Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
Japan (Page 1135)
A photo posted by まゆこ (@mayu__81__) on Jul 4, 2015 at 2:06am PDT
You may already be familiar with YOKU MOKU – the Japanese sweets company famous for its sugar cigar cookies. Well it turns out that the company has outdone itself this summer, as it has just brought out a new product called Cigare ice cream – luxurious cigar-shaped cookies filled with, yup, ice cream. And, as you might imagine, Japanese sweet-lovers are already raving about them online…
Running your own store and being your own boss can be tough. You have to work long hours, pick up the slack of any slacking employees, and if the customer isn’t happy it’s on your head. But not having to answer to anyone but yourself also has its perks, because you can close up shop at any time and for any reason you want! And the following store owners did just that, as evidenced by these hilarious “closed” signs.
For a country that’s ordinarily very concerned with not doing anything to shock or offend, Japan can be extremely open about its sexual tastes, in ways that manifest as both perfectly healthy and perfectly pervy. Japan is also pretty open and comfortable with its weakness for cute things, as you’ll often see adults of both genders sporting clothing or accessories bearing the image of popular children’s characters.
But what happens when you have both a sexy anime huggy pillow and a cute Disney stuffed animal in your bedroom, and you leave them alone for a while?
So, you like eggs, but with all the conflicting research about the little balls of protein, it’s hard to decide if you should be eating zero eggs, an egg a day, or as many as you can stuff in you face. Sadly, we’re not entirely certain either, but if you simply don’t care about what’s good for you or not, we’d like you to meet your comrade-in-shells, P.K.
Our clothes-hating Japanese reporter P.K. is a huge fan of the unfertilized bird babies, and he recently read that all that research saying you shouldn’t eat too many eggs is bunk. So he decided to make up for lost time and headed down to Ramen Kagetsu Arashi to get a bowl of noodles with more eggs than a chicken coop. Egg lovers, get ready to hear your stomachs growl!
As a foreigner in Japan, have you ever experienced a slightly awkward yet somehow humorous interaction with a Japanese person? Perhaps you were curious to know more about some aspect of Japanese culture and asked someone a rather random question, or conversely, a Japanese person was curious to know something about your culture and came to you for all the answers. Or maybe you were just out on the street and happened to witness an amusing exchange between some natives and the local gaijin.
Last year, we brought you 10 such tales of comical intercultural interactions, and today we’d like to introduce seven more fun, quirky, and interesting anecdotes as shared by Japanese Twitter users about their exchanges with foreigners. Have you ever been in a similar situation to one of these yourself?
They say that it’s rare to see a real maiko walking the streets of Kyoto, since these artists usually work at night and live in their own secluded world, far from the rest of Japanese society. In fact, if you spot a maiko strolling around Gion during the day, there’s a good chance she’s a tourist who’s undergone a fabulously elaborate makeover.
We took our Japan Wish competition winner Ashley to a studio in Kyoto’s Gion neighborhood to have a maiko-over and be transformed in an amazing process that yielded completely stunning results. Ashley was able to choose her own kimono and obi sash, and as part of the deal she was treated to a professional photography session and the opportunity to take a stroll around the streets of Gion in full maiko garb!
Premium Bandai is listing two special yukata for the many discerning Gintama fans. Rather than being outright replicas of Gintoki’s kimono and the Shinsengumi’s uniforms from the series, both yukata take color and print cues for something original.
The Gintoki yukata includes a fan motif featuring the pattern on his own kimono. The rest of the print includes red, black, and blue dots in varying sizes and small diamond shapes. The set includes a black obi.
Even among otaku, those with a fondness for anime series Love Live! are known for being particularly obsessive. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that the Love Livers, as the franchise’s fans are known, worship the show’s central characters.
And if that’s the case, one arcade figured, why not give fans a place where they can kneel down and make offerings to their anime idols?
Cardcaptor Sakura’s titular heroine keeps her captured cards in a magic tome called the Clow Book, pulling them out as needed in the course of her adventures. In your daily life, though, you probably don’t run into that many occasions that call for instantly producing wooden cages, creating a labyrinth in an alternate dimension, commanding the sun to rise, or any of the other mystical functions of the Clow Cards.
On the other hand, you probably whip out your smartphone several times a day, and the next time you do, it could be inside this regal-looking Cardcaptor Sakura iPhone case.
Japan has a lot of unique customs, and not all of them make sense to newcomers. Eating fried chicken on Christmas Eve, anyone? How about the weird ritual of girls giving chocolate to guys on Valentine’s Day (do guys really like chocolate more than we girls do?).
But it turns out that there are plenty of customs that even Japanese people think are a waste of time. Here’s the top seven worst offenders, and why they are so annoying…
A few days ago, we talked about fast food chain Mos Burger’s plan to unleash something called the Wet Burger, or Nure Burger in Japanese. Unlike normal sandwiches which are content to have their sauce on the inside, the Wet Burger is submerged in tomato sauce before serving.
But is this new challenger a legitimate rival to the standard Mos Burger, already considered one of the stars of the Japanese fast food scene? Or is it simply too bold and saucy for its own good?
For many young people in Japan, August means summer vacation, festivals and free time. For fourth-year university students however, it means time to start interviewing for jobs. The job-hunting process in Japan is long, grueling and very systematic, culminating in interview after interview for the jobless, soon-to-graduate, young adults.
Interviews can be nerve-wracking for even the most experienced candidates, but Japanese companies don’t always ask the most predictable questions. In fact, some of their questions can be downright weird. Many of these oddball interview questions, however, may not actually be legal.
Back in the days before the majestic and booming voice of God said, “Casey, go work for RocketNews24,” I used to handle payroll processing at my old job. I’d also occasionally answer the phones and take care of walk-in customers, and while it keeps things fresh and varied to wear many different hats at work, there are also some downsides, and I’m not talking about an increased chance of head lice.
I shared my PC with several coworkers, and often I’d step away from my desk for a moment, only to come back and find out that in the meantime someone had hopped onto the computer, finished what he was doing, and decided to shut down every window. When the prompt came up asking if the user wanted to save any unfinished work, for some reason he’d invariably select “no,” and I’d lose a chunk of work progress.
If only I’d had one of these cool Japanese robot assistants that automatically saves your files for you.
When it comes to ramen, nothing goes better than a side serving of gyoza (dumplings) washed down with a beer. Now our culinary dreams are about to come true with the release of gyoza-flavoured cup noodle ramen.
So, there’s a movie that came out in Japan last week based on this little cartoon. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called Attack on Titan.
The more popular an anime gets, the more attached fans become to its characters and setting, and the more demanding they become of any new part of the franchise. No anime released in the past decade has come anywhere close to the success and mainstream pop cultural impact of Attack on Titan, so perhaps it’s not entirely surprising that not everyone’s sky-high expectations were met by its first live-action film.
But if those moviegoers who were disappointed aren’t mincing words in their criticisms of the film, the people who made the film don’t seem inclined to phrase their rebuttals diplomatically, either. We’ve already seen how Attack on Titan’s director responded to one harshly worded review, and now the movie’s special modeling director is spitting back at disgruntled audiences too.
Japanese brewing and distilling company Suntory Holdings Limited recently announced their plans to send samples of whiskey to the International Space Station in order to investigate the effects of zero gravity on the aging process.
As our regular readers know, RocketNews24 has been closely monitoring the unrest occurring in the Ukraine over the past year. With several journalists embedded on both sides of the conflict we have continued to bring you the most detailed coverage of this complex situation.
And now a shocking new revelation has come to light via a Twitter user. If the source is correct, this is an image of a Ukrainian soldier standing in front of a poster for the harem-comedic manga and anime Kiss X Sis. This could very well mean the Ukrainian forces have been receiving aid from otaku without UN Security Counsel approval.
Time to rewatch Naruto and brush up on your ninjutsu, folks! We took our Japan wish competition winner to experience a modern twist on an ancient part of Japanese culture. Come and take a look at the spectacle inside Kyoto’s mysterious and shadowy ninja restaurant.
How often do you sit down, dip your pen in some ink and write a letter or put your thoughts down on paper? The art of handwriting might be lost in the West, but surprisingly, students in Japan will often practice cursive writing even though they aren’t taught it in class. And in Japan, there are still plenty of chances for people to write things out from resumes and New Years cards to love letters and condolences, so there is always an opportunity to show off your epic penmanship.
And if you feel your written notes are lacking a certain artistic flair, the stationery store KINGDOM NOTE has just the thing for you: Colors! It’s not just normal boring colors that they are offering either, but original inks in colors inspired by crustaceans.
The twice-yearly Wonder Festival exhibition is all about models of anime, video game, and other 2-D characters. Just like with model airplanes or trains, you can often find multiple versions of the same character in different scales, usually several times smaller than the heroes and heroines they’re based on are actually supposed to be.
Walking around the convention, though, we came across two stunning life-sized figures. It wasn’t just their size that impressed us, though, but their amazing attention to detail. Not only did we stop to gawk and snap pictures, we also got an explanation of how they were made, and it involves a 3-D printer!
McDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goods
More foreign tourists than ever before in history visited Japan last month
Starbucks reopens at Shibuya Scramble Crossing with new look and design concept
Is the new Shinkansen Train Desk ticket worth it?
Tokyo’s most famous arcade announces price increase, fans don’t seem to mind at all
Our reporter takes her 71-year-old mother to a visual kei concert for the first time
Dogs now allowed on Catbus! Ghibli Park vehicles revise service animal policy
Disney princesses get official manga makeovers for Manga Princess Cafe opening in Tokyo
Hey, Thai tuk-tuk driver! Take us to the best Thai restaurant in this part of Bangkok!
Gacha capsule toy paradise for adults appears at Akihabara StationDisney princesses get official manga makeovers for Manga Princess Cafe opening in Tokyo
We try out “Chan Ramen”, an underground type of ramen popular in the ramen community
Foreign English teachers in Japan pick their favorite Japanese-language phrases【Survey】
Beautiful new Final Fantasy T-shirt collection on the way from Uniqlo【Photos】
There’s a park inside Japan where you can also see Japan inside the park
New Studio Ghibli bedding sets are cool in all senses of the word
Japanese convenience store packs a whole bento into an onigiri rice ball
Hanton rice — a delicious regional food even most Japanese people don’t know about, but more should
New Pokémon cakes let you eat your way through Pikachu and all the Eevee evolutions
Hamburg and Hamburg Shibuya: A Japanese restaurant you need to put on your Tokyo itinerary
Studio Ghibli releases Kiki’s Delivery Service chocolate cake pouches in Japan
Japan’s bone-breaking and record-breaking roller coaster is permanently shutting down
New definition of “Japanese whiskey” goes into effect to prevent fakes from fooling overseas buyers
Foreign passenger shoves conductor on one of the last full runs for Japan’s Thunderbird train
Our Japanese reporter visits Costco in the U.S., finds super American and very Japanese things
Kyoto bans tourists from geisha alleys in Gion, with fines for those who don’t follow rules
Studio Ghibli unveils Mother’s Day gift set that captures the love in My Neighbour Totoro
Domino’s Japan now sells…pizza ears?
New Japanese KitKat flavour stars Sanrio characters, including Hello Kitty
Kyoto creates new for-tourist buses to address overtourism with higher prices, faster rides
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 1950s
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
Princesses, fruits, and blacksmiths: Study reveals the 30 most unusual family names in Japan
Studio Ghibli’s new desktop Howl’s Moving Castle will take your stationery on an adventure
Our reporter takes her 71-year-old mother to a visual kei concert for the first time
Dogs now allowed on Catbus! Ghibli Park vehicles revise service animal policy
Disney princesses get official manga makeovers for Manga Princess Cafe opening in Tokyo
Hey, Thai tuk-tuk driver! Take us to the best Thai restaurant in this part of Bangkok!
Gacha capsule toy paradise for adults appears at Akihabara Station
We try the new Starbucks Santa Boots Chocolate Frappuccino in Japan【Taste test】
Time to vote for your favourite in Japan’s Sanrio Character Curry Election
7-Eleven opens “next generation” SIP convenience store in Japan
Just how clean are Japan’s high-tech public restroom bidet-equipped toilets?
Crazy new Pokémon chair makes no secret of your pure love for Poison-Type Gengar【Photos】
Is Japan’s massive Shizuoka steak sandwich really as delicious as it looks in promo photos?
Japanese high school teacher in hot water after forcibly giving male student a buzz cut
Saitama officially forbids walking up and down escalators
Here it is: The finalized map for Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan (and its food)