Japan (Page 1172)

Bus driver in Yokohama City announces warm message to the mother of a screaming child

We’ve all been in this situation at some point in our lives–trapped in a public place with a baby screaming its lungs out. While many people would react by repeating “Shut up!” over and over again inside their minds, one pro bus driver in Yokohama who experienced this exact situation on the bus he was driving took the high route by instead reassuring the mother that everything was okay.

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Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is coming to Shibuya to become Pretty Soldier Sailor Shopper

The best thing about the Japanese entertainment industry milking popular properties for all their worth is that fans get a chance to purchase all the new merchandise that inevitably accompanies a brand new release. Sailor Moon fans have been witnessing a Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon renaissance with the recent anime series Sailor Moon Crystal and there have been so many awesome Sailor Moon goods that you could be forgiven for thinking fans had run out of money. However, you would be wrong! It turns out fans are getting their wallets ready for some more heavy shopping in Shibuya.

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Look like you’ve just taken a hadoken to the head with this dizzy birdy halo

Little birdies flying around someone’s injured head in cartoons and the like have been making severe physical trauma fun since time immemorial. Fans of Street Fighter II will also remember this age-old gag as that frustrating feature that would leave your character momentarily stunned and vulnerable to any attack.

Every time those baby chicks started circling, I’d suck air through my teeth and start violently slamming both hands on the joystick and buttons. Meanwhile, my opponent would just smile and slowly walk up to deliver some easy yoga noogies.

Now you too can recreate all that fun and mild annoyance with the Street Fighter II Piyoru Headband!

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Calling all plane otaku! Fly at home with a real-life steering yoke…with one small catch

ANA (All Nippon Airways) knows how to treat their fans. They’ve got Pokémon and Star Wars-themed planes, and now they’re doing something even more special: raffling off the actual steering yokes of a retired Boeing 767.

Do you want to have the ultimate flight simulator controller? Or finally complete your ANA-themed bedroom? Read on to find out how you can get your hands on a piece of Japanese flight history! But be warned: There is a slight catch.

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Stray kitten finds loving home, shortly thereafter takes over and becomes immersed in anime

When a stray kitten began following Japanese Twitter user @Kawasaki_Hina around like a little duckling, he decided to take her in and keep her for good. Within a short time, it became obvious the feline had made herself completely at home and had taken up a few of his ‘hooman’ hobbies to boot — including watching anime and playing the guitar.

Warning: Melt-in-your-seat adorable feline photos are coming up right after the jump!

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GAX-G1, the inside out umbrella that may have just revolutionized the age-old tool【Video】

Umbrellas have been around for a very, very long time. The oldest record of a collapsible umbrella dates back to 21 A.D. in ancient China. While that in itself is pretty crazy, what’s even crazier is that the core design hasn’t really changed.

Never say never, though! A Japanese company has recently released an umbrella that is backwards to any umbrella you’ve seen before…literally.

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3-D character bread trending on Instagram is way cuter and cooler than sliced bread

Three-dimensional character bread, called chigiri-pan, is currently trending on Japanese Instagram under the tag #3Dちぎりパン. These upright, puffy loaves are handcrafted by artistic bakers with more than a pinch of creativity and dollops of love. We’ve already spied loaves in the shape of some popular Disney, Ghibli, San-X, and Moomin characters, among others. Perhaps one of the following creations will inspire you to try your hand at making some chigiri-pan for yourself!

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Japanese ad’s swimming salmon cutlets confuse, educate children about dinner comes from【Video】

In Japan, not only is sliced salmon a dinnertime staple, but it’s a cute mascot and candy too. And salmon also has one other crazy property that sets it apart from all other fish: it can still swim around even after it’s been sliced into cutlets. Apparently…

But while all of us adults know that’s not possible, some kids might not, and one Japanese television show decided to do an experiment to see how kids would react to swimming cuts of cooked salmon. Do the kids know where the fish on their plate actually comes from? Watch the video to find out!

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This group of Japanese kids tear up the dance floor at the World of Dance competition 【Video】

There was an overflow of talent, skilled dancers, and amazing performances at the World of Dance competition held in Los Angeles last month, but this boy’s dance group from Japan made a particularly strong impression on the audience. Not only were their moves awe-inspiring and beautifully synchronized, but the fact that everyone in the group was of high school age or younger made their dance all the more incredible.

Watch the full video below and be blown away by the high-flying flips, spins, and awesome soundtrack!

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French twins dancing to koto performance in Kiyomizu-dera is as beautiful as it is odd【Video】

Of all the cool dance videos we’ve seen this summer, the one by the Dancing Strawhats and Koharu Sugawara was perhaps our favorite. The video did an excellent job of mixing contemporary dance and music with traditional scenery and clothing, and it was this juxtaposition that really captured our attention.

A new video by another group of contemporary dancers has captured our attention today, but this time it features Kiyomizu-deraone of Japan’s most famous temples, and some lovely music by an incredibly talented koto player. We are in love with this video and we bet you will be too!

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

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.

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

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…

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

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.

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Five types of foreigner you’ll meet in Japan

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…

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

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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