Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
Hailing from Liverpool in the UK, Philip Kendall made Japan his second home in the summer of 2006 after dolefully abandoning his childhood dream of becoming a ghost buster. Setting up camp in beautiful Fukushima prefecture, he brought joy to literally hundreds of junior high school children as ‘that tall, handsome teacher’ or more often ‘the one with the big nose,’ before relocating to Tokyo at the end of 2011.
Writer, foodie, gamer and eternal student of the Japanese language, Philip now works as a freelance writer and translator, submitting to Tokyo Weekender magazine and website and Learn Japanese Pod, as well as co-running Suds, Grub & Joe- a website dedicated to all things beer, food and coffee-related in Tokyo. Follow his ramblings on his personal blog or on twitter.
Posted by Philip Kendall (Page 12)
This year’s E3 trade show, or Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 to give it its full name, is now just hours away. E3 2013 was one of the most memorable in show history, with Microsoft and Sony both pushing their new consoles in our faces like fame-obsessed parents trying to live vicariously through their grotesquely made-up offspring. This year, though, should be all about the games. And we’re excited.
I’ve played my share of weird and psychedelic video games over the years. I’ve flown through space firing beams of energy to create musical beats while every colour of the rainbow zips by my face, played games that have sporadically erased the contents of my inventory to make me think I was losing my mind, and intentionally touched more fuzzies to get dizzier than most would ever dare.
But One Way Trip, an indie game coming to PlayStation 4 and Vita next year, looks like it’ll be one of the craziest rides I’ll ever have the pleasure of taking without giving the police cause to visit my home.
Few would ever imagine that a pair of cleaning ladies from Japan should be something to be afraid of, but like a childhood friend’s terrifying mother busting a game of spin-the-bottle, a recent series of videos featuring two such individuals has put the fear of God into us today as well as reminding us that we’re never too big for a smack.
Going by the name Caddie Golu Golu, these middle-aged cleaning ladies are part of a campaign by entertainment company Sega Sammy ahead of its golf tournament, the Sega Sammy Cup 2014, which will be held next month. Wearing pink-and-white cleaner’s outfits and giant sun visors, these rapping ladies get up in the faces of rude and inconsiderate golfers, and have also featured in a series of videos meant for the general public, attacking people on the streets of Tokyo who smoke where they shouldn’t, fail to pick up their dog’s poop, or who walk while looking at their smartphones.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Most countries in the West are finally coming to the end of their own “Let it Go” boom, with the song from Disney’s hit animation now only being played, sung, and hummed about as often as other songs at the top of the charts as opposed to on loop every single minute of the day. But due to the animated film’s late release in Japan, the craze is still going strong over here, and Frozen is still pretty much everywhere.
Thankfully, some Japanese fans are giving our ears a break by opting to sing some other songs from the film, and couples lip-syncing to “Love is an Open Door” have become an increasingly common sight on YouTube. The pair pictured above, though, took a slightly different approach and opted not for sickly-sweet smiles and acting like prim and proper princesses, but for manic hair-whipping, giant flared nostrils, rolled eyeballs and enormous mouths.
On May 28 at a McDonald’s restaurant in China, six members of an alleged religious cult attacked and beat to death a 37-year-old woman after she refused to give them her phone number. The incident was caught on security cameras and filmed by fellow diners as they fled, but no one attempted to intervene.
Few who have not visited the country would ever imagine that Japan is practically overrun with bakeries. When people think of food in Japan, they usually think of things like rice, sushi and ramen, but the truth is, while Japanese supermarkets may not carry anywhere near as many varieties of bread as those in the West, dedicated bakeries can be found all over city centres, with pretty much every station, shopping mall and supermarket having its own shop or dedicated corner offering up freshly baked pastries, and the variety is astounding.
Check out this video to see 30 typical pastries available at Japanese bakeries.
Like it or loathe it, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” is still killing it in the charts more than six months after its initial release and remains of the most played songs on the radio. Sure, the lyrics are kind of simple, and its gets kind of repetitive, but when an artist devotes so much energy to being upbeat and provides a track that you just can’t help tapping your feet to, it’s hard not to crack a smile.
Fan-made remakes of the music video are ten a penny right now, with people all over the world feeling the urge to make their own smiling, strutting, and dancing compilations, but one particular video, titled “Harajuku Happy“, is by far one of the coolest we’ve seen, giving us a tour of the titular town while showing that life in Japan’s capital isn’t all black suits and bowing.
When people visit Japan, they often marvel at how great the service everywhere is. Trains run on time; a guy pops out of a little hatch like a station ninja when you’re struggling with a ticket vending machine; packages come precisely when they’re supposed to, and even if you miss them you can just call the driver on their mobile phone to arrange a new delivery time.
Day in, day out, stuff just works. And yet, unlike the many foreigners who live here, native Japanese take this all completely in their stride. Take this video, for example, which was taken by a foreigner living and uploaded to YouTube a couple of weeks ago…
It’s finally Friday here in Tokyo, and hundreds of thousands of people are gearing up for a night on the town. The weather is fine, the pubs plentiful, and with work done for another week it’s time to cut back and relax with a few beers.
Unfortunately, a lot of people in Japan tend to overdo it when it comes to drink. Combined with an alcohol intolerance that is surprisingly common amongst Asian people, this results in a shockingly high number of alcohol-related mishaps, with businessmen, beautifully dressed girls and college kids alike passing out on the street, in stairwells, on trains and station platforms pretty much every weekend.
The Yaocho Bar Group has been out looking for these sleeping drunks, however, and when they find one they swoop in like a band of rogue graffiti artists, using duct tape and pre-printed messages and slogans to construct a billboard around them, clearly labelling the drinker with the word nomisugi, or “drank too much’.
The E3 video game trade show is now just a couple of weeks away, and gamers the world over are getting excited. Will Rockstar Games come clean about its next project? Will Sony announce a launch date and pricing info for its new streaming service? Will the guys from Valve surprise us all by walking on stage, saying: “Episode 3. November 1,” and dropping the mic? Maybe not, but it’s fun to dream, right?
Sure, we all want to hear news of the games that have been teased over the past few months, but wouldn’t it be fun if a few more games came completely out of left field and blew us all away? With that in mind, we set our creative minds to work and came up with five video games that we wish existed, but are quite sure – perhaps for good reason – will never, ever happen.
Chinese cities have featured a lot in the news over the past few years. With the country experiencing rapid economic growth and its industries going into overdrive – though often with scant regard for the environment – the air quality in some cities has deteriorated to the point that health organisations have warned against spending too much time outdoors. The country’s rivers, too, bear the scars of progress as factories pump tons of waste into them, in some cases turning the water dark red.
Thankfully, though, the Chinese government has pledged to address the situation, and has this week announced plans to remove as many as six million vehicles from its roads in an effort to detoxify city air.
Despite underwhelming sales of its previous games consoles in Japan, Microsoft Corporation has remained true to its promise of bringing Xbox One to the Land of the Rising Sun, and has today announced an official release date and price point.
Cats are odd creatures. On the one hand, they exert their power over their owners humans on a near daily basis, ignoring us when we call them despite their ears clearly twitching in our direction, pestering us with such skill that it’s almost like they get a kick out of it, and making us fall for that “come, tickle my belly, human… Now, feel my CLAWS!!!” ruse every single time. And yet they occasionally do things that are so incredibly stupid that we wonder how they survived this long as a species.
Case in point, this Twitter user’s cat, who, being fond of tight spaces, climbed into a shrink-wrapped case of mineral water bottles and proceeded to get itself well and truly stuck, looking mightily uncomfortable with its little face pressed up against the plastic and wearing an expression of “this is really not going as I had planned…”
Earlier this week, netizens in Japan started going nuts about a new range of popcorn on sale at 7-Eleven. Unlike in some countries, 7-Eleven Japan takes great pride in regularly launching new, limited-edition snacks, and more often than not they’re surprisingly tasty. The response its latest product garnered, however, was ludicrously enthusiastic.
When netizens got wind of the “amazingly delicious” new caramel and (curiously) cheddar cheese flavoured popcorn on sale at their local Sebun, people apparently started bulk-buying, resulting hundreds of tweets going out bemoaning a lack of stock and pestering 7-Eleven – who then added fuel to the fire by acknowledging that the snack was indeed hard to come by – and demanding to know where they could get it.
Curious to find out what all the fuss was about, we procured a couple of bags and sat down to conduct a little taste test. I can tell you right off the bat, though, that the super-amazing mecha-delicious popcorn pretty much everyone in Japan – including our own Japanese staff – is raving about really isn’t worth all the hype.
Hey, you! You’re a busy person! You have status updates to write; tweets about your lunch to send; videos of cats dressed as humans to watch. You don’t have time to read things like some kind of ridiculous, well-educated duck.
So instead watch this video, which tells you everything there is to know about Japan – covering population, annual food wastage, social awkwardness and much more – in just 10 minutes and 59 seconds.
Go! Time is of the essence!
Think you know your Nintendo? Our pals over at BuzzFeed have just released one of their famous “BuzzFeed Pop” videos which reveals a whole host of little-known facts about the House of Mario.
Join us after the jump to test your knowledge and find out how much of your life you’re wasting indoors.
What with desktops, laptops, all-in-ones and tablets, we now have an enormous amount of choice when it comes to buying a new computer. While many of us enjoy the raw power that giant desktops have to offer, others prefer the simplicity and convenience of tablets with their slim designs and fingerprint-absorbing touchscreens.
With the Kira L93, Japanese electronics giant Toshiba is clearly hoping to cover all of its bases and please even the most indecisive computer buyer. With a 13.3-inch touchscreen that can be rotated 360 degrees, stand, detachable keyboard and stylus, the latest entry in the Dynabook series can be used up to seven different ways, making it one of the most versatile machines on the market.
The Super Mario Bros. theme, also known as the “ground theme,” “overworld theme,” or perhaps just “da-da-da-dada-da-da!” is arguably the most well-known piece of video game music in the world. First recorded for the NES game in 1985 by Nintendo’s in-house musician Koji Kondo, the track was designed to fit the action and pacing of the platformer, and added a light, whimsical accompaniment to gameplay that might otherwise have felt entirely different without it.
Thousands of people have attempted to tweak and cover this iconic track over the years, tackling it with a variety of instruments. More often than not, the result is the same – a great track is a great track regardless of the person playing it, after all – but occasionally someone with real talent comes along and blow us all away with a rendition that we almost wish Nintendo would include in their next Mario adventure.
Russian guitarist Igor Presnyakov’s cover of the overworld theme is one such rendition.
It may not be the Zelda game that fans of the series are truly craving, but Dynasty Warriors-inspired hack and slasher Hyrule Warriors, or Zelda: Musō (“unparalleled”) in Japan, will reportedly be hitting Japanese shelves on August 14.
The Shibuya crossing, also known as theShibuya scramble, is without a doubt one of the most famous locations in the world. Now the go-to location for establishing shots of Japan when producers aren’t focusing on geisha and picturesque temples, the intersection has been featured in numerous TV shows and movies, and is a must-see for any visitor to Tokyo.
Surrounded by tall buildings, each covered in giant screens and ads vying for pedestrians’ attention, the Scramble is traversed by an incredible 500,000 people each day, with roughly 3,000 pedestrians crossing every time the lights change during peak hours, making it one of the flashiest and most popular places to advertise in Japan.
And now, it’s about to get just a little bit flashier.
This is Japan’s, and the world’s, first capsule hotel, and you can still stay there
Japan has nearly 4 million abandoned homes, but where and why?
How to make a secret rice bowl at Ichiran ramen
McDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goods
Dragon reformation and the largest clay Budda in Japan: A visit to Okadera Temple【Photos】
Bad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
Yakuza lieutenant arrested in Tokyo for stealing Pokémon cards
Japanese cosplayer creates amazing outfit: Sailor Moon’s transformation sequence!【Photos】
Cheap Japanese ryokan at Kusatsu Onsen is hidden at the back of a traditional store
FUK COFFEE?!? Japanese cafe has a perfectly innocent reason for its startling-looking nameBad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
McDonald’s Japan’s new pancake pie is a taste sensation
Foreigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
Two things to do, and two things not to do, when leaving a traditional Japanese inn
One of Japan’s oldest castles now lets travelers spend night on the grounds, drink in its keepFUK COFFEE?!? Japanese cafe has a perfectly innocent reason for its startling-looking name
Studio Ghibli unveils new goods that tip the hat to The Cat Returns
Studio Ghibli unveils massive T-shirt collection featuring top anime movie characters
Starbucks at Shibuya Scramble Crossing reopens, but is it really bigger and better than before?Japan has nearly 4 million abandoned homes, but where and why?McDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goodsForeigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
New definition of “Japanese whiskey” goes into effect to prevent fakes from fooling overseas buyers
Our Japanese reporter visits Costco in the U.S., finds super American and very Japanese things
Japanese ramen restaurants under pressure from new yen banknotes
All-you-can-drink Starbucks and amazing views part of Tokyo’s new 170 meter-high sky loungeBad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screensMcDonald’s Japan’s new pancake pie is a taste sensation
More foreign tourists than ever before in history visited Japan last month
Disney princesses get official manga makeovers for Manga Princess Cafe opening in TokyoMcDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goods
Sales of Japan’s most convenient train ticket/shopping payment cards suspended indefinitely
Sold-out Studio Ghibli desktop humidifiers are back so Totoro can help you through the dry season
Japanese government to make first change to romanization spelling rules since the 1950sForeigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
Ghibli founders Toshio Suzuki and Hayao Miyazaki contribute to Japanese whisky Totoro label design
Doraemon found buried at sea as scene from 1993 anime becomes real life【Photos】
Tokyo’s most famous Starbucks is closed
One Piece characters’ nationalities revealed, but fans have mixed opinions
We asked a Uniqlo employee what four things we should buy and their suggestions didn’t disappoint
Bad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
Yakuza lieutenant arrested in Tokyo for stealing Pokémon cards
Japanese cosplayer creates amazing outfit: Sailor Moon’s transformation sequence!【Photos】
Cheap Japanese ryokan at Kusatsu Onsen is hidden at the back of a traditional store
FUK COFFEE?!? Japanese cafe has a perfectly innocent reason for its startling-looking name
Standing sleeping pods coming to Tokyo cafe, promise to relieve fatigue and stress【Pics】
Watch red pandas while you eat red panda curry at Japan’s Safari Land
Fried sandwiches arrive in Tokyo, become hot topic on social media
Flying Totoro appears in new Studio Ghibli x Foxfire collection
Daiso can help you beat the heat this summer with DIY fruity Suika and Melon Bars【Taste test】
Pokémon Cafe serves up a green tea ceremony in Japan with Poltchageist and Sinistcha matcha menu
What is Teru Teru Bozu? The tragic history behind the Japanese fine weather doll