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Japan (Page 1353)

Anything is fair game for advertisement trucks in Tokyo

If you spend some time walking around the Shibuya, Shinjuku, or Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo, at some point you’re bound to spot a lavishly decorated truck blasting music from its speakers. These “ad trucks” as they’re known in Japanese are just what they sound  like – gigantic, mobile billboards with no purpose other than to drive around promoting the latest music and products. While these trucks do raise some legitimate environmental concerns, there’s no denying that this eye-catching (and deafening) marketing strategy is an effective way to grab everyone’s attention. Keep reading after the jump to view some photographic examples of ad trucks in action. You might be surprised by some of the wacky and suggestive things they can get away with!

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【Obituary】 Giant isopod “No.1” found dead after more than five years of not eating

On 14 February at Toba Aquarium, the giant isopod that captured the imaginations of a nation was found dead in its tank by keepers and media. This brings to an end the record-setting hunger strike No.1 had been waging since 2009.

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Japanese blogger calls for party to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, whines when criticized

Though it’s not something we think about often, Japan has a number of very strange and ardent groups of ultra-right-wing conservatives. You can often catch them riding around in black vans or stinking up online forums denouncing pretty much everything. The ideology that each of the groups expresses tends to vary, though rabid nationalism and emperor-worship are typical.

Some of them also apparently love the Nazis–and one of them, one Hiroyuki Seto, has even called on people to join him for a party celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday. “Crazier than a barrel of monkeys” is an appropriate description…

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Take a glimpse into the natural habitats of female Japanese otaku 【Photos】

While we here at RocketNews24 have no shortage of stories on geeky men in Japan, it should be noted that there are plenty of women that fulfill the otaku stereotype of being obsessed with anime, manga and video games. The recently published photo book Corrupted Rooms gives readers a peek inside the cramped living quarters of 50 self-professed otaku and shows the extreme level of dedication these women have to their hobbies. From rooms packed with action figures to racks of cosplay outfits, click below to catch a glimpse into the world of the female otaku!

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  • Feb 16, 2014

We order awesome Baguette Bag from Ukraine! Now we can have French bread anytime, anywhere

Do you like French bread? We certainly do! Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, they’re great for making sandwiches or tasty canapé-type appetizers like bruschettas. But have you ever felt that the long distinctive shape of French bread sometimes makes it hard to carry around? Well, if you have, we’ve found the perfect item to solve that problem. It’s a bag made specifically for French bread, and it’s called the Baguette Bag!

When we saw a picture of this unique bag, we knew we just had to have one, but after we did a bit of searching, we found out that the bag was a product of Ukraine. Hmm… was it really wise trying to purchase an item from a country that was so far away and the language was completely foreign? We’ll just have to try and find out, won’t we?

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Guard your smartphone with a tiny ninja accomplice

Lurking in the shadows is a mysterious figure. He conceals himself behind a giant kite, a flipped tatami mat, or a sliding door. Only his eyes are visible from beneath his dark robes. Yes, it’s a tiny ninja, and with a distinctly modern purpose: to protect your smartphone from would-be assailants!

There are three different warriors to choose from, each using a different ninja art to fend off attacks:

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Otaku app lets you shop from your phone with help of cute mascot

Soon Japanese otaku will have even less reason to leave their rooms. Mobile software company jig.jp have announced a shopping app dedicated exclusively to anime goods, and with its own moe mascot to make the experience even sweeter!

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With Yuzuru Hanyu taking home Japan’s first-ever gold medal in men’s figure skating, there’s a chance the country’s rabid sports fans will back off on the intense pressure they’ve been placing on the nation’s Olympic team. That’s sure to be a weight off the shoulders of the athletes themselves, as well as former Olympiad Dai Tamesue, who recently took so-called fans of the Japanese team to task for calling athletes who fail to reach the podium parasites.

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Are 100 adhesive warmers enough to take on a Tokyo snow storm?

In one of the most vicious cases of deja vu we’ve had in decades, the twin of the massive snowstorm that dumped on Japan last weekend swung through the country with another few inches of snow on Friday. Unfortunately, in Tokyo at least, we also got enough rain to melt half of the snow, turning everything into a freezing, wet mess. Ah, winter!

As you can imagine, quite a few people are taking the opportunity to lock themselves inside and practice their “brrrrrrr” faces. But not the esteemed writers on the Japanese side of RocketNews24! They decided the snow was the best environment to find out if 100 adhesives warmers work as well as a coat. See the awkward results of the test below!

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Over 1,000 fans pick the coolest old guy voice actors

The Goo Ranking website held a poll to see which “old guy” voice actor fans think is the coolest. The poll was inspired by the recent Tiger & Bunny film and about 1,054 fans weighed in. Here are the full results:

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As media consumption patterns change in Japan, leading to less advertising revenue and lower DVD sales, merchandising is becoming an increasingly important way for anime producers to turn a profit. Not that the hardcore fans mind being given the opportunity to purchase a poster or coffee mug featuring their favorite character, mind you. And if the products happen to be limited editions, with the premium pricing such a designation entails, well that’s just a nice extra bit of otaku cachet.

One fan, though, is selling off his entire collection in one all-inclusive package. Quite often this sort of thing is the result of finding a flesh and blood girlfriend who doesn’t approve of decorating your walls with pictures of scantily-clad anime babes, but the reason for this collector’s fire sale isn’t anything nearly so happy.

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Meanwhile, in Hokkaido…

There has been a lot of news over the record snowfalls in many parts of Japan. However, from people all along the Northwestern coast and in Hokkaido a collective “What about us?” could be heard.

As a reminder, one Hokkaido resident tweeted out this photo of their local Lawson. We’re sure of that because the sign is the only visible part on the store. It looks as if it worked too as the photo is currently doing the rounds on the internet and getting retweeted over 16,000 times.

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Japanese pronunciation of “……” in Google Translate gives us a laugh

Google Translate, the tech giant’s online language translation service, is not always perfect (for example, translating “twenty” from English to Japanese gives us “20”), but it’s a nice, not to mention free, tool that’s available to anyone with an internet connection. Aside from being very useful, the site is also entertaining with plenty of funny tricks to be found, like how to make Google Translate beatbox.

Here’s another trick to add to the list! Just translate a bunch of dots into Japanese and you’ll be treated to a hilarious, and somewhat melodic, interpretation of those little round symbols that perch at the end of our sentences.

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There are certain meats you can find at restaurants in Japan that aren’t exactly common in the western world. Whale is the one most likely to get foreign visitors up in arms, but with some pretty extensive searching, you can also find establishments serving up monkey and frog.

That isn’t to say Japanese culinary/cultural values are completely different from those of Europeans and North Americans. For example, people in Japan don’t really believe in turning dogs into food.

But turning food into a dog? That’s something the whole world can get behind.

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On this day last year, we announced that 14 February was from then to be known as Fundoshi Day. With that grand statement made we waited a whole year for all you readers to go out and by some fundoshi, old-fashioned loincloths to help us again put the “fun” in Fundoshi Day (fun-do-shi = 2-10-4 in Japanese) this year.

And let me guess, you aren’t wearing your fundoshi, are you? Sigh… Alright, we’re patient people, so let us explain again why the fundoshi is the superior choice in underwear.

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While Japan has its own baseball and soccer leagues, the steady improvements in ability by Japanese players have ironically led to a talent drain in domestic games, as the best players get recruited to compete on bigger stages in the U.S. and Europe. These days, what really gets Japanese sports fans fired up is international competitions like soccer’s World Cup and the Olympic Games.

With the Winter Olympics going on right now in Sochi, Japanese TV is filled with nonstop onsite reports from the Russian city. In the scramble to get as much content as possible, though, one news outlet sent out its reporter so woefully unaware that he didn’t recognize the two Olympic medalists standing right in front of him, one of whom he was having a conversation with.

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Despite being some of the most iconic anime villains ever, we’re still not sure how to feel about the monsters of Attack on Titan. On the one hand, they’re giants hell-bent on eating the tasty humans hiding behind the walls of their cities. On the other hand, there’s something unmistakably, well, goofy about them. Many of them have baby-like proportions and dorky haircuts. Quite often, they shuffle around listlessly, almost as if they can’t be bothered to chase after their terrified snacks. They have no concept of pants.

Somehow, the Titans have ended up with a sort of twisted charm that makes us unsure whether we’d rather fight them or keep them as pets. Luckily, with the new Attack on Titan smartphone game, you can do both!

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Concept art revealed for stalled live-action Akira film

Artist James Clyne (Avatar) recently posted the concept art he created for Warner Bros. stalled Akira live-action film. Clyne was brought on when director Ruairi Robinson was attached to the film. Since then, several other directors have came on gone, although most recently Jaume Collet-Serra said in an interview that he hopes Akira will be his next work. Maybe there’s still some hope left for the film?

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What we learned from Tokyo’s blizzard: Snow Pikachu evolves into Machochu

The rare blanket of snow Tokyo received last week gave Japan’s capital city residents a chance to show off their creativity. Since it was a seldom seen treat that happened to fall over the weekend, everyone and their mother seemed to be showing off their newfound snow sculpting skills. But this Snow Pikachu has got to be our favorite. Sure, the bicycle-riding snow cat was pretty awesome, but we learned something here, people. Snow Pikachu evolves into Machochu. It’s a fact.

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Japanese dentistry student makes chocolate teeth for Valentine’s Day

It’s Valentine’s Day in Japan, and as the tradition goes, women and young ladies across the country have been busy preparing homemade chocolates to give out to male friends, colleagues, and that special someone. But we’re not quite sure the recipients of these grotesquely accurate chocolate teeth will be too thrilled. Uh…do you eat it one tooth at a time?

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