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Japan (Page 1394)

Masahiro Tanaka’s tweet leads to mass confusion but reveals his taste in idols

Perusing Japanese Twitter feeds, you’re likely to come across the word “nau” at the end of a sentence. This word has the same meaning as the phonetically similar “now” in English. It’s used to simply state what the tweeter is doing at that given moment. Examples include “Unko Nau” (pooping now) or “Jishin Jiko Nau” (physical injury now).

Even Nippon Professional Baseball star Masahiro Tanaka, fresh off his perfect season got in on the action and tweeted out what he was doing nau. However, when you’re a pro-pitcher rumored to be imminently signed to a Major League Baseball team, an innocent little tweet can create unusually big ripples.

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Japanese condom maker pierces previous boundary with 0.01-millimeter wonder

For modern society to function, there is a line that must be protected. When it does its job, it’s often taken for granted, but should that line break down, fear and panic will shortly follow. The line must hold at all costs.

However, the line cannot be too thick, lest it rob humanity of the joy it needs to continue as a species. For the line to do all that it must, it must be precariously thin, yet unbreakably strong.

What’s that, you ask? Is this thin line the police, who separate the law-abiding and criminal elements of society? No. We’re talking about Japan’s thinnest condom here.

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Awesome Japanese expressway rest stop lets you travel back in time, dine like a samurai

Growing up in Southern California, I was no stranger to long road trips, whether up the coast to visit relatives, or out to Las Vegas to visit the craps tables. Along the way I’d pass many freeway rest areas, with amenities whose quality ranged from “a good place to use the bathroom as long as you cover your nose” to “a good place to use the bathroom, as long as you have a friend with you to make sure you don’t get shanked by a hobo.”

So imagine my surprise when I moved to Japan to find that its highway rest stops (called “parking areas” by Japanese motorists) are spotless. Plus, they’re often great spots to munch on regional specialties or pick up local souvenirs. And if you happen to visit one particular parking area, you can even go back in time.

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Japanese culture is filled with gift giving, and no gift is more common than the omiyage. Usually translated as “souvenir,” omiyage is a bit broader in usage, encompassing all sorts of travel gift situations. Taking a trip somewhere? Make sure to bring back omiyage for your coworkers. Have friends coming from overseas? You might want to give them some omiyage to remember their trip by. And of course, if those same friends offer to show you around their country, it’s only polite to bring them an omiyage as a show of thanks, if you take them up on their offer.

But what kind of Japanese omiyage from Japan is most likely to be a hit with foreigners? Japanese Internet users offered the following suggestions.

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Join Sharla on a Japan love hotel adventure!

One of the weird, fascinating things about Japan that makes many foreigners giggle is the presence of so-called “love hotels.” In many Japanese cities, you and your lover can rent a hotel room for either a few hours of fun (less expensive) or overnight for  a whole lotta fun (more expensive). Often, love hotels will have a particular theme in decor throughout the building, which may even vary room to room. To get an idea of just how crazy the decorations can be, check out this photos collection of some of the most outrageous love hotel rooms Japan has to offer.

If you’re curious to learn more about the differences between a typical hotel room and a love hotel room, however, YouTuber Sharla in Japan has uploaded a video documenting her stay at a love hotel with a friend. Sharla wants everyone to know that you don’t have to go to a love hotel with your significant other or for clandestine nooky; it can be just as fun to go with your pal or use the places as a cheaper accommodation alternative! Hear more about what Sharla has to say and watch her fun video after the jump!

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Among the Japanese language’s many unique loanword mashups is nominikeshon, a hybrid of “nomi / drinking” and the English “communication.” Nominikeshon is a term that gets applied to the common Japanese business practice of workers from the same company going out together for a beer (or six) after work, and hopefully strengthening their bond along the way.

But even if you’ve technically punched out, if you have to spend time with your boss, with a large chunk of it used to talk shop, couldn’t you make the argument that you’re still working? In which case shouldn’t you get paid for drinking with your coworkers?

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The Japan Mother’s Society, as the name implies, is a non-government organization committed to providing information and support to assist Japanese women with the difficulties of raising children in our modern age. Along with consultation and events designed to raise awareness about parenting issues, the organization has also been involved in volunteer activities helping to bring a little joy and levity to the children of families who have lost their homes due to earthquakes or other natural disasters.

Surprisingly, Shinji Morimatsu, the head of the Japan Mother’s Association, is not a mother, nor even a woman. Adding to the incongruity is the fact that the 49-year-old Morimatsu now stands accused of being a wife beater.

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42 reasons why we love riding the rails in Japan

Coming from abroad to live in Japan, there’s a lot to love–and there’s a lot to be frustrated about as well. One thing that nearly everyone loves about Japan though is the trains! With many of us coming from rural areas where you either drive or walk, being able to hop on a train pretty much any time anywhere can sometimes feel nearly miraculous. Tired? Distracted? Had too much to drink? Raining? None of that matters, because you’re on a train!

And we’re not the only ones who think so either. Today we’ve compiled a list of foreign residents’ favorite things about trains in Japan. Check them out and see if your favorites made the list!

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How tired of allergies are you? Thanko hopes enough to wear this giant USB-powered mask

We’ve covered many products developed by Thanko – that company always seems to have clever ideas and is never afraid to flirt with madness – in the past. Their upside-down desk, and upside-down cushion both look very tempting, whereas their more ambitious products such as camera glasses and the Fanbrella seem inherently flawed with poor battery performance.

Whether Thanko’s newest release, the USB Pollen Blocker crosses the crazy train tracks remains to be seen.

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We give Mr. Sato a Gyro Bowl: Can it withstand even his creepiest undulations?

It’s a little known yet unsurprising fact that Mr. Sato loves a nice bowl of potato chips. However, much to the chagrin of his colleagues, he loves them so much that he begins to flail his limbs around wildly when he gets some.

After brushing the crumbs off the keyboards and shopping around online, the rest of the RocketNews24 staff found Gyro Bowl. For only 2,480 yen (US$24) this German-engineered bowl boasts a full 360° of spill prevention. All that combined with Mr. Sato’s inherent love of orange spinny stuff made this purchase a no-brainer. When the bowl arrived it was time to fire up the cameras and see how Gyro Bowl held up to Mr. Sato’s chip dance of joy.

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Ignore the name, Kitchen Dive’s bento are cheap and delicious!

There are only three reasons one could possibly fathom going to any establishment that’s known in American English as a “dive”: Cheap beer, cheap beer, and greasy burgers.

Now apparently you can add a fourth reason: Cheap, delicious bento lunch boxes, thanks to whispered-about bento  shop, Kitchen Dive. With just a handful of locations around Tokyo, we’d never actually seen one in the flesh before and almost thought they were some apocryphal legend; some cruel prank older, wiser salarymen were playing on the newbies, maybe (“Oh yeah, there’s a shop selling 200 yen bento. Right around the corner. Caaaan’t miss it.”).

Finally, we spotted an honest-to-goodness, 24-hour Kitchen Dive in the unassuming Kameido area of Tokyo and the 100 yen coins in our pockets practically flew out of their own accord.

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When it comes to blending art and sport, Japanese athletes represent

Japan has fared pretty well in the realm of professional sports these days with more and more Nippon Professional Baseball players popping up in the Major League and the recent rise in men’s and women’s soccer.

Even on the streets young Japanese people are pushing their bodies to the limit and creating awe inspiring athletic dance routines and working their way onto the world stage. The following are four such people, Taisuke Nonaka (B-boying), Yohei Uchino (flatland BMX), Kotaru Tokuda (freestyle football), and ZiNEZ (freestyle basketball).

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3 larger-than-life ninja tales

More than likely, you’ve heard of the legend of the ninja, the stealthy hired hands and spies for regional warlords in feudal Japan. But considering how popular ninjas are in the modern world, from video games to ninja-themed American bars, it can be pretty hard to separate historical fact from fiction. And today we have three stories for you about this secretive bunch that may help to give a little more light to the mythos surrounding ninja and the truth behind some of these larger-than-life tales. Click below to read three anecdotes (of varying veracity) about what made ninjas into the legend they are today!

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Quick, what color means “go” at a traffic signal? If you speak English, odds are you just said “green” (and if you don’t speak English, why are you here? The articles with pictures of cute girls and cool robots are in a different part of the site).

On the other hand, in Japanese that same light is considered ao, which translates as “blue.” Crazy as it may seem, the Japanese concept of the color extends all the way down to the hues of traffic signals and mountain forests. It’s just one example of how the same word can have different meanings in different cultures.

OK, so that may be true for artsy fartsy things like colors, but surely this kind of linguistic flatulence isn’t present in the world of business, right? Wrong. Even seemingly simple things like the term “quality” can have vastly different meanings depending on the nation, as one expert demonstrates by explaining the differing definitions consumers in the U.S., Japan, Korea, and China have for it.

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Last week, I was riding the train home from one of the luxurious adventures that define my jet-setting expat lifestyle (swimming at the public pool, which had been half-filled with elderly women doing water aerobics). As I sat down on the bench seat, I noticed a girl sitting opposite me, wearing the uniform of either a middle or high school student.

After a few stops, a man in his 30s entered the car and without hesitation sat down next to the girl and began talking to her. The girl turned her face away and did her best to ignore the man, yet, undaunted and now leaning closer to her, he continued jabbering away, occasionally pausing and waiting in vain for some sort of response. At this point there were at least a half-dozen other people on the train watching this uncomfortable scene unfold, and yet no one had made a move to intervene.

This internal struggle between lending a helping hand and not getting involved in others’ business isn’t an entirely unusual problem in Japanese society, as illustrated by a recent Twitter debate that flared up over one man’s quandary about how far to go in helping a distraught little girl he saw wandering the streets alone at night.

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Japanese university seating plan meme submitted to web for approval

The internet is a vast ocean of small infographics, flow charts, and images with the aim to succinctly present the truths of life to the masses. However, not every clever doodle is worth being held in our hard drives to be pulled out during a relevant discussion later on. These images sink into the deep abyss of the internet ocean, only to be found when James Cameron finally gets a good enough sub.

Let’s watch as one humble netizen submits their typical Japanese university seating arrangement to others. Will the chart hit home with other students, or will it fall flat? First let’s look at an English translation of it.

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Shonen Jump’s J-Stars Victory Vs. game video features theme song

Namco Bandai Games began streaming the fourth promotional video for its J-Stars Victory Vs.”team battle action” video game on Tuesday. The 158-second video features the new theme song “Fighting Stars.”

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Epic win for live-action Attack on Titan video made by German fans【Video】

Live-action adaptations of your favorite anime series are sometimes painful to watch. On rare occasions, they’re actually pretty decent, even though stories with supernatural or sci-fi elements tend to be especially difficult to reproduce faithfully in real life…or so we thought until now. Before now, many people have commented that a live-action version of the insanely popular Attack on Titan (進撃の巨人) would be impossible to execute well. But a group of enthusiastic German fans have proven everyone wrong with their amazing video which runs like a movie trailer! This production has truly raised the bar for fans around the world. One more important detail: they have real horses! 

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Daikon radishes have been really stepping up their game lately and upping the cuteness to a solid 11. First, we saw these adorable mounds of grated daikon capybaras swimming in soup. Now, a little old lady has grown a daikon that bears a striking resemblance to a Pokemon character. More on where the little guy was found and how it came to be after the break!

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Hacker group “Anonymous” takes down Japanese prefecture’s website to protest dolphin killing

International hacking group “Anonymous” has stated that it breached and shut down the official Wakayama Prefecture website earlier today as a taste of what may come should local fishermen continue to hunt dolphins. The prefecture is home to Taiji, the coastal town that shot to infamy in 2010 following an exposé in the film The Cove, which documented the mass slaughter of thousands of dolphins that takes place in the area each year.

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