Featured

SoraNews24

SoraNews24 is a Tokyo-based news site. In 2008, our sister site, RocketNews24 published its first Japanese-language article, and two years later came the start of our English site, which originally existed exclusively to translate articles from our Japanese colleagues. Over time we’ve expanded the amount of English-language content we produce while maintaining a focus on fun, weird, and intriguing news from Asia, particularly Japan.

Facebook Twitter RSS

Posted by SoraNews24 (Page 28)

Japan is full of ghosts: Visiting the grave of Taira no Masakado’s head

Summer in Japan means heat and humidity — enough such that people will try to cool down by any means necessary, including enjoying a few hair-raising ghost stories. From haunted houses to horror films, there are plenty of ways to get goosebumps in Japan, but today we’ll be taking you to the location of one of Tokyo’s most famous angry spirit!

Though it’s not exactly a shinrei spot (a place where ghosts have allegedly appeared), Taira no Masakada Kubizuka is one of the most famous “ghost” spots in Japan. It’s where Taira no Masakada’s head was enshrined in order to quell his spirit…because people believed it was wrecking havoc on the capital!

Read More

Executives arrested from scam dating sites that had 2.7 million users and only one female member

Dating is never easy, is it? Going out and meeting strangers and talking to them can be painful, awkward, and downright terrifying. Fortunately, Internet dating sites have helped us cut through the trial-and-error process to find people we have deep, personal connections with — or, at least, who swiped right.

Unfortunately, online dating is also ripe for abuse, exploitation, and scams. If ever you needed a cautionary tale for being careful about who you give your money to, this group of dating site executives who ran multiple scam sites should suffice. Of the 2.7 millions users on the site, only one was a woman. The rest of the “women” the male members were chatting with online were all paid fakes!

Read More

Personal tastes are just that: Personal. What gets one person going is likely to leave someone else bored — and there’s nothing wrong with that of course. I’d be awfully sad if everyone liked strawberry ice cream as much as I do because then there’d be none left for me.

And nothing shows this quite as much as men and their body hair. More specifically, how Japanese women feel about body hair on certain parts of the male anatomy. We are, of course, talking about shins and armpits! (Why? What were you thinking?)

Read More

 

While I was growing up, my family never got that involved in the discussion over whether the idolization of Disney princesses is a healthy thing or not. With three boys and no girls in the family, most of my parents’ time was instead channeled towards more immediate topics like telling their sons not to aim for the face during their regular battles in the backyard with their stockpiled arsenal of plastic battleaxes and broadswords.

As an adult, I can sort of understand both sides of the debate. On one hand, a little fantasizing seems harmless, and in and of itself, there’s nothing inherently wrong with little girls being drawn to such trappings of the princess lifestyle as a luxurious home and elegant clothes. On the other hand, criticisms about overemphasizing the value of comfort and beauty have some validity too, as if left unchecked those desires can turn into sloth and vanity.

As a matter of fact, one talented artist thinks Disney’s leading ladies make excellent stand-ins for all of the seven deadly sins.

Read More

a

People of the world, brace yourselves: Mr. Sato… has a twin!

You’ve seen his antics on our pages for years now, and he’s always our go-to guy when there’s a mission that the rest of us simply aren’t brave enough to undertake. We’re talking, of course, about our loveable, adventurous, charming, sometimes frightening in-house reporter Mr. Sato.

But did you know, dear reader, that Mr. Sato actually has a twin brother!? Just look at that photo–we bet you’d struggle to say which of the two is our reporter and which is the brother!

Read More

  2. 1
  3. ...
  4. 21
  5. 22
  6. 23
  7. 24
  8. 25
  9. 26
  10. 27
  11. 28