gem had been around for a long time in the region before getting the attention of greater Japan. So just what is onisasa?
It feels like yesterday when our reporter Kuzo travelled deep into China for find the fabled “melt-proof ice pop” named Banana – a vanilla ice cream encased in a protective gummy sheath. However, this year Banana has come to the world (under a variety of names such as Bennana in Japan), and this October it will reach the shores of Japan.
To celebrate, Banana’s maker Nestle held a “Banana Day” event in Harajuku, Tokyo on 7 August. Yet another punny Japanese holiday on a Japanese reading of “8/7”, it involved the giving away of free monkey ears, T-shirts, and of course Bennanas.
The 2013 Summer round of Comic Market (Comiket) began on 10 August, drawing flocks of anime, manga, and cosplay fans from Japan and abroad. The three-day event draws around half a million attendees on average.
For one resident of Odaiba where the event is held, this time of year is an absolute nightmare as he claims an abnormal smell emanates from the convention every time. The following is an translated open letter from the office worker in his 30s, who we’ll refer to as Mr. A.
Japan is a rich country when it comes to specialty treats and dishes. Small towns all over the nation can offer up unique foods and drinks you’ll never find anywhere else.
Shigenobu Matsuzawa who has uncovered Japan’s hidden treasures such as Digital Kowloon City, The Life and Sex Museum, and Gunma Cycle Sports Center now has found one such snack in Mie Prefecture that you’re unlikely to find in most places: Maple Tempura.
I was busy working at my desk on August 8, 2013 at approximately 4:55pm when I felt a great disturbance in the Force. It was as if millions of mobile phones cried out at once.
And sure enough when I checked my own phone there was a message from the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) which read “Receiving Earthquake Warning. Be cautious for violent shaking.”
Awwww, man.
In Japan, summer is seen as the time when the line between the living and the dead becomes blurry and paranormal activity is said to be at its highest. This is the season when studios like to put out horror movies, restaurants like to put out drinks based on horror movies, and youngsters like to share ghost stories online.
Recently, one place in particular has been the setting for eerie rumors based on a tragic past. It’s also a place where you can get a good deal on a massage chair and a digital picture frame. Everyone’s talking about none other than Bic Camera, a massive electronics superstore which towers over downtown Osaka. Sit back, turn out the lights and take in some these quick Japanese summer ghost tales.
Strokes are serious medical disturbances that we all have to live in fear of, often striking out of the blue and claiming lives or altering them drastically. For manga artist Mahiro Takura, it cost the use of his right hand, perhaps the most valuable body part for someone in his field. For many, that would be enough to send them into a spiral of depression.
However, rather than let his condition control his life, Mr. Takura decided to take control and has been rapidly learning to make use of his left hand instead. He recently tweeted the story of his recovery and we would like to share the translated version with you.
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