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Japanese Twitter user accidentally transforms his pet Pomeranian into a Shiba Inu

Scott Wilson
Sep 5, 2015
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So we all know that Shiba Inu are the cutest dogs ever. But what happens when you have a pet that isn’t a Shiba Inu? Do you dress them up in cosplay? Conduct adorable experiments on them?

How about just turning them into Shiba Inu instead? That’s what happened to one Japanese Twitter user, who accidentally had his Pomeranian groomed to look like Shiba Inu. He posted the photos of the adorable aftermath for everyone to see, pretty much proving that if you believe hard enough, anyone can become a Shiba Inu.

If you’ve got the cash, you can pre-order this stunning Ghost in the Shell ukiyo-e print

Preston Phro
Sep 5, 2015

A critical darling, Ghost in the Shell may well be one of the most beloved anime in history. Its compelling story, engaging characters and beautiful art all combine to make one of the most exciting franchises we can name, so it’s little surprise that 25 years after its release, the film remains a fan favorite to this day.

In celebration of the first film and the entire franchise, a special product has been announced: a limited-edition series of ukiyo-e prints featuring images from Ghost in the Shell! But when we say limited-edition, we really do mean limited — only 300 copies will be made!

And they won’t come cheap either…

Prank your pizza-loving coworker with a cake that looks just like a pizza 【Photos】

Casey Baseel
Sep 5, 2015

The English and Japanese-language teams at RocketNews24 have entered into a strange sort of competition, as they try to one-up each other with foods that don’t look anything like they should. The English side fired the opening salvo in this war of the eyes vs. the taste buds with a sneaky pink soy sauce taste test, and now our intrepid Japanese reporter Mr. Sato has decided that revenge is a dish best served sweet with this cake from a Tokyo bakery that looks exactly like a pizza.

Five types of foreigner you’ll meet in Japan

Philip Kendall
Sep 5, 2015

Japan attracts all kinds of people from all over the world. Some come to work, others come to play, and thanks to its relatively low crime levels, high standard of living and abundance of delicious food, Japan is a very easy place to call home for a while. Plus, isn’t Japan where all those anime, video games and ninjas come from? It’s got to be worth a visit!

But today, instead of talking about the myriad things Japan has to offer visitors, we’re going to have a bit of fun by taking a closer look at some of the visitors themselves. You might not encounter each of these five types of people if you’re staying in Japan for just a couple of weeks, but if you’re here for work or an extended sojourn, then you’re bound to meet at least a couple of them along the way…

Kurand Sake Market opens Asakusa branch, Mr. Sato and Yoshio imbibe to their hearts’ content!

Krista Rogers
Sep 4, 2015

On September 2, Kurand Sake Market opened a new shop in the Asakusa district of Tokyo. This location is a sister branch to the original Kurand Sake Market which opened earlier this year in Ikebukuro, where sake lovers can sample 100 varieties of sake for 3,000 yen (US$24.64) per person with no time limit.

The Asakusa branch invited curious members of the media in for a sneak peek before its grand opening to the public, so we promptly sent our sake-loving reporters Mr. Sato, a veteran of the Ikebukuro shop, and Sailor Venus-cosplaying reporter extraordinaire Yoshio to check things out. But rather than write their opinions for each of the 30 individual brands they sampled, which would undoubtedly become tedious after a while, they decided to create a handy visual guide so that you can gauge their reactions to each cup with a picture, thus eliminating any language barriers in the process. Let the sake festivities begin!

“It’s the Japanese! Run!” – Overseas gamers tired of playing Splatoon with Inklings from Japan

Casey Baseel
Sep 4, 2015

Online console gaming has been thriving for over a decade now, and ostensibly it should have brought gamers from all over the world into contact with one another as competitors and co-op teammates. In practice, though, regional differences in preferred genres, aesthetics, and overall play styles have meant that Japanese and Western gamers haven’t crossed paths all that terribly often.

At least until Nintendo released Splatoon this year for the Wii U, that is. Combining the team-based shooter Western gamers have so embraced with the colorful quirkiness that their Japanese counterparts have always been fond of, Splatoon’s popularity is bridging the oceans. This is giving overseas Inklings a chance to play with gamers in Japan…or to complain about them online and devise strategies to avoid them.

Aichi man arrested for shoplifing, throwing own feces at security to escape

Master Blaster
Sep 4, 2015

On the afternoon of 3 September, a 59-year-old man walked into a shopping mall in Higashi Ward, Nagoya. He then grabbed two packs of roast pork from a supermarket and concealed them as he began to leave the premises without paying. A security guard had noticed the act of petty shoplifting, however, and a chase quickly ensued.

The perpetrator was no match for the younger and more agile guard, who managed to catch the man before escaping out the parking garage. However, just as the security guard grabbed the man’s shoulder to turn him around, he was struck by an unexpected counter-attack of the most smelly kind.

Evangelion designer’s Hatsune Miku illustration steps into the physical world as cool new figure

Casey Baseel
Sep 4, 2015

Virtual idol or not, there’s no denying that Hatsune Miku is a bona fide star in the Japanese music scene. But while human vocalists might have professional photographers eager to take their pictures for a glossy photo spread, the equivalent for Vocaloids like Miku is being drawn or redesigned by famous artists of the anime and video game world.

Last year we saw Miku as reimagined in CG by Final Fantasy’s Tetsuya Nomura, and now the world’s most popular computer-generated songstress is being given a new physical form as a figure based on a redesign by the character designer of seminal anime hit Evangelion.

Dragon Ball costumes made easy with new masks of your favorite characters

KK Miller
Sep 4, 2015

For a lot of us, Dragon Ball Z was our after-school superhero show. Powered up aliens, defending the earth from destruction, huge battles, and fearsome stare downs-what more could you ask for?

How about fulfilling everyone’s childhood dream and becoming the superheroes we idolize? That’s where cosplay comes in. You don’t get any of the special powers, but you get to pretend for a day and look the part, and it just got easier than ever to cosplay as some of your favorite Dragon Ball Z characters thanks to some new life-like masks that will help turn you into Goku, Piccolo, or Frieza.

Dine with Snoopy and pals at the new Peanuts themed cafe opening in Tokyo soon!

Evie Nyan
Sep 4, 2015

Did you know that Peanuts is almost 65 years old? Yup, the much-loved comic strip featuring the mini adventures of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Woodstock is celebrating its 65th birthday on October 2 this year! It’s the perfect opportunity to indulge in a little nostalgia over one of America’s favourite cartoon series.

In Japan, Snoopy is part of a menagerie of cute animal characters (including Elmo, Minnie Mouse, Jack Skellington, Moomins, Miffy, and Marie from the Aristocats) who were originally foreign creations yet have been seen decorating kyara-goods aimed at Japanese tween girls in recent years. Peanuts, and Snoopy in particular, are therefore pretty well-known in Japan, so the brand-new Peanuts Cafe due to open this year is bound to be a big hit!

Adorable ferrets sleep only when together, on top of their special blanket 【Pics】

Scott Wilson
Sep 4, 2015

Here at RocketNews24, cute cats and Shiba Inu get a great deal of love, but what about the underrepresented ferret? It can give the others a run for their money with its cuteness, and its long body is like a big furry hotdog that you just want to squeeze.

One Japanese Twitter user recently posted a photo of his pet ferrets doing something both adorable and hilarious. All of them insist on sleeping together on top of a special blanket, so no matter where the owner puts the blanket, the sleeping mass of adorable ferrets follow. Be prepared to squeal with cuteness after the jump!

Fed up of romance sims? Buddhist-themed visual novel coming to Android and iOS

Cara Clegg
Sep 4, 2015

There’s already a whole bunch of dating sim titles aimed at both men and women available to play on your phone or tablet. But for those who are fed up of sappy, cliché boy-meets-girl stories there’s a new addition to the growing range of visual novels available on mobile platforms that is set to tell a unique story focusing not on romance, but on the Buddhist religion.

“Poo curry” restaurant now hiring interns, award-winning Tokyo University grad student applies

Master Blaster
Sep 4, 2015

It’s been about two weeks since Curry Shop Shimizu opened for business in the Chitose-Funabashi area of Tokyo. Considering the only dish they sell is a curry which mimics the taste of human feces, you might expect sales to have been slow.

However, not only is business booming, the demand has become too much for owner and adult film star Shimiken to keep up. As a result he put out an ad for interns to help take his poopy curry to the next level. On top of that, if you thought Curry Shop Shimizu’s fortunes couldn’t get any better, they are attracting top-tier applicants on par with the nation’s leading corporations.

Kyoto has had enough of rude tourists, created an infographic to show how to visit politely

Scott Wilson
Sep 4, 2015

With thousands of temples, beautiful gardens, geisha and maiko (geisha-in-training), and more history than you can shake an encyclopedia at, Kyoto is the place to be when visiting Japan. So with so many tourists from around the world crowding into the city, a few are bound to step out of line.

Thankfully TripAdvisor Japan created a handy infographic showing how to politely visit Kyoto. Kyotoites are understandably protective of their city and its cultural and historical treasures, and some will not hesitate to correct you if you’re doing something rude or wrong. So to be sure that everyone is on the same page, here are a few simple rules to keep in mind when you visit this wonderful city.

Japanese town’s Cat Street View lets you virtually tour its backstreets, meet feline residents

Casey Baseel
Sep 3, 2015

It’s an amazing age we live in, where you can fire up Google Street View and virtually walk the boulevards of many of the world’s cities. But it turns out Google Street View has a bit of a rival in Japan. Granted, its scope is far smaller than Google’s, given that it only covers part of one town, but it shows up the Internet giant by letting you wander its walkways from the perspective of an alley cat, and even provides profiles of all the neighborhood kitties you’ll meet along the way!

P.T. easter egg discovered tucked away in Metal Gear Solid V 【Video】

Cara Clegg
Sep 3, 2015

With Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain now available, gamers are hunkering down to complete Hideo Kojima’s final Metal Gear outing, and the last couple of days have seen a flurry of uploads to YouTube and gaming sites from players wanting to show off their discoveries in the huge open world.

One such discovery has people lamenting the cancellation of Silent Hills, the horror game that was at one time to be Kojima’s next project, all over again. Despite Konami’s attempts to erase its existence by removing it from the Playstation Store, P.T., the playable teaser for the cancelled game, can’t be wiped from gamers’ minds that easily, and apparently not from the company’s latest hit, either.

Tanuki magically disguises self as cat to get food

Master Blaster
Sep 3, 2015

Japanese raccoon dogs, or tanuki as they’re known over here, are animals with great significance in Japanese folk-lore. Among their many supernatural attributes such as giant scrota and swift speeds, the tanuki are also known for their purported shapeshifting abilities.

And though the above picture clearly dispels the size of their manhood, there appears to be some truth to their art of disguise. As the Twitter user who posted the photo explains, this little guy is actually pretending to be a stray cat so he can get some of the food laid out for him.

Part of the family – Tokyo Shinto shrine’s blessings for children now available for pets too

Casey Baseel
Sep 3, 2015

Every fall, parents in Japan who have children that are three, five, or seven years old celebrate something called Shichi-Go-San (literally “Seven-Five-Three”). The family heads to a Shinto shrine, where the priest performs a blessing for girls aged three and seven and boys aged five, praying for them to have long and healthy lives.

But since some pet owners will argue that their animal companions are their children, certain shrines now offer Shichi-Go-San blessings for pets, too, some of whom show up wearing delightful pet kimono!

Cats try and help clean the shower – end up staying to play

KK Miller
Sep 3, 2015

When you are a pet owner, you know that sometimes your pets love you so much they follow you around wherever you go. The special bond you have makes the two of you absolutely inseparable, at least until your pet gets distracted and loses interest in whatever you’re doing. But when you actually need to get work done or clean the house, your furball does this magical thing where they have to be involved with the process too.

Well, today was clean the shower day for this cat owner, and you can guess where those furry guys decided to spend their time.

Unique Japanese household items leave foreigners stumped【Video】

Jamie Koide
Sep 3, 2015

Japan has a plethora of products that are weird even by the standards of many Japanese, like these big booty mouse pads Sir Mix-a-Lot would approve of, cosplay outfits for pets, or photo books dedicated to male nipples. But perhaps some of the country’s most unique products to spend your cash on are just everyday items you can find in most Japanese homes.

Our Japanese site was curious to find out if foreigners could identify some of these “strange” household staples, so they sent a reporter to interview people from different countries on the streets of Tokyo to see what they had to say.