Heads up everyone, Mister Donut Japan is launching yet another cute collaboration that will have you stuffing your face with donuts in order to get your hands on some exclusive and limited merch.
Japan (Page 1310)
In 2013, a grand total of 10,363,904 foreign tourists visited Japan! That number surpasses the goal of the Visit Japan Campaign, which began in 2003 with a goal to increase the number of overseas visitors to 10 million.
The Japanese language version of popular travel planning and information website TripAdvisor was quite excited by this news, and recently produced their own visual graphic detailing some fun facts about foreign tourists in the Land of the Rising Sun during 2013. Can you guess which country most of the visitors came from, or which country had the highest percentage jump in visitors? How about the most popular tourist destinations for foreigners traveling in Japan? Find out all that and more after the jump.
What is “sexy”? It’s a question that no one person can definitively answer. But in much the same way that we know “art” when we see it, we also know “sexy” when it comes our way! Even if it’s from an unexpected place.
A recent survey asked of 150 Japanese men if they had ever felt attracted to another guy. Roughly 25 percent said yes, and even offered up their reasons for these rare moments of boy-love, which were so adorable that we just had to share.
Recently, our Japanese-language reporter Hotaru has been a little down in the dumps. She’s not sure if she’s come down with a cold or is just feeling the doldrums of the dreaded Gogatsu-byou, but either way, she needed a boost.
Realizing that good health and a good mood starts with good food, she headed into the kitchen to whip up a batch of porridge. But not just any old porridge would do for helping Hotaru shake off her funk, she needed to recreate the porridge that picks up the heroine of classic anime Kiki’s Delivery Service.
After having difficulty breathing, a Kansai area resident went to the hospital where she learned that she had an irreversible case of pulmonary fibrosis (firming of lung tissue). The doctors told her that if she didn’t receive a transplant for her left lung she would die. Luckily, her own husband was found to be a suitable donor. However, although his blood and tissue matched, there was a problem with the size of his lung. So a team of doctors at Kyoto University came up with a creative solution so unheard of, you’re more likely to find it in the pages of Black Jack rather than a medical journal.
Cat owners concerned that they might suddenly forget the existence of their pet or who wish to gross out potential lovers may be pleased to hear of the arrival of two new products on Amazon Japan. The “Cat Whisker Case” and “Cat Milk Tooth Case“, which retail for 1,580 yen (US$16) each, are the perfect way to commemorate your pet’s growth into adulthood and treat them as a true member of the family.
That’s right, you too can have a small box full of cat teeth or whiskers on your dressing table or mantlepiece, just waiting for some hapless visitor to stumble upon before suddenly remembering that they’ve left the oven on at home and have to leave.
If you’re looking for a fun way to eat your dessert, look no further than Zou-No-Hana Cafe in Yokohama, Japan. The house specialty, the zou no hana (elephant nose) ice cream has been enticing regular visitors and tourists alike with its cute, albeit strange, face and oversized waffle cone ears.
Aside from tasting great, ice cream conjures up all sorts of happy mental images. While it’s pleasing your taste buds, the frozen treat can bring back reminiscences of childhood family outings or innocent high school dates in the park.
Or, in the case of one brand of ice cream from Shikoku, sucking on some boobs.
One of the most frustrating parts about living in Japan was when I would go out to dinner with my husband. No, it wasn’t because I wasn’t able to read the menu or because I don’t like Japanese food – it was because more often than not, the server wouldn’t speak to me.
Since my Vietnamese-American husband cannot speak or read Japanese, I would always do the ordering. What the servers saw was a woman with a caucasian face speaking Japanese and what appeared to be a Japanese man not ordering for himself. After placing my order in Japanese, the server would turn to my husband (who couldn’t understand anything she was saying) and ask follow up questions about our drink order or any add ons. I would in turn, translate for my husband in English, and then answer our server in Japanese, but any remaining questions would be directed once again to my husband. This language triangle would continue until all the ordering was completed.
Of course, this didn’t happen every time, but enough for both my husband and I to take notice. When relating the story to my friends, many would confirm that they have encountered a similar situation. Some would posit that the server thought my husband was letting me practice my Japanese and was looking to him to confirm that’s actually what I wanted. But no matter the reason, I was always left a little frustrated.
A recent video on YouTube titled, “But we’re speaking Japanese!” confronts this exact situation, bringing light to a lingering stereotype in Japan.
Academically speaking, most Japanese students don’t have that much trouble with the transition from high school to college. University entrance exams are notoriously difficult, and compared to the diligent studying they had to do to get into college in the first place, most find their educational workload, especially as freshemen, to be pretty easy to handle.
Making friends, though, can be tough. Rural Japan isn’t peppered with college towns in the same way some other countries are, and many students have no choice but to move far away from home to one of the nation’s big cities to pursue higher education. And while many students abroad can look forward to meeting new people in their dorm, very few Japanese universities provide any kind of student housing. Even in the rare case that they do, having a roommate is unheard of.
So it’s no surprise that many students are keen to pick up pointers on how to make interpersonal connections in their new surroundings. Unfortunately, not all advice is good advice, as one Japanese freshman recently found out.
Given that there were no murders, Abe gaffs, North Korean human rights violations or major Attack on Titan events today, we decided we’d do something a little fluffier and… saltier with our reporting today. After hearing that professional chefs claim pasta should be boiled in a combination of water and salt that closely resembles seawater, we wondered: Why not just use, you know, actual seawater?
Since it’s essentially an unlimited and free resource, it seems like a waste to go out and buy pure water and sea salt and combine the two when you can just head on over to Odaiba on Tokyo Bay and fill up an empty bottle with real seawater.
One of our Japanese reporters did just this, with… somewhat mixed results.
It’s kind of ironic that face packs, which are designed to make your skin healthier and more beautiful, actually look pretty ghoulish when they’re in use. Often, the price of eventual beauty can be spending a half-hour or so looking like either The Phantom of the Opera or Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface.
Stepping up with an alternative is a Japanese company that’s selling face masks that promise to temporarily transform their wearer into a cute panda or tiger.
Darth Vader is a multi-talented guy. From choking subordinates with an invisible force to performing impromptu amputations on members of his family, he can perform all kinds of amazing feats. But did you know he’s also a major league slugger?
It’s true! As part of a collaboration between Lucasfilm and Japan pro-baseball’s Pacific League, Vader stepped up to the plate to show how the game should be played: with light-saber bats!
Extend your thumb by 15 millimeters! Why? So you can use your phone more easily! With its completely life-like design, no one will even notice! Rakuten is currently offering this stylish thumb made by Rare Mono for just 1,480 yen (US$14.50). It could change your life.
Years after its first version was released, Minecraft is still captivating gamers around the world. By giving players access to a plethora of Lego-like building blocks, plus a consistent set of rules for how materials interact with one another, the title simultaneously challenges and inspires its fans, who’ve gone on to recreate both real and fictional locations within the game.
Now, one Minecraft enthusiast in Japan has combined his skills in the game with his love of Disney by recreating an entire scene from the animated hit Frozen.
Do you love nice, cold beer? If, like us, you’re not averse to enjoying a frosty glass of beer now and then (if not more often), then this gadget may be something you’d want to check out. Takara Tomy A.R.T.S, a subsidiary of major Japanese toy and children’s products manufacturer Takara Tomy, proudly presents the super-cool “Premium Beer Server GOKUREI“. While a beer server may not exactly seem like a conventional product to come out of a toy company, the GOKUREI (literally meaning “extreme cool”) will ensure that you can have the perfect glass of beer at anytime, wherever you are!
We recently brought to you the news that fast food chain Lotteria will be offering their new Tsukemen Burger (dip-in-the-sauce noodles burger) later this month. Now, they’re following with another, shall we say … unique creation. This time, it’s a gum-flavored shake, and it comes in a bright green color!
While progress has been slow and begrudging, anti-smoking movements are finally starting to gain traction in Japan. For example, smoking is largely banned in train stations, except for in designated enclosed smoking spaces, and even many of those are being removed.
Likewise, when smartphone advertising firm Adways moved into a new office, management saw it as a chance to rethink how to make the workplace more comfortable for nonsmokers, and came up with a solution that uses a mix of technology and simple common courtesy.
Oh cats, how we love you. We would try to count the ways, but we know you have better stuff to do than listen to us…like taking a nap in the sun, taking a nap on the couch, or taking a nap in a nabe. So, we’ll just say that of all the reasons we have to adore your fuzzy faces, perhaps the top one is your intractable nosiness. While we’re not entirely convinced that curiosity killed the cat–it might have Schrödinger for all we know–we are certain that watching our feline cuties get up to no good is one of the best ways to kill a few minutes while putting off work. So if you have a big project looming or some housework you’d rather be ignoring, check out these six adorable cat videos!
After all, you really don’t need to do that work today, do you?
Back in 2012 the Japanese government earmarked one billion yen (US$9.8 million) for the Kindigi project which grants subsidies to publishers so that they can digitize their works to sell online. The ebooks are intended to allow people in regions affected by the Tohoku Earthquake to get easier access to information. As an added bonus it was hoped this would give Japan’s ebook market a shot in the arm all over the country as well.
However, one year after the digitization of 64,833 works was completed with tax money having paid for half the cost, a group of people involved in the publishing industry have been distributing flyers and organizing meetings over the handling of Kindigi. They found that among the thousands of ebooks were several that they deemed controversial including 100 “erotic” works such as Aan… Ecchina Kaikan Ai (Ughnn… Dirty Pleasure Love).
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