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Philip Kendall

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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.

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Posted by Philip Kendall (Page 30)

United States Vice President Joe Biden came under fire late last month after a number of Chinese students took offence at comments he made during a congratulatory speech at the University of Pennsylvania, a China Smack report has said.

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As soon as the teaser trailer for Hideo Kojima’s upcoming video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was released earlier this year, gaming news websites and message boards exploded, partly because it was clear that David Hayter, the voice actor who had played the character of Solid Snake since 1998, had been replaced, but mostly because the new voice in the video sounded an awful lot like that of world-famous actor Kiefer Sutherland. Earlier today, those rumours were finally confirmed: Jack Bauer is Snake!

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Figurines, Wii U consoles and free vacations – Grab a sweet prize in 7-Eleven’s ‘Jump Heroes’ campaign

Convenience store giant 7-Eleven certainly knows its way to customers’ hearts. The store’s current Jump Heroes campaign–a collaboration with Shonen Jump Comics–is giving customers the chance to bag some pretty impressive prizes, with things like games consoles, tablet computers and even free hotel accommodation up for grabs.

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Taiwan introduces the future of cartography: nationwide school uniform maps

Despite being a made famous by thousands of Japanese TV shows and comics, cute “sailor suit” uniforms and their ilk are not limited to schools in Japan alone. As we’ve seen before, high schools all across Asia kit their female students out with a variety of stylish getups, with the girls themselves often making their own modifications, usually quite aware that they are wearing outfits that millions of people across the world think are cute or just plain sexy.

But it appears that Japan’s reign as the school uniform capital of the world may soon be over. Bringing fashion and cartography together at last, a specially designed map of Taiwan which provides photos of the school uniforms the girls in each particular area are rocking has become a big hit online this week.

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Pre-E3 poll hints at lack of interest in Microsoft’s newest console

With just a few days to go until E3–one of the year’s biggest video game trade shows–opens its doors, we’re currently knee-deep in rumour, speculation and digital fancy. Although Nintendo has already broken millions of gamers’ hearts by stating that its presence at the event will be minimal, both Microsoft and Sony are set to show off their newest hardware, as well as give the gaming press a look at the titles we can expect to play in the near future.

According to a recent poll being hotly shared by Japanese gamers today, though, some press conferences are being looked forward to far more than others.

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“GameCenter CX”–also known as “Retro Game Master” in the West– has captured the hearts and minds of literally millions of video game fans across the globe since first airing in 2003. The premise of the show is simple: middle-aged, self-confessed game otaku and part-time comedian Shinya Arino pits himself against a series of treasured but often fiendishly difficult old-school video games, playing through them with the help of his cheeky “assistant directors”, a pile of snacks and stack of cooling towelettes to stick to his forehead.

The show has already spawned nine DVD boxsets in its native Japan, with English translations of many of the shows made available to Western audiences both in DVD format and online. But now, the show’s parent company has announced that a special 10th anniversary project is underway that will purportedly take an entire year to complete.

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Rumour: PlayStation 4 camera to be sold separately

A telltale sign in a promotional video for Sony’s PlayStation 4 controller has led video game fans to believe that the camera peripheral for the company’s upcoming console will be sold separately from the PlayStation 4 itself, contrary to initial expectations.

While this may seem like little more than a minor inconvenience at first, if found to be true the rumour may point to a key difference between Sony and Microsoft’s console strategies, as well as potentially having ramifications for how developers approach either platform.

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Despite being something that few in-house PR teams would ever hope for the general public to associate with their brand, following CEO Satoru Iwata’s announcement that his company would not be giving its usual presentation at next month’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, the term “Galapagos syndrome” has been cropping up with alarming frequency online alongside Nintendo’s name.

The video game giant has long been known for its quirky sense of individuality and for forging paths into uncharted territories, but at a time when its flagship console is largely being ignored by consumers and both Microsoft and Sony are poised to flaunt new, technically far superior hardware at the upcoming trade fair, some are concerned that the house that made Mario is becoming something of a recluse.

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George Mallroy, one of the first Britons to attempt to conquer Mount Everest back in 1924, famously said of his desire to climb the mountain that he did so “because it’s there.” In the case of two of the mountain’s most recent visitors, “because I can” might be a better mantra.

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The internet is abuzz this morning after an individual going by the name of Reckz0r claimed to have broken Microsoft’s security and gained access to as many as 48 million Xbox Live accounts.

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One of the Mushroom Kingdom’s most iconic characters has a dark, dark secret

Toad, the mushroom-headed character from the Super Mario series of video games that dates back almost 30 years now, is a character known to millions around the globe. Clear a castle in the original game and he’s there to break the news that the princess isn’t actually there. Slip on a banana peel while burning rubber in Super Mario Kart and it’s often his shrill voice you’ll hear echoing through the enormous green pipe tunnels. Need a man to pick and throw vegetables super fast in Super Mario Bros 2? Toad’s your guy.

Little did we know, though, that Toad has been harbouring a terrible secret the entire time we’ve known him. One that shocked Japanese fans and Twitter users to the core when the following photo came to light.

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Despite being a country where firearms are incredibly rare and licences to own them notoriously difficult to obtain, there nevertheless remain thousands of gun nuts in Japan. Thankfully, the majority of firearm fans here are content to spend hours poring over photos and technical diagrams of weapons, occasionally visiting shooting ranges or watching videos of pretty girls squeezing off a few rounds while dressed as French maids.

For those who prefer to have something to play with at home, there are airsoft guns from makers such as Tokyo Marui, which feature a shockingly high level of detail and come with all manner of bells and whistles in an attempt to recreate the experience of firing the real thing without the risk of death, serious injury or being arrested. But as aesthetically pleasing as these firing replicas are, one key element was always missing: sound.

Enter: Bakuon Gun-Sound replicas.

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Love Money? Cuddle Your Cash with this Chinese Money Pillow!

Oh, money, you make me smile like it’s Christmas Day and the cat’s just coughed up a shard of rainbow. As a man who spent most of his university years trying to work out ways to make potato chips and sliced bread viable alternatives to meat and vegetables, during the brief moments that I have a bit of cash in my bank account these days I become a noticeably nicer person to be around. I won’t even try to gouge your eyes if you greet me in the street.

This pillow is for people like me. People who want that warm money glow 24/7, so that even when our bank accounts are empty, our hearts are filled by the shallow but immediately believable promise of happiness that only cold, hard cash can bring.

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If you’re a superhero fan living in North America, today very likely means only one thing: the launch of Iron Man 3. Perhaps waiting for a more suitable date to release the title, Marvel and Walt Disney Studios hung on until May 3 to unleash Tony Stark’s newest — and, according to some, best — supersuit-powered adventure, and millions of fans are champing at the bit to see it.

Despite having opened in Japan surprisingly early (Japanese releases are notoriously late, with movie fans forced to wait until this March for both Django Unchained and Wreck it Ralph alone), tongues are wagging all across the country today about Iron Man 3, but for an entirely different reason.

Put together by a clearly passionate and creative team of fans in Thailand, the following video recreates the official Iron Man 3 pre-release trailer shot by shot using little more than hand-crafted props, questionable make-up and models dangling from strings. Even so, it is nothing short of wonderful.

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Hyundai Ad Uses Suicide to Promote New Car, Causes Outrage and Sadness in the UK

As much as we might bemoan their very existence when they interrupt our favourite TV shows or appear ad nauseam prior to YouTube clips, when done well ads can be genuinely entertaining. With each shot written, debated, edited and otherwise laboured over sometimes for hundreds of hours, successful ads become pop culture in their own right and are often of higher quality than the shows whose commercial crevices they are stuffed into.

An ad recently aired in the UK, however, become a talking point for all the wrong reasons when it depicted a man trying to kill himself by breathing in the exhaust fumes produced by what transpires to be a particularly environmentally friendly type of vehicle: Hyundai’s iX35.

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The TED (Technology Education and Design) website is easily one of my most favourite places in the entire digital world. With talks from industry experts, innovative thinkers and creative individuals with something valuable to say, I’ve lost hundreds of hours on the site watching presentations and listening to talks, absorbing knowledge and expanding my view of the world, galaxy, universe.

Filmed in February this year at a TED conference in Long Beach, California, the following video sees a young man by the name of Black take to the stage dressed like a cross between a ninja and a rock star. After telling the story of how he first picked up a yo-yo and struggled to perform even the simplest of tricks, he goes on to talk about how mastering this simple toy gave him the confidence he always lacked. As if more proof were needed having already seen him calmly address thousands of spectators in English, Black then launches into a yo-yo routine that left us completely open-mouthed.

The full video after the jump.

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Green With Envy? Super Mario Muscles in on His Brother’s 15 Minutes of Fame

Poor old Luigi just can’t catch a break. Often only taken out of the box when a second player joins the game, forced to stand idly by as his brother Mario gets to smooch the princess, and reduced to the role of comical, vacuum-wielding scaredy cat in his haunted house adventure games…

Even in this, “The Year of Luigi”, wherein creators Nintendo put the man in green under the limelight, it seems that Luigi’s red-capped brother has managed to get his famous face onto what is supposed to be a special edition Nintendo 3DS celebrating all things Luigi.

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Models, Music and Mindbending Colours Celebrate 10 Years of Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills

Opened almost two decades after it was originally imagined by real estate tycoon Minori Mori, Roppongi Hills — a self-contained mega-complex in the middle of Tokyo complete with office buildings, shopping malls, parks and trendy apartments — has become home to thousands of well-to-do businesspeople and Tokyoites, as well as a metropolitan mecca for those craving designer labels and fine dining.

In honour of Roppongi Hills’ 10-year anniversary, a number of celebrations are being held both online and off. The most creative and eye-catching by far, though, has to be the Tokyo City Symphony, an interactive online synthesizer produced as part of the Love Tokyo project. Combining music, 3-D projection mapping and a 1:1000 scale model of Tokyo with Roppongi Hills’ iconic 54-storey Mori Tower at its centre, visitors to the site are invited to project psychadelic patterns and colours onto the tiny, intricately-detailed model city in order to create original “symphony” music. The effect is nothing short of hypnotic. Read More

The Xbox 360’s successor may well be just around the corner, but Microsoft has a serious problem on its hands in Japan. According to sales figures published by Japan’s Dengeki Online, even last week’s top-selling Xbox 360 game, Gears of War: Judgement, only managed to sell a paltry 347 copies in total. In a country where sales for Nintendo’s handheld 3DS reached almost 60,000 units in the exact same period, it’s clear that Microsoft’s console is struggling to keep its head above water.

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