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Steven Simonitch

Writer / Translator

Though a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Steven currently resides in Nagano, Japan, where he is known by the old lady at the supermarket as "the white guy who always buys 2 packs of natto." Having finished a 2 year stint teaching English with the JET program, Steven now spends his days writing silly things about Japan while vainly insisting to his parents that he's a "journalist" working for an established "newspaper."

Aside from writing banal stories about hot Asian women and cheeseburgers, Steven is also working with dojin circle Creative Freaks to localize their fitness app/ Japanese dating sim series, Burn your fat with me!! (known as Nensho! in Japan).

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Posted by Steven (Page 4)

Like many other little girls, 4-year-old Kazuki loves to play dress up, dance around the room and sing her heart out. What sets her apart from other toddler divas though, is that she has a mother just as enthusiastic about her playtime habits as she is.

When Kazuki says she wants to become Hatsune Miku, mom wastes no time in hitting the sewing machine. Once her custom outfit is done, mom sticks a microphone in her hand, starts the music, and its lights, camera, action.

Not wanting to keep her daughter’s talent to herself, Kazuki’s mom created the YouTube channel “Kazuki’s Room” to share their playroom productions with the world. We’ve posted a few of the best below. Just make sure to have a pillow or something soft on hand to squeeze the life out of because these videos are unbearably adorable.

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Among other things, the toilet is a place for peaceful introspection. It provides an isolated and quiet space for us to devote a few minutes from our busy schedules to just sit and think.

Some people seek to enhance the spiritually soothing properties of the toilet by adorning their bathroom in calming pastel colors or setting a bowl of potpourri or other aromatic atop the toilet’s porcelain tank.

One Japanese person, true to his culture, has taken excremeditation to new levels by installing a working traditional Japanese bamboo fountain on top of his toilet.

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I remember showing “Gangnam Style” to my Japanese friends and coworkers only a few weeks after it was uploaded to YouTube in July. While, like millions of other viewers, I thought the video was best thing to come out of YouTube since Charlie the Unicorn, I was surprised to find that most Japanese people I showed it to would just stare at the screen and mumble a disinterested “hmmmm.”

Were they seeing the same video I was? Did they not notice the horse-riding dance and the rhythmic pelvic thrusting in the elevator? Were they deaf to the addictive melody and blind to the tongue-in-cheek sexual innuendos? I mean, come on people: he’s screaming at her butt.

At the time, I thought maybe I just had dull friends. But after over 400,000,000 views, numerous international media appearances, an American record deal and still only minimal sign of interest from Japan, I’m compelled to think that there is something about PSY and Gangnam Style that the Japanese are simply unable to accept.

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One of my favorite things about staying at a hotel is all the complimentary stuff they let you take home. From toiletries to beverages, bathrobes to coffee makers, each visit to a hotel is like a smorgasbord of free everyday items—the only limit is your suitcase!

Some people claim that not everything in the hotel is free. That aside the cheap toiletries  everything in the room is hotel property and taking it home is “stealing.”

Yeah, sure. Even if that is true, what are they going to do, call the Hotel Gestapo?

No, but they will call the police, as one Japanese couple found out after being arrested for stealing nearly $300 worth of hotel amenities.

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Here, Have Some Chocolate Cow Poop Mochi From Hokkaido

About half of the milk in Japan is produced in the beautiful and vast countryside of Hokkaido, the largest of Japan’s 47 prefectures and northernmost of Japan’s four main islands. As such, cows have become a symbol of the prefecture. Walk into any souvenir shop in the prefecture and you’re bound to find a few locally-produced snacks with bovine-inspired packaging.

On a recent trip to Hokkaido, one of our reporters came across one such snack that was a little less run-of-the-mill than your usual butter cookies: “Cow Poop?” chocolate mochi.

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Cut Into the Face of an Angel This Christmas with Fourth Limited Edition Evangelion Cake

Japanese anime production studio Khara wants to make sure you’re excited for the upcoming Evangelion: 3.0 movie and they’re proving their sincerity by serving you the Third Angel Sachiel’s head on a platter.

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Inspiring or Inconsiderate? Foreigner Plays Guitar for Frustrated Train Passengers While Stranded in Typhoon

On Sept. 30, Typhoon Jelawat struck the eastern part of Aichi prefecture, Japan and then proceeded to move north, causing flight delays and affecting public transportation across the eastern region of the main island.

In Tokyo, train schedules throughout the city were disrupted and one section of the JR Chuo Line was even forced to shut down before trains could make it back to their stations, trapping passengers inside the cars until weather conditions improved.

Now, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that nothing can ruin a day (week?) like being held up in an unexpected transportation or traffic accident. The general mood among passengers in those stranded cars must have been pretty sour. Which is why it’s amazing one foreigner had the pluck to take out his guitar and start serenading his fellow passengers while they waited for the storm to pass.

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Fuji TV Introduces Awkward “Digital Announcer,” No One Sure if They’re Supposed to take Her Seriously

Fuji TV proved itself the forerunner of equal opportunity employment for digital labor earlier this week when they announced they had brought CG character Lune Anri on board as the network’s newest announcer.

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After more than three years of searching, Tokyo police thought they had finally gotten a lead on the whereabouts of Kazuyuki Kobayashi, a male restaurant owner who suddenly went missing in May 2009, when an investigation led them to three men who were said to be acquainted with Kobayashi before his disappearance.

The men, who had been arrested on separate charges of fraud earlier this year, were brought to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department for questioning on Sept. 27 and were immediately suspected of murder after it was found that Kobayashi has come to them demanding the repayment of an unspecified amount of money he had lent them earlier.

The case then took an even more gruesome turn when, on October 1, two of the suspects confessed that they had stewed the pulverized remains of Kobayashi in a pot of curry.

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I don’t know about other guys, but even if I’m in a healthy relationship I will sometimes encounter a girl who completely grabs my attention and doesn’t let go.

Maybe she’s stunningly beautiful, maybe she exudes charisma and style; whatever it is, there’s just something about her that captivates me—but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m romantically interested.

It’s like I’ve been trying to tell my wife for the past three hours while she’s locked herself in the bathroom with my wallet and phone: there are some girls you want to date and there are some girls you just want to look at.

Just take a look at the illustration above, which sparked an online debate over ideal girlfriends vs. ideal eye-candy after being poster to Twitter earlier this week.

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Hello Kitty Gets Naked with Giant Anthropomorphic Mushroom on Your Chest

From baked goods to blue hedgehogs, there’s nothing international superstar Hello Kitty won’t do to make a quick buck.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, our beloved “Kitty of All Trades,” the face of untainted feline innocence herself, has gone full-frontal.

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Alright, let’s recap.

Last Tuesday, a flotilla of Taiwanese fishing boats was rumored to have set off for the disputed Senkaku islands, located near the Japanese islands of Okinawa, seeking to assert their ownership among China and Japan.

At around 6 a.m. on Sept. 25, the 50-strong Taiwanese flotilla arrived in the disputed waters. At least eight patrol ships were sailing alongside the fishing vessels and many of the boats were displaying banners reading “We swear to defend the Senkaku islands!”

Japanese coastguard patrol boats moved in to intercept the tiny fleet and warned them to vacate the area. However, the Taiwanese boats maintained their position, asserting that they were in Taiwanese waters and their presence perfectly legitimate. Tensions were running high and it seemed only a matter of time before the conflict turned hostile.

And that’s when Japan decided to bring out the big guns.

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Iran has always fascinated me. A rich history inherited from one of the world’s oldest civilizations, cities filled with beautiful Islamic architecture, delicious cuisine—and the people!

Okay, while my acquaintanceship with Iranians has been limited to a few Persian friends back home in America, they’ve always been some of my favorite people, which is why it’s a shame our respective countries just can’t seem to get along.

Japan, on the other hand, has maintained a favorable relationship with Iran over the years and travel to the country is perceived to be easier for the Japanese than it is for Westerns. Our own globetrotting Japanese corespondent Photographer Koach recently wrote to us about his recent travels in the country, in which he affirms my positive impression of the people with a list of ten reasons why Iranians are the kindest people in the world.

Check his report below! Read More

【TGS 2012】 How Booth Babes Made Me Feel Better About Myself, Part 1 (EX Troopers)

This year’s Tokyo Game Show was the first major gaming event I’ve ever been to, and honestly, I don’t even consider myself a “gamer.”

Sure games a formative part of my childhood, but the last home console I owned was a GameCube and now my gaming activity is limited to quick bouts of Team Fortress 2. And since Valve wasn’t at the show, there weren’t really any titles I was interested in checking out from the beginning.

So I spent most of the show wandering from booth to booth with very little to no knowledge of what each game was about, eventually deciding to allocate my precious time among the numerous titles in the only way that seemed fair: visiting the booths with the cutest girls.

Interestingly enough, this strategy led me to one of the two games that gave me my most enjoyable Tokyo Game Show experiences: EX Troopers.

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