Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
Japan (Page 1090)
It appears these white little critters have recently been creating a bit of a”flutter” in the Japanese Twitterverse, and we guess that should come as no surprise, considering how utterly cute they look. But what exactly are these fluffy white balls? They’re actually coin purses made by craft artist Piyoyama, and people who have fallen in love with the little birds are asking where they can get their hands on one of them!
Beauty pageants for boys dressed up as girls are kind of a thing in Japan now. Whether you think they’re awesome or kind of confusing, you can’t help but admit that the entrants usually manage to pull off the cute girl look surprisingly well.
This month marks the annual Miss Komaba High School Pageant, a contest that has been going on for several years now and which invites young men to dress like their female peers . Last year’s contestants were pretty good, but can this year’s pretty boys give them a run for their money? Let’s find out!
Japan is really putting on a show for the upcoming release of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie. From cute, bite-sized character sweets to samurai figurines and even a special train, welcome celebrations in the Land of the Rising sun are proving to be the best this side of the galaxy.
Fortunately for us, the special releases just keep on coming. And now, Takara Tomy Arts have joined the party by metamorphosing our favourite characters into adorable plush toys that are small enough to sit in the palm of your hand!
The first thing that many people notice about the eyes of anime characters is how big they are, but that’s not the only thing that makes those 2-D peepers special. Through the magic of Japanese animation, anime eyes shine so brightly they almost look like they’re made of crystal or some other equally lustrous precious stones.
Of course, real eyes aren’t so reflective, but if you’ve got your heart set on your eyes sparkling like your favorite anime heroine, you can now achieve the look with the just-released line of anime-style contact lenses.
It has been announced that Noriyoshi Ohrai—the Japanese illustrator best known for producing remarkable poster art for Metal Gear Solid as well as for films including the Godzilla series and Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back—passed away from pneumonia yesterday morning at the age of 79.
With a career spanning over half a century and an impressive portfolio of artworks for novels, games and well-known international movie releases, fans around the world are mourning the loss of a great talent and taking a look back at his extraordinary body of work.
Nintendo’s last cartridge-based home console, the Nintendo 64, was home to a long list of games that no doubt played a big part in many of our lives, and none more so than GoldenEye 007. A first-person shooter that followed the storyline of the James Bond movie of the same name, GoldenEye’s all-guns-blazing split-screen multiplayer mode made and broke many a friendship over the years, and was considered the epitome of fun in back in 1997 when it launched.
But the game was an odd choice to appear exclusively on a console made by Nintendo—a company with a reputation for squeaky-clean fun and family-friendly software. And it turns out that the violent nature of GoldenEye was a matter of deep concern for Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s most influential director and producer and the creator of Super Mario. So much, in fact, that he suggested an alternate ending to the game: one where everyone shook hands and made up.
Japanese game makers and gamers take their chosen medium of entertainment very seriously, and there are titles out there for just about every conceivable audience, even niche genres such as “BL” (boys love). Although it may seem like the audience for such titles may not be so big, there are numerous BL titles on the market to satisfy the desires of fujoshi gamers.
Even among the many titles, however, one particular game titled Out Division has managed to catch its players unaware with a unique take on the classic memory game. Fancy playing a game of nipple matching, anyone?
For anyone who lives in Niigata or is planning on heading there in the next couple of days, please be sure to obey all the laws and regulations of the prefecture. It’s not that they have odd rules that are going to catch you off guard, it’s the fact that there is a gigantic, police labor robot, or Patlabor, that has arrived in the prefecture. Its appearance has caused a bit of a commotion and the robot is, potentially, fully prepared to take out any criminals while it’s stationed there.
Oh, and if you think you might be able to commit some sort of crime out of sight of a robotic police presence, the human officers have a very speedy patrol car in the area as well.
When it comes to celebrities and drug-use, Japan doesn’t have the same forgiving attitude that many other societies do. Last year, for example, when pop singer Aska was arrested on drug charges, the Studio Ghibli-animated video for the vocalist’s song “On Your Mark” was removed from an upcoming boxed set of Hayao Miyazaki animation.
Now there’s been another intersection of anime, music, and illegal narcotics, as idol singer and voice actress Ai Takabe has been arrested for drug possession, and the anime she most recently performed in has been pulled from online streaming as producers scrub her name from the cast.
Yukio Ota is a legendary graphic designer in Japan. As the creator of the green “running man” pictogram that features on the nation’s emergency exit signs which have since spread to Europe, Canada and the Asia-Pacific, Ota is a frontrunner when it comes to developing images that convey a thousand words.
Now the designer of the exit sign is making headlines for his long-term project that aims to have the world using a universal language by 2065. Called the Lovers’ Communication System, or LoCoS, the standardised system based on pictographs has the power to overcome language barriers and revolutionise the world of communication as we know it.
Believe it or not, train stations are one of the best places to buy gifts in Japan. Train station omiyage (gifts brought back from your travels) are usually edible, representative of the local culture, and are well-received by everyone from colleagues at work to friends or neighbors.
Whereas in the west we tend to keep a person’s personality and their likes in mind when buying a gift, thankfully in Japan, it’s much easier—just buy what’s most popular! In convenient Japan, you’ll find most of the decisions already made for you, so all you have to do is decide how many pre-giftwrapped boxes you want of each item, and you’ll soon be on your way. You can even wait until you’re on the train to buy them from the vendor pushing their cart up and down the aisles on the Shinkansen.
While initially the array of train station omiyage may seem baffling (hundreds of choices!), in this article we whittle it down to the most popular picks; the things that anyone would love to receive. We’ll start in Hokkaido up in the north and move down the archipelago station by station, highlighting the most popular gifts sold at each bullet train station. At the end, we also offer some suggestions on what to purchase if you’re looking for souvenirs from Japan to take abroad.
As we head towards the end of the year, video game publishers are pulling out their big guns. But what if the modern gaming world leaves you feeling cold? Maybe you’re burned out on multiplayer first-person shooters, and open-world game sandboxes hold as much appeal to you as the pet poop-concealing one in your neighborhood park.
In that case, you’ll be happy to know that this December, Nintendo’s 8-bit Famicom, the Japanese version of the NES, is getting its first commercial cartridge release in more than two decades.
We’ve all experienced this frustrating situation–it’s a rainy day, and as if to add insult to injury, your umbrella suddenly decides to break in what has to be an act of sheer defiance against you.
Net users sympathized with the following clip posted by one such unlucky soul. It certainly looks like the umbrella is doing nothing but mocking him, since it only decides to open after flying clean off the handle!
It’s almost Halloween, and even here in Japan, where the holiday is still but a shadow of the American take on the creep fest, an avalanche of orange and black gewgaws and processed sugar confections is pouring off retail shelves.
But if you’re looking for Halloween sweets with a little more culture and class, check out the awesome skulls made from wasanbon, a premium fine-grain sugar from Shikoku!
It’s no secret that Hayao Miyazaki and his team of animators find inspiration for Studio Ghibli’s movies all over the place. Ponyo’s setting was inspired by a harbor town in Japan, Spirited Away’s world was based on a location in Taiwan, and Princess Mononoke’s forest came from Japan’s Yakushima Island.
But it was recently brought to light that a lot of inspiration for Ghibli’s movies came from a more innocuous place: a manga. The title is Mudmen, named after the Asaro Mudmen of Papua New Guinea, where the manga takes place.
Who are these “mudmen” and where do their inspirations crop up in Ghibli films? Read on to find out!
Kyoto is, of course, one of Japan’s most loved and visited sightseeing destinations, so it doesn’t really need any extra help drawing crowds. But that doesn’t mean something a little extra-special would hurt anything! This year marks the 400th anniversary of Rimpa, a traditional school of Japanese painting that came from a community of craftsmen founded in 1615. In honor of the anniversary, the Rimpa 400 Year Celebration Festival is being held in Kyoto, and one of the events is the Art Aquarium, making an appearance in Nijo Castle!
Moving to Japan from another country can be a bit of a culture shock. Some handle the transition without any problems, and others can find it initially overwhelming. But it’s easy to forget that Japan isn’t one giant monolith, and the various prefectures can be wildly different—so much so that moving to a new prefecture can bring plenty of surprises even for those born and raised in Japan!
A great example is one of our own RocketNew24 Japan writers, Masami, who shares some of the things that surprised her after moving to Nara. Here are nine that may resonate with you!
Halloween is less than a week away! Do all of you have your costumes ready?
If you’re still looking to add a nifty additional touch, then you can do as these handy DIY-ers on Twitter did and turn inexpensive, 100-yen (US$0.84) water guns into clever, steampunk-ish accessories. All it takes is some paint and a little creativity!
In an effort to help alleviate the massive amount of horrible levels that have made it into the Super Mario Maker universe, Nintendo tasked its pigeon friend/Mario Maker extraordinaire Yamamura-san to show us how to correctly create a level. In the first comic, Yamamura-san literally poo-pooed all over novice-creator Mashiko’s level, and then gave her some homework to help her become a better builder.
But the first comic did little to alleviate the amount of terrible levels online, so Nintendo Japan has put out a sequel comic to try and clean up the mess. This time around, Yamamura-san checks on Mashiko’s homework and continues to offer sage level-building advice.
Does he give her level a star? Or is it an insta-skip? Read on to find out!
Hands up everyone who hates getting a hair cut! The awkward small talk; the staring at your own mush in a mirror for an hour or more; feeling the need to pretend you love your finished cut even when you’re actually going to put a hat on the second you leave the salon—it’s all too much to bear sometimes.
While some people manage to have fun at the salon, others find it difficult simply communicating to their stylist the look they want. Sure, you could just take a cutout from a magazine with you, but what if the person in the photo is so much better-looking than you are? Cringe!
Luckily, the “Busa hair” (lit. “ugly hair”) catalogue—which features only less-than-good-looking hair models—is here to save you some embarrassment the next time you go for a trim!
Japan has nearly 4 million abandoned homes, but where and why?
Japanese cosplayer creates amazing outfit: Sailor Moon’s transformation sequence!【Photos】
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
Orange Juice Crisis ’24 – Japan’s OJ supplies drying up
Bad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
Anime girl English teacher Ellen-sensei becomes VTuber/VVTUber and NFT
Pokémon Cafe serves up a green tea ceremony in Japan with Poltchageist and Sinistcha matcha menu
Should married couples in Japan be allowed to have different family names? Survey investigates
Studio Ghibli unveils new goods that tip the hat to The Cat Returns
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
One 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
Japanese city loses residents’ personal data, which was on paper being transported on a windy dayStudio Ghibli unveils new goods that tip the hat to The Cat ReturnsFUK COFFEE?!? Japanese cafe has a perfectly innocent reason for its startling-looking name
Studio Ghibli unveils massive T-shirt collection featuring top anime movie characters
Japanese-style accommodation at the new Premium Dormy Inn hotel in Asakusa will blow your mind
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 monthBad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
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 TokyoMcDonald’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
Bad tourist manners at Mt Fuji Lawson photo spot prompts Japanese town to block view with screens
Anime girl English teacher Ellen-sensei becomes VTuber/VVTUber and NFT
Pokémon Cafe serves up a green tea ceremony in Japan with Poltchageist and Sinistcha matcha menu
Should married couples in Japan be allowed to have different family names? Survey investigates
Studio Ghibli unveils new goods that tip the hat to The Cat Returns
Ancient temple with National Treasures is a hidden gem on the Nara Yamato Four-Temple Pilgrimage
Studio Ghibli unveils massive T-shirt collection featuring top anime movie characters
Tokyo park lighting up with gorgeous digital cherry blossom art display this spring
The 5 best Japanese bento to buy at Kyoto Station
Japanese gamers’ heads explode as they learn Super Mario’s Goombas are mushrooms, not chestnuts
Is Japan’s massive Shizuoka steak sandwich really as delicious as it looks in promo photos?
Nearly half of young Japanese men in survey have never had a girlfriend, zero-boyfriend women rise too
Taste-testing the Attack on Titan rice ball that “shouldn’t be on sale”【Taste test】