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Japan (Page 1339)

Guy learns powerful lesson: Sending 240 beetles in the mail will kill them all

An insect collector learned the hard way last year that you should never send stag beetles in the mail, because being stuffed in a box and shipped across the country unsurprisingly kills them.

A specialist apparently sent 240 stag beetles to be delivered to the collector’s Okinawa home. When the box – supplied by the Japanese Postal Service’s “Yu-paku” goods shipping service – arrived, the collector opened it to find all 240 of the beetles decidedly un-alive, prompting the man to sue for compensation; because, come on, if you’re shipping beetles, you expect a certain amount of care to be taken.

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We try Denny’s Japan’s Massaman curry: The world’s most delicious food

In Japan, you’re never very far from a plate of tasty curry. You can find the Japanese version of the dish in casual restaurants, convenience stores, and train station lunch counters across the country, and any sizeable city will have at least one good Indian restaurant.

After domestic and Indian, Japan’s favorite type of curry is the Thai style, usually in ultra spicy green or red varieties. Thailand’s got one more variant, though, called Massaman curry, which ranked by CNN as the world’s most delicious food a while back.

With an endorsement like that, we were eager to try it for ourselves. Unfortunately, a trip to Thailand for dinner is a little beyond our budget, no matter how good the food may be. So instead, we hit up our local Denny’s branch, where you can get a plate of Massaman curry right now.

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Vegetables are smarter than fruits: Three high IQ Japanese veggies

I’ve lived among Japanese fruits and vegetables for 17 years and one thing I can say for sure is that vegetables are waaay smarter than fruits.

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8 kinds of photos that Japanese girls always post on Twitter

Whoops, guess I better whip out my smartphone and upload a picture of my Green Tea Frappuccino to Twitter, because I just happen to be writing this post at Starbucks. Apparently, the classic “at Starbucks now” picture is one of the most commonly seen types of photos on social media sites, and I’d hate to be missing out.

In fact, a concise at-a-glance chart of trivial photos that (Japanese) girls frequently upload to their SNS accounts has recently been making the rounds on the Japanese internet. We were familiar with every single one of them–how about you?

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Saitama soccer fans employ Art of War strategy to make up for low turnout

It’s well known that a large crowd (or lack thereof) can have a dramatic psychological impact on a team’s performance. Unfortunately for Saitama’s soccer team, Omiya Ardija, it was hard for fans to get out to the ground to cheer during the Wednesday night J-League Cup qualification match against the Tokushima Vortis.

Nevertheless, those who managed to make it to the stadium went the extra mile to get their team pumped for a win, taking along an army of two-dimensional fans to fill seats.

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Tropfest: The world’s largest short-film festival comes to Japan for one day only

Have you heard of Tropfest? For thousands of Australians, the name conjures up images of picnics, green grass and long, warm days that turn into night, bringing out stars like Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush.

It’s the biggest short-film festival in the world, born in a small café in Sydney in 1993 and growing every year, travelling to places like New York, Abu Dhabi and Cape York. This year the outdoor film festival is making its debut in Japan, bringing with it Aussie food stalls and a great selection of film shorts.

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Isn’t it a little weird that whenever Princess Peach gets kidnapped, and ostensibly needs to be rescued as soon as possible, Mario literally runs off to save her? Why is it that when time is of the essence, Nintendo’s greatest hero insists on doing the job on foot? After all, it’s not like he can’t drive, since there are now eight titles in the Mario Kart racing series.

Really, it’s about time Mario got himself some motorized transportation, and a star of his caliber needs a suitably prestigious ride. Something like a new Mercedes-Benz GLA, perhaps.

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Nomisugi! Japan’s sleeping drunks get turned into living drink-awareness ads

It’s finally Friday here in Tokyo, and hundreds of thousands of people are gearing up for a night on the town. The weather is fine, the pubs plentiful, and with work done for another week it’s time to cut back and relax with a few beers.

Unfortunately, a lot of people in Japan tend to overdo it when it comes to drink. Combined with an alcohol intolerance that is surprisingly common amongst Asian people, this results in a shockingly high number of alcohol-related mishaps, with businessmen, beautifully dressed girls and college kids alike passing out on the street, in stairwells, on trains and station platforms pretty much every weekend.

The Yaocho Bar Group has been out looking for these sleeping drunks, however, and when they find one they swoop in like a band of rogue graffiti artists, using duct tape and pre-printed messages and slogans to construct a billboard around them, clearly labelling the drinker with the word nomisugi, or “drank too much’.

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Knocking on your door: Kiyoshi Sugo’s beautiful, melodic dubstep【J-Tunes】

May is almost over and summer is about to kick into high-gear. Business people are slipping into their “cool-biz” outfits, and the air conditioners on the trains are coming on full blast now. Pretty soon you’ll be able to find us all at the beach fanning ourselves while slurping down the finest kakigori money can buy. And what better way is there to go into summer than with some sick new tunes?

That’s right, we’re back with more J-Tunes for you! And today we have one of Japan’s best electronic music producers, Kiyoshi Sugo. If you like dancing, lush melodies, fat basslines, or sick drops, you need to check this out.

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One day back in college, I was shopping for some clothes in Yamaguchi. I found a shirt that fit just right, but when I took it off and looked at the tag, I was surprised to see the size listed as “LA.” Curious, I asked the salesperson what it meant, and was told it was an abbreviation for “large athletic,” meaning it was cut for a person with large shoulders and a slim waist.

I’m not sure how much of that was really reflected in the design, but the unexpected written compliment put me in such a good mood I bought the shirt right away, and still have it to this day.

Of course, this sort of psychology can cut both ways, and I’m not sure how one Japanese clothing manufacturer expects to drum up sales by calling out its larger customers in the least delicate way.

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Detailed explanation of Japanese armor?!? Show me!

An extremely exciting part of Japanese culture that can be felt even in the recesses of modern Tokyo is its history with bushido: the way of the samurai. There were morals and rules and a strict code of honor that samurai followed and are even in this day still referred to for answers and strength.

But bushido is only a part of what makes a samurai a samurai, with another huge aspect being the look. A man in armor said as much about being a samurai as the practice of Bushido did. The name and place of every piece of armor is certainly daunting, but a very easy-to-understand illustration has surfaced on the Internet, and we are happy to report it’s in English!

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  • May 30, 2014

Doughnut Sandwich Taste Test Round 2 — This time it’s a Mos Burger and Mister Donut creation!

Now, some of our readers may recall that we recently introduced on our site some devilishly tempting-looking doughnut sandwiches sold at Tokyo Station, and guess what? These “doughnut sandwiches” may actually be catching on in Japan, because popular Japanese food chains Mos Burger and Mister Donut have joined forces to come out this week with a new line of “MOSDO!”collaboration products, and one of them is a doughnut sandwich that we might say is one of the most, well… interesting-looking sandwiches we’ve ever seen. It’s the “Mos Burger French Cruller with Round-and-Round Chorizo Sausage” (Mos no French Cruller Guruguru Chorizo), and yes, it really does look like what you see in the picture!

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Cuss like a pro with this handy guide for Japanese speakers

Everyone knows that there are certain nuances in every language that you just can’t learn from school. Humor, for instance, but also cursing. Sure, you might know the definitions of a few key words, but stringing them together is a task unlikely to be perfected except by those who have spent some time with folks who are native speakers.

A recent book written by MADSAKI and published by Transworld Japan is giving Japanese speakers the fine opportunity to learn how to creatively curse in American-English. Titled, How to use F*** Correctly: 99 Phrases Using F***, S***, D***, and H*** that Schools Won’t Teach You, Handle with Care, it promises 176 pages of illustrated cursing, with examples.

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Pikachu soccer jersey lets you represent as a lover of both sports and Pokémon

In Japan, the national sports teams are officially known as the Nihon Daihyou, literally the Japanese Representatives. And while it’s true that the Japanese soccer team will be getting eve more attention than usual as it competes in the World Cup in Brazil, one could argue that Japan’s pop cultural icons, more so than its athletes, are the most prominent representatives of the country internationally.

Or, you could sidestep the debate by combing the too with a Pokémon soccer jersey.

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Some Japanese apartments are incredibly sparse. In the most extreme cases, your lease gets you four walls, a kitchen sink, bathroom, and that’s it. Oh, you want lighting fixtures, a stove, and air conditioning? Sorry, you’ll have to purchase all that on your own.

As a result, savvy apartment hunters are always on the lookout for properties that include some of these amenities. And while it’s incredibly convenient to find a place that already comes with ceiling lamps, it still can’t match the thrill some animal lovers in Japan experience when they find a new pad that comes with a cat.

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Macabre Japanese ukiyo-e reveal gothic side to art of the floating world【Pics】

When you think of Japanese ukiyo-e, or woodblock prints, you probably think of Hokusai’s beautiful landscapes in his Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji, or the stylized prints of beautiful courtesans in traditional Japanese dress. But there are also many pieces of Japanese art and ukiyo-e from the Edo to the Meiji period (between 1603 and 1912) that represent a more mythical and macabre side of Japan.

The following is a collection of 20 pieces that all contain skulls or skeletons in some form, many of them by renowned and famous artists of the time.

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Video series recreates the highs and lows of walking past a cute girl and not saying hello

For the most part, guys hitting on girls isn’t really a part of Japanese culture. Thankfully, there are a number of social institutions that take its place, such as frequent student mixers, company drinking parties, and singles’ dinners organized by groups of friends with an exactly equal number of unattached men and women present.

All of this largely circumvents the need for a guy to go up to a girl that catches his eye in a book store or coffee shop with nothing more than a smile and a hello. It also means that if a man is out and about and spots an attractive woman, if there’s no one to give him a formal introduction, a glance at her pretty face, and maybe a moment where her eyes meet his, is about all that he can ever hope to take away from the encounter.

For some guys, though, that’s enough, and for them, there’s a new website featuring nothing but short videos of cute girls walking past you.

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Sushi train restaurant serves up caramel banana sushi and caramel mayonnaise corn sushi!

Starting from today, sushi train chain restaurant Kura-zushi will be serving up two incredibly unique, limited-edition delicacies. Thanks to a sweet collaboration with Morinaga Milk Caramels, customers will now be able to order caramel banana sushi. And that’s not all – caramel corn mayonnaise sushi will be on the menu too.

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I’m fortunate in that my wife and I have fairly similar tastes in movies and TV shows. We both agree that Modern Family is funny, seeing the Hulk beat up Loki in The Avengers is deeply satisfying, and that the anime Escaflowne is an extremely compelling take on the standard plotline of “boy meets girl, girl falls in love with other boy, and by the way both boys pilot giant robots.”

At the same time, we’re also mature enough to respect each other’s opinions when they do diverge. Unfortunately, not all spouses can agree to disagree when it comes to entertainment, as is the case with the woman in Japan who’s looking for a divorce because her husband isn’t a fan of Disney’s Frozen.

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American singer to perform theme song for newest Studio Ghibli film 【Video】

A recent scandal in the Japanese entertainment world may have delayed the release of the announced box set of the works of retired anime director Hayao Miyazaki, the latest offering from the production house he helped found, Studio Ghibli, is still on track for its planned July premiere. With the big day coming up fast, producers have released a short teaser of the anime film’s theme song, which is being performed by American folk singer Priscilla Ahn.

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