(Page 1411) Category: Japan | SoraNews24 —Japan News—

Featured

Japan (Page 1411)

Yosegi wood craft — amazing in its beautiful simplicity and precision!

Kay
Oct 26, 2014
Tweet

There are several traditional crafts that Japan is known for, such as urushi lacquerware or Nishijin weaving. Perhaps not as widely known, but just as impressive, is the craft of yosegi, which uses woods of different color and texture to create exquisite patterns. In fact, the precision and skill involved is such that yosegi is not surprisingly, one of the crafts that has been featured in a series of videos uploaded by luxury fashion brand Gucci Japan on their YouTube channel dedicated to introducing the work of talented Japanese craftsmen, and the video has apparently been noticed around the world. Let’s take a look at a master artisan at work!

Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink.

KK Miller
Oct 26, 2014

Japan continues to show its love for all things “cute“. So, what has about 24,000 retweets and 31,000 favorites on Twitter right now? We’ll give you a hint, it begins with a ‘C’ and end with an ‘AT’. You get three guesses and the first two don’t count.

What’s this Tibetan temple doing in the middle of Japan? We go to find out!

Fran W
Oct 26, 2014

Moriyama-ku is an unassuming suburb of Nagoya city, backed by mountains and surrounded by forest park, which has in its midst an extraordinary hidden gem: a Tibetan Buddhist temple!

The female chief priest at Chambalin temple was trained at the sacred Jokhang monastery in Lhasa, Tibet, and she also holds the unusual honour of being the first Japanese woman to be ordained as a Tibetan chief priest.

Hearing this, our widely-travelled writer Mr. Kurosawa grabbed his reporter’s notebook and camera and headed down to take a look at this unique cultural property – and its adjoining Tibetan café.

Mini movie theatre seats now on general release, collectors of tiny chairs rejoice

Fran W
Oct 26, 2014

We all love a good gashapon capsule toy. But whether it’s One Piece characters or doggy bread, getting more than one of the same toy is usually a disappointment. No wonder some collectors skip the vending machine step altogether and buy completed sets second-hand. Duplicates are no fun.

There’s one Japanese toy company that flips that idea on its head, however. Unlike conventional capsule toys, Epoch’s scale models actually look better the more identical items you have! And these miniatures of seemingly mundane items such as school desks, shopping trolleys and folding chairs have proved a runaway hit.

So when our reporter Mr. Sato heard about the latest capsule item from Epoch, he immediately grabbed a bunch of hundred-yen coins and headed out to start collecting…miniature cinema chairs! Here’s what he found.

New app helps you translate Japanese and Chinese offline using smartphone camera

Evie Nyan
Oct 26, 2014

With their complex writing systems, getting around in Japan or China can be stressful for even the most seasoned of tourists. Sure, you could carry a travel dictionary in your pocket while you go sightseeing, but how are you supposed to look up all those funny looking sticks and squiggles when you don’t even know how to pronounce them? Often the locals try to be helpful by providing an English translation, but there are reasons why that doesn’t always work out. If only there was a way to just wave your magic smartphone over some unintelligible text and have it provide a reliable translation on the spot. Well, as we discovered over at Shanghai List, there’s an app for that.

Shocking, snowy commercial is the saddest ad we’ve seen this fall

Casey Baseel
Oct 25, 2014

Last year, we found terror in an unlikely place: a tire commercial. Wheel and tire retailer Autoway, in an effort to remind us all about changing to winter tires before driving down snowy roads, reminded us all that “Winter roads are scary,” especially when they’re haunted.

Now, Autoway is back with a new ad, and while it doesn’t deliver the fright of last year’s video, it’s no less shocking.

When a goddess speaks, you listen…unless she’s telling you to kill someone

KK Miller
Oct 25, 2014

Criminals have to come up with some pretty extravagant excuses for why they commit crimes. Sometimes, their reasons are really out there. Take the Oscar Pistorius case, for example. He acknowledges that he fired the shots that killed his girlfriend, but claims that he thought he was protecting her from a possible intruder. It’s then up to the courts to determine whether or not the defense’s theory holds any water. But what do you do when the working theory is, “Amaterasu, the sun goddess, told me to kill my mother.”

Play Mario Kart on your living room floor (using robots!) with this awesome motion camera system

Casey Baseel
Oct 25, 2014

It’s unlikely Nintendo knew what a hit they had on their hands when releasing the very first Mario Kart title back in 1992. Since then, the series has gone on to be one of the company’s most consistently popular and best-selling properties.

In the 22 years the series has been around, fans have played it on the Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, DS, 3DS, Wii, and Wii U. And now, Mario Kart is serving as inspiration for a couple of inventors who’re making a similar game that you can play with robots on your living room floor, complete with weapons and power-ups.

Witness the power a typhoon has over a bag of potato chips in this time-lapse video

Master Blaster
Oct 25, 2014

Some of you may recall the massive Typhoon Vongfong or Typhoon 19 in Japan passing straight across the country a couple weeks ago. The typhoon is said to have had an amazing minimum atmospheric pressure of 900 hectopascals (26.58inHg) at one point.

If you’re anything like us, we were left looking at those figures in awe of how much we don’t remember from our high school science classes. Luckily there’s an easier way to visualize the effect Typhoon 19 had on the air pressure thanks to this video on YouTube featuring an experiment that uses a scale everyone can understand: a bag of potato chips.

Check the weather forecast with a cool gadget that recreates the conditions in your living room

Casey Baseel
Oct 25, 2014

Growing up, I never really bothered with checking the weather report, since living in southern California meant it was sunny almost every day. It’s a different story in Japan, which sees rain in each season. Add in how much walking people do here, plus the fact that everyone hangs their clothes outside, and knowing how the weather’s going to be tomorrow becomes a little more important.

You could get the forecast from the TV news or the Internet, but if you’re looking for a more stylish alternative, a group of inventors have developed a box that’ll recreate the weather of the future, as well as the past and present, right in your living room.

Tonkatsu McBurger gets an upgrade and joins the regular McDonald’s Japan menu, people still upset

Master Blaster
Oct 25, 2014

Back in May, McDonald’s Japan unleashed the Tonkatsu McBurger highlighting Japan’s ubiquitous piece of breaded meat, the tonkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlet). Although it didn’t entirely win us over against Mos Burger’s tonkatsu burger when it first came out, the masses were pleased and cleaned out the burger chain of supplies before the Tonkatsu McBurger was scheduled to finish.

Due to that success McDonald’s will bring back the Tonkatsu McBurger but planned an added feature for its inauguration into the regular menu across Japan – a truly special moment in any sandwich’s life. This addition is an elaborately created sauce promising to heighten its flavor to a whole new level. But is it enough to win back customers lost after this summer’s chicken scandal?

New cafe in Harajuku serves up Pom Pom Purin-shaped cuisine, attracts fans and pop idols alike

Hayashi 'Fang' Hougi
Oct 25, 2014

Despite being nowhere near as famous as his feline counterpart abroad, Sanrio’s Pom Pom Purin has a very loyal fan base in his homeland, so much so that the pastel-yellow “pudding” dog managed to clinch fourth place in this year’s Sanrio Character Ranking, at one point leading the pack.

But while Hello Kitty, My Melody and Kiki & Lala have all been given their own themed cafes, poor old’ Pom Pom has had to wait on the sidelines like the patient pup he is. But by the looks of it, the first ever Pom Pom Purin Cafe was well worth the wait, with the Harajuku location boasting a super-kawaii menu with meals, desserts and drinks featuring everyone’s favorite Sanrio canine as well as adorable merchandise available only at the cafe.

Liquid wasabi from Shizuoka is our new favorite form of awesome sauce

Casey Baseel
Oct 25, 2014

Shizuoka is generally known for two things, and they’re both green. The prefecture is one of Japan’s biggest producers of not only tea, but also the fiery condiment paste wasabi.

While bottles of tea aren’t anything unusual, we’d never seen wasabi in liquid for until a recent visit to Shizuoka. Since spicy is one of our favorite flavors (we’d put it right up there with sweet and salty), we grabbed a bottle of wasabi sauce to try for ourselves. We were not disappointed.

Nicocafe dishes up a serving of surreal with manga meat, half an umaibo, and rice teishoku

Fran W
Oct 25, 2014

Niconico is Japan’s biggest video sharing website – apart from that other one – and this week sees their unique café and creative space re-open in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

The new nicocafe aims to bridge the gap between the online and offline worlds with its online interactive ordering system, which allows viewers watching at home to order items to be delivered to the guests at the bar!

We’re not sure how happy you’d be to actually receive some of these menu items, though…

The most famous cat in Japan shows us exactly how he fits his chubby body in a box

Michelle Lynn Dinh
Oct 24, 2014

Cats have been trying to shove themselves into boxes two sizes too small even before YouTube and filming your pet’s every waking moment became a thing. Maru, Japan’s most popular and arguably cutest cat, has made a name for himself by adopting the “If it fits, I sits” philosophy. His latest video, titled “-Plastic box and Maru.-” offers us a clear view of exactly how this sleepy Scottish Fold crams himself into the tiniest of spaces.

The toy you’ve always wanted: Action-figure you

Audrey Akcasu
Oct 24, 2014

Do you ever have those days when you wonder what you would look like with a six-pack, throwing a punch, or literally bending over backwards to do something, but you don’t have enough confidence in your own strength and flexibility to actually try? Have you gotten tired of your usual action figures, wishing it was you fighting the bad guys? Well, you don’t have to wonder or wish anymore with this fully moveable action figure made to look just like you!

Cute, snack-loving Japanese parakeet proves even birds go into food comas

Casey Baseel
Oct 24, 2014

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of the Japanese language here at RocketNews24, but that’s not to say we don’t have any issues with it. For example, Japanese doesn’t really have a good equivalent for “food coma.”

We can understand certain words that are tied up in cultural or historical context not existing in other languages, but the absence of food coma in Japanese seems like a pretty big oversight. After all, everyone occasionally zones out after a really satisfying meal, whether your native language is English or Japanese…or if you happen to be a parakeet.

Help one-million-year-old hag get back her glamorous good looks in new app

Cara Clegg
Oct 24, 2014

Looking for a new app to pass the time? Why not give Hag of the one million-year-old a try! Tap the screen and work your magic to get the hideous old hag back to her apparently stunning good looks (unconfirmed) of yesteryear.

Cautious consumers wary of McDonald’s free McNuggets, fear of tainted chicken lingers

Evie Nyan
Oct 24, 2014

Recently, we brought you the news that McDonald’s Japan is offering free chicken nuggets in a bid to restore consumer good will in the wake of the “Chickengate” scandal. As reported, expired Chinese chicken found its way into a range of fast food eateries’ products, sparking public fears of food poisoning. We’ve been curious as to how many people jumped at the chance for free but potentially tainted nuggets, (although McDonald’s Japan has now switched their chicken supplier from China to Thailand) and how many decided to steer clear. Luckily for us, Livedoor has conducted a survey of 1,000 participants to see how many would be willing to cash in a free chicken coupon. The results are… kind of a mix.

Kawaii concrete? Japanese retailer selling cuddly tetrapods for a limited time only

Hayashi 'Fang' Hougi
Oct 24, 2014

When I first chanced upon these soft toys, I was really confused. By the word tetrapod, I thought the oddly shaped plushies were meant to resemble an entire classification of animals including myself and my neighbor’s cat. However, after doing some research, I discovered that tetrapods are actually concrete structures used in coastal water irrigation. And some genius decided that these should be made into limited-edition soft toys that belong in your room instead of next to the ocean.

These peculiar plushies are available for pre-order between October 18 to 26 only, so if you’re a fan of these huge solid blocks of concrete that cover a worryingly large amount of Japan’s coastline, hurry and grab them whilst stocks last!