Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
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I was busy working at my desk on August 8, 2013 at approximately 4:55pm when I felt a great disturbance in the Force. It was as if millions of mobile phones cried out at once.
And sure enough when I checked my own phone there was a message from the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) which read “Receiving Earthquake Warning. Be cautious for violent shaking.”
Awwww, man.
How one prefers their fried eggs cooked is about as divisive an issue as whether Batman or Wolverine would win in a fight. Many a surprise anniversary breakfast in bed has no doubt ended in bitter tears due to fried eggs being prepared in the incorrect way.
But you can avoid this unnecessary situation and show solidarity with fellow runny egg lovers with this new “egg in a basket” iPhone 5 case. Just snap your iPhone inside and share the other half with your runny egg soul mate; then, by clicking the two halves together as a secret greeting, you can baffle and enrage all those cretinous fully cooked yolk lovers at the diner.
Strokes are serious medical disturbances that we all have to live in fear of, often striking out of the blue and claiming lives or altering them drastically. For manga artist Mahiro Takura, it cost the use of his right hand, perhaps the most valuable body part for someone in his field. For many, that would be enough to send them into a spiral of depression.
However, rather than let his condition control his life, Mr. Takura decided to take control and has been rapidly learning to make use of his left hand instead. He recently tweeted the story of his recovery and we would like to share the translated version with you.
Bicycle theft is no laughing matter, especially in Japan where bikes are widely relied upon for daily transportation. Luckily, a cheap and effective means of protecting your ride has surfaced on the internet, and it’s sure to send any would-be thieves packing.
When setting up shop around famous landmarks, it never hurts to blend in. Especially in Japan, where tourism accounts for roughly five percent of the GDP. You wouldn’t want to destroy the tourist attraction by ruining the ambiance, right?
On the other hand, there’s not really very much that’s “traditional” about Family Mart convenience stores, so we had to wonder what kind of disguise would get slapped on their store near Ise Grand Shrine…
Hey, you got a minute to spare? Actually make that a couple dozen minutes. We’d like to share a few hundred of the wildest and funniest gifs getting circulated around the net in Japan.
Of course cats are well represented here but we also got dogs, spiders, manatees, lions, (no tigers), bears, monkeys, turtles, and people all injuring themselves and each other. Watch and marvel at feats of strength of these animals and people, and enjoy even more the cringe-worthy carnage that ensues when they don’t quite make it. Get an eyeful of a guy getting bitten in the nuts by a rottweiler. Enjoy military misfires, cats in zero gravity and the magic of Coach Raphael Benitez. Both faked and real hypnotically looped images are here for your amusement.
Without further ado, sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy these 252 animated gifs. Happy Friday, everyone!
Children’s shows are generally the weirdest things you can find on TV. We don’t really know why, though our assumption is that the writers and illustrators come up with ideas by pointing at random words in the dictionary. Either way, it seems that the weirder a show is, the more fans they have, and that means more toys! Which, of course, is scary for parents and their ever-shrinking wallets.
But sometimes those toys are enough to scare kids too…
I’ve never done the math, but I can confidently say the amount of time I spent as a kid standing in line at an arcade to play the classic fighting game Street Fighter II totals somewhere in the dozens of hours.
As a result of all that waiting around to dragon punch people, the game’s soundtrack is permanently hard-wired into my brain. I’ll occasionally find myself unconsciously humming the various Street Fighter II character themes, and while the specific title may be different, I’m sure gamers everywhere have certain pieces of background music stuck in their heads, too.
What separates YouTube user Smooth McGrove from the rest of us though, aside from a glorious beard, is his ability to near-perfectly replicate every single note of the arrangement from iconic video game tunes, using nothing but his own voice.
Cats, eh? Lying around in the sun all day, ignoring their owners until their greedy little bellies are empty or they have an itch that they can’t scratch on their own. Anyone would think they weren’t put on this earth to constantly entertain us!
But if your pet cat simply isn’t in the mood to play and is the kind that will let you place random objects on its back without clawing your face off or vowing to smother you in your sleep, this little trick to transform an inactive furry pal in everyone’s favourite Studio Ghibli fluffball Totoro might be just the way to liven them up!
It’s that milestone of life that every young man waits for. When the moment comes he takes a breath, bows his head and asks for something that will change his life for ever.
We’re talking, of course, about getting 10,000 retweets on Twitter. This amazing dream came true for another lucky man in Japan recently. He also happened to get engaged too – which we think is super.
During these sweltering summer days it’s not unusual to down more than a few plastic bottles of water, pop, or juice. And surely with all that drinking you’re bound to accumulate a pile of empty plastic bottles.
Burden by all of these bottles, collapsing them to a convenient size for recycling can be an energy and time draining chore. That’s why the folks at Yahoo! R25 wanted to share an effortless way to break your plastic bottles down to size.
We mentioned a while back in our list of ways to keep cool that walking through the streets of Japan during summer will likely land you a paper fan emblazoned with some company’s message. These fans come in a variety of styles and quality, the cheapest perhaps being a circle of stiff paper with a hole for your thumb to go through as seen above. They’re not hugely effective but hey, any port in a storm, right?
Recently in a Japan, however, the image of a series of fans designed by Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, resurfaced on the net drawing mixed reviews from netizens.
Earlier today, video game heavyweight Konami Corporation unveiled a new page on its official website dedicated to the newest instalment in its popular football series World Soccer Winning Eleven 2014 (or Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 in the West), along with a new trailer showing the game off in all its ultra-realistic glory.
There’s a saying in Japan about Mt. Fuji that goes to the tune of, “You ought to climb it once, but only a fool would climb it twice.”
That’s because, as yours truly learned just last weekend, climbing Mt. Fuji is a lot like spending up to eight hours repeatedly swinging a mallet into your knees as hard as you can. It’s also – at least this year, after having been declared a World Heritage Site – so crowded you’re guaranteed to be spending the climb with your face in dangerous proximity to someone else’s ass at all times.
Lucky for those that haven’t climbed it yet, Google Street View strapped some poor sucker with 100 pounds of weird Google robot gear, maybe gave him a bottle of water and some peanuts, and told him to walk right on up and take some pictures from the top. “It’ll be cool,” they probably said. “We promise.”
“Mom, I’m bored!” When you’re a kid, you can’t wait for summer vacation to start, but once it’s in full swing and the initial excitement of not having to go to school has worn off, the whining begins. Parents are left to scrounge for every scrap of creativity they have left in order to entertain their idling children. Although I don’t have any kids of my own, I can still remember what a terror I was during those long, hot summer days at home.
But this summer, parents are in luck! Scotch (as in the tape) has created a special “summer vacation family crafts” campaign for their Scotch Japan website. With over 300 unique paper craft templates to choose from and a nifty search engine to find them all, your complaining children will be occupied as long as the tape doesn’t run out.
With the announcement by Japan’s premier manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump regarding their highly anticipated smartphone app Jump Live, information has been coming out in drips and drabs about its features.
However, their most recent announcement has fans jumping for mild confusion: it’s a multimedia pasta cooking challenge between the creator of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Hirohiko Araki and creator of Assassination Classroom Yusei Matsui.
On 20 July, Kita Nippon News was flooded with pictures and reports of high rainbow activity out of Toyama Prefecture. In particular was this shot of a rare rainbow cloud. Well, actually it was one of those artificial clouds left by aircraft called contrails, but it was still pretty cool.
In the name of beauty and fashion, women will jump through some extreme hoops, and always have. Throughout history, the quest for beauty and status has taken on many different forms, ranging from corsets, teeth blackening (ohaguro), foot binding and rubbing arsenic on the face to achieve the kind of aristocratic pale complexion which meant you had never seen a day’s work outside in the sun. These days, it’s Brazilian waxes, eyebrow threading, ridiculous high heels and either fake tan or whitening. Let’s not even get started on the surgical procedures you can now undergo to become an idealized identikit Barbie! At the dentist recently, I was offered Botox or collagen lip filler. Well, if you’re getting stuff injected into your face already, why not?
Here we have 17 photos of early twentieth-century women being beautified by some terrifying machines, many of which look strikingly similar to what we might undergo today. Huh, they must be working then! The next time I’m having hot wax poured onto my crotch and ripped off, I will remember the brave sacrifices made by those who have gone before us…
Oculus Rift is surely one of the most highly anticipated devices of this gaming generation. In case you’ve somehow not heard about it, Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that is already garnering rave reviews from industry insiders and little old ladies who are more hardcore than you. What makes Oculus Rift so exciting is its high-quality dual display that uses motion detectors to dynamically show users the game world as they turn their head. Basically, it’s supposed to be a completely immersive experience. Right now, the device is still mostly limited to developers hard at work trying to take advantage of its full power, but most of the demos we’ve seen have been great. One Japanese developer decided to create an adorable mini-game staring everyone’s favorite fictional idol: Hatsune Miku.
Tired of the same old plastic model kits? Have you built more Gundam than your wife is comfortable with? Put together enough miniature planes, trains, and automobiles than you care to admit? Well you’re in luck! We’ve found a totally bizarre but somehow completely awesome plastic model kit that you’ve probably never built before.
Two things to do, and two things not to do, when leaving a traditional Japanese inn
FUK COFFEE?!? Japanese cafe has a perfectly innocent reason for its startling-looking name
Pokémon Cafe serves up a green tea ceremony in Japan with Poltchageist and Sinistcha matcha menu
Ancient temple with National Treasures is a hidden gem on the Nara Yamato Four-Temple Pilgrimage
Starbucks at Shibuya Scramble Crossing reopens, but is it really bigger and better than before?
Orange Juice Crisis ’24 – Japan’s OJ supplies drying up
Should married couples in Japan be allowed to have different family names? Survey investigates
All-you-can-drink deal for US$4 in Shinjuku is one of the best finds in Tokyo
Bad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
One of Japan’s oldest castles now lets travelers spend night on the grounds, drink in its keep
Foreigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of societyBad 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
Japanese city loses residents’ personal data, which was on paper being transported on a windy dayOne of Japan’s oldest castles now lets travelers spend night on the grounds, drink in its keepTwo things to do, and two things not to do, when leaving a traditional Japanese inn
Ghibli Park now selling “Grilled Frogs” from food cart in Valley of Witches
Red light district sushi restaurant in Tokyo shows us just how wrong we were about it
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
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 lounge
More foreign tourists than ever before in history visited Japan last month
New Pokémon cakes let you eat your way through Pikachu and all the Eevee evolutions
Disney princesses get official manga makeovers for Manga Princess Cafe opening in TokyoBad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screensMcDonald’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
Orange Juice Crisis ’24 – Japan’s OJ supplies drying up
Should married couples in Japan be allowed to have different family names? Survey investigates
All-you-can-drink deal for US$4 in Shinjuku is one of the best finds in Tokyo
Bad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
One of Japan’s oldest castles now lets travelers spend night on the grounds, drink in its keep
Studio Ghibli unveils massive T-shirt collection featuring top anime movie characters
Studio Ghibli unveils new goods that tip the hat to The Cat Returns
Japanese cosplayer creates amazing outfit: Sailor Moon’s transformation sequence!【Photos】
Are you a sloucher? Get a cute, furry little friend to help correct your posture at your desk
Starbucks Japan releases a Frappuccino and a Pink Fruits Cheer-up to support our mental health
History’s largest force of Samurai Colonel Sanders deploying to KFC Japan branches
Marine creature-themed tea bags transform teapots into aromatic oceans
Randomly running into a great sushi lunch like this is one of the best things about eating in Tokyo
Japan’s new ramen vending machine cooks noodles in just 90 seconds, serves four different types
