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Mike

With nothing better to do in his native Ohio, Mike took a leave of absence from all responsibilities in life and came to Japan for the first time in 2006. After several years of what amounted to an extended vacation with occasional Japanese lessons, circumstances led Mike to finally settle down in Tokyo and get serious about life in 2009. He’s worked at magazines, a Japanese ad agency, and currently works in the entertainment industry. He also co-founded and writes for the humorous Japan news website Tokyodesu.com.

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Posted by Mike (Page 18)

“Hungover today, sorry!” Laidback Tsukuba cafe gives hilarious reasons for frequent closings

Tsukuba is a small, planned city nestled in the mountains of Ibaraki, which has a reputation for being a pretty chilled out place to live. The small population size and abundance of surrounding nature give the city a slow-paced, laid back feeling compared to the bustle of major cities like Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka.

We hear there are also a lot of great places to eat in Tsukuba, provided your restaurant or cafe of choice isn’t closed for the day because they couldn’t decide on the day’s menu items or the manager has a hangover. 

Or at least, that may be the case if you choose to drop in on the popular privately owned cafe, Ajiyoshi. The staff over there seem to take their easygoing lifestyle to the next level, frequently closing up shop on a whim; but never without “good” reason.

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Survey ranks Japan’s most popular fast food chains, McDonald’s surprisingly not No. 1

Despite all the lavish attention RocketNews24 has laid upon the altar of the Golden Arches at the cost of our Adonis-like six packs, it seems there’s a fast food chain Japan loves even more than McDonald’s. According to a recent Niconico News survey of adults, the reigning king of fast food in Japan is the country’s own native Mos Burger – although McDonald’s runs a close second.

Since our diets consist of almost nothing but the lard, chicken goo, sawdust and other mystery substances that go into a fast food meal, a win for any fast food is a win for humanity in our book, but let’s take a moment to look at Niconico‘s ranking and examine some of the possible reasons the results:

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Karate dojo students practice under freezing waterfall… in the middle of winter

Karate has always been one of those martial arts forms that never really had much appeal to me. The idea of repeating the same kata routines – with names like “Black Dragon Karate Chops 20 Weasels at Midnight” or whatever – to commit the moves to muscle memory always seemed kind of boring and counter-intuitive to me.

And now, upon learning that at least one school has students train half naked, in freezing water, in the dead of winter, I’m even less inclined to try the sport. I’d rather go four rounds in the Octagon with Brock Lesnar.

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Japanese train platform door tech promotes safety, illusions of being in a sci-fi universe

Japan’s “suicide problem” is much talked about, both within the country’s borders and without, with a shocking number of people each year choosing to end their lives by jumping in front of a train. Less talked about are all the other deadly and injurious accidents that take place on train platforms in Japan on a semi-regular basis.

Recently, Japanese rail companies have been experimenting with platform barrier doors to prevent both suicides and other grievous accidents, and most of these inevitably end up looking like something out of Star Trek or a 1990s first-person shooter before technology allowed swinging door animations.

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Fare-dodging Chinese bus passenger balances karma by repaying years of delinquent fare

In one of the few instances we can think of in which crime actually does pay, a Chinese bus passenger who spent years “ride-and-dashing” to dodge paying the fare repaid her karmic debt by depositing a total of 800RMB (approx. US$130) into the till boxes of two local buses.

Drivers of both buses apparently tried to reject her offering and have her pay the standard 2RMB fare (US$0.30), but the woman reportedly insisted, telling at least one of the drivers, “You’ve always been kind to your passengers. This is to repay the fare I’ve been skipping out on until now.”

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Finally, the Ladybeard and Sailor Suit Old Man wrestling match you’ve been waiting for

The sudden rise to cult fame of two of Japan’s most beloved crossdressing bearded men, Japanese native “Sailor Suit Old Man” and foreign newcomer Ladybeard, should have been something we had anticipated. Ever since The Kids in the Hall and Monty Python made men dressing like girls more or less acceptable as long as it’s being done ironically, we’ve seen a spate of crossdressing performers rocket to stardom all over the world.

But with these two kawaii titans standing on the brink of Japan-wide fame, it begs the question: Which one would win in a knock-down, drag-out wrestling match?

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5 reasons foreigners find it hard to become friends with Japanese people

With all the controversy surrounding a recent “racist” All Nippon Airlines ad, the Japanese and Western media have both been abuzz with the question of whether foreign people can ever truly become respected Japanese citizens – accepted by their community and deemed worthy of the right to not be the recipient of extraordinary treatment.

But this conversation has been going on a long, long time in the expat community in Japan, with a lot of otherwise Japanophile foreigners finding it hard to befriend the Japanese on a higher-than-acquaintance level. Why? Well, frequent source of opinion and cultural commentary Madame Riri has compiled a few of the reasons:

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Liven up your Twitter feed with anime-themed “Pair Icons”

We already know that Twitter and Vine are kind of places people in Japan go to make bad life decisions. We’ve seen teens crawl into convenience store freezers and would-be comedians posting really quite racist “comedy” videos, and even the occasional teen openly admitting to a crime on the social networking service.

So it’s a breath of fresh air to see someone finally take to Twitter with a good idea, like this amateur artist that posted a concept sketch for “pair icons:” Twitter profile pictures you can use with friends that, when lined up perfectly in your news feed, play off each other in fun and interesting ways. Here’s the original concept:

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Japanese Netizens ask: Would you move into an “accident site” apartment for cheaper rent?

Tokyo’s astronomical rent costs mean people will go to great lengths to find a cheaper deal. For many, this means living up to a 30-minute walk from their apartment’s nearest train station. Others might choose to live in extremely small or narrow rooms or may opt for what amounts to a cardboard box on an apartment building’s roof.

There is, however, another option that almost seems too good to be true: So-called “Accident Site” apartments. These are rooms in which a previous tenant has died inside, usually from non-natural causes. Some rental agencies specifically advertise rooms as “accident site,” while some agencies just list a room that’s mysteriously low-priced and let people figure it out for themselves.

Certain bargain hunting types with extreme mental fortitude and who don’t mind the occasional bleeding wall or mysterious, warm puff of breath on their cheek while they sleep, actually seek out these deals, but the large majority of Japan avoid them.

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North Korea launches missiles into Japan Sea because it’s just that time again

We’re used to seeing a lot of unbelievable-sounding coverage concerning the Cobra-style antics of North Korea’s totalitarian dictatorship. But the country’s tightly-closed borders make many reports difficult to verify, so a lot of patently false stories end up circulating through legitimate outlets. This means that, sadly, what you’ve read about North Korea putting a man on the sun and finding a unicorn lair are less than legit.

Some stories, however, are frighteningly real: Like the one about Pyongyang launching a series of Scud missiles over the Japan Sea recently as a show of military might.

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(Just a few of) the craziest things seen on Japanese trains

Train transportation is both a blessing and a curse. Train networks make getting around extraordinarily easy, and much cheaper than owning a car. Compared to buses – which are well-known haunts of swindlers, witchcraft users and the very smelly – trains are also safe, clean and convenient.

But sometimes they present a problem, especially for those that don’t own private means of transport. Cosplayers, for instance, may have to get from A to B in costume – which, even on Halloween in Japan, can attract stares and scoffs. Or what if you want to hang out with your giant bird friends at the pub but your giant bird heads won’t fit into the car door? Circus performers, extremely drunk salarymen, movie monster extras and more have all faced this dilemma.

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How to get free healthcare in Japan without insurance

Brace yourselves, Republicans and Libertarians: it turns out Japan’s social safety net provides free healthcare to people that need medical attention but have no money or insurance. It’s like Obamacare’s angry, ‘roided-up samurai cousin.

That’s because there’s a somewhat vaguely-worded provision in Japanese law that states the government is obligated to provide care for those with “troubled livelihoods,” at low or no cost, regardless of insurance coverage. “Troubled livelihood” is kind of a broad definition, which ensures that those without the means to pay for medical treatment – even if they aren’t necessarily poor, homeless or unable to work – can still see a doctor.

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“Eiffel Tower nose” cosmetic surgery inexplicably trending in China

This sentence is a mouthful: According to Japanese media, Chinese media is reporting that, according to German media, Chinese kids are getting a strange cosmetic surgery known as “Eiffel Tower nose” in record numbers in order to get ahead in their careers.

Despite the fact that we have no idea what “Eiffel Tower nose” is, it is apparently a surgery so extreme that some Chinese college graduates feel it helps set them apart visually from others in the job race.

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Man claiming he thought amphetamines were legal obviously gets arrested

Police have arrested a Hiroshima man after it became clear that he had injected himself with a drug he claimed to have thought perfectly legal. So assured in his convictions that the drug was legit, the man supposedly approached police of his own accord because he “felt strange” upon taking it and wanted them to determine what was causing it.

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Korean high schools allow “anything goes” yearbook photos, with hilarious results

I remember when I was a senior in high school and hung out with a sort of goofy crowd, we all spent several weeks wracking our brains trying to find a way to inject some kind of originality into our senior photos. We knew anything too outrageous or offensive would get stopped by yearbook censors, so about the only thing we could come up with was growing some dirty-looking caterpillar mustaches.

If only we’d been in Korea, where some high schools – realizing that senior year is the last time in their lives that youths really get to act like kids – allow nearly any kind of wacky individual and group photos the kids see fit to take:

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Love disembodied women’s hands? Here’s a great iPhone case for you, you big weirdo

I wouldn’t know personally because I basically use two plastic cups with some string attaching them for all my not-in-person communication, but I hear people with smartphones spend a lot of time and money trying to find the perfect case to protect and customize their technological doohickey.

There’s a lot to consider, after all: Will others enjoy the design as much as you do? Does the case affect the overall weight, size and shape of the phone to an unacceptable degree? Can you still fit it in your pocket after you snap the case on? Will people think you’re a creepy weirdo based on your choice of case? These are all questions normal smartphone users ask themselves.

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Chinese woman’s stomach “explodes,” catches fire after binge eating session

As much as we’re reluctant to feed into more negative stereotypes of an entire country, it’s – sadly – time for yet another gross food-related story out of China.

A 58-year-old woman in Jiangsu Province was admitted to the hospital with severe abdominal pains after a marathon binge eating session left her with a ruptured stomach. The rupture was allegedly so bad the woman’s entire stomach had to be surgically removed for an emergency replacement, leading some of the more sensational news outlets and our click-hungry headline to refer to the woman’s stomach as having “exploded.”

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“Diet with Your Girlfriend” app lets you do the exact opposite of that

So Japanese dudes dating digital anime girls has been a big thing in the western media lately because “OMG weird Japan!!,” but if there’s one thing the news stories get right it’s that there are a whole lot of “digital girlfriend” apps available for a very specific type of person.

One such app hopes to encourage users to slim down by dieting with their digital girlfriend – the idea being that the more you diet, the more she diets, and the slimmer and more attractive she gets. Never mind that some people don’t actually adhere to those cliched classical standards of beauty and might actually prefer a girlfriend that isn’t horrifically skinny (and may, themselves, not actually want to be horrifically skinny); the developers made a far more glaring error in coding the game to allow players to do the exact opposite of what the game’s title suggests.

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Ladybeard is Japan’s Bizzaro Andrew W.K.

Although Andrew W.K. has sort of fallen out of the spotlight recently, he will always be in the spotlight of our hearts thanks to his manic, just-shy-of-annoyingly positive attitude, party anthems that happened to come out while we were in college and dark flowing locks.

Now Japan apparently has its own version of Andrew W.K., and, because this is Japan, the “party-rocking dude who’s always fun to be around” aesthetic has gotten sort of… twisted on the way.

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Teacher hides touching message to departing students in final test

Even though the Japanese kind of have a reputation as stoic individuals reluctant to express emotion, we’ve shown you time and again that the Japanese are suckers for a good heart string-tugging story as much as the people of the next country.

Still, it’s safe to say there’s more than an average amount of social pressure to keep your feelings to yourself in Japan, especially for authority figure types like teachers. Which might explain why the teacher in this next story went to extraordinary lengths to pass on one final message to his recent graduating class.

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