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Japan (Page 1443)

We ask Arashi fans why the boy band is so popular… because we couldn’t figure it out ourselves

Arashi is a common Japanese word meaning “storm” but utter it to any Japanese person and images of the top male idol unit in the country will likely cross their minds before those of cloudy skies and overflowing gutters. Not a day goes by without Arashi appearing on some television show, and every album they release is pretty much guaranteed to hit number one.

However, the thing is… we don’t understand why they are so successful. Not to take anything away from Arashi as performers – they’re good looking chaps who have a sound easier to digest than a cup of warm yogurt. We just don’t get why they stand above all of the other boy bands on the scene in Japan who seem to be and do exactly the same thing. So, we sent our reporter P.K. Sunjun to interview Arashi fans and get to the bottom of the group’s appeal.

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This Japanese schoolgirl loves anime, lollipops, and competitive pistol shooting【Video】

In a lot of ways, 14-year-old Akari Aruga is like a lot of girls her age. She likes watching anime, enjoys the theme song from Attack on Titan, and says lollipops are her favorite food.

But you know what’s not par for the course for an adolescent girl in Japan? Being a crack shot with a pistol in target shooting.

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Do you wanna drink a snowman? It doesn’t have to be a snowman

Frozen fans can’t get enough! Watching the movie over and over isn’t cutting it for them, because they have to live, breathe and DRINK Frozen! Well, someone high up in Disney must have been listening, because Tokyo Disney Resort has just unveiled their new Frozen themed drinks! And they are positively endearing!

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Our recipe for green tea rice-cooker pancakes: amazingly tasty, ridiculously easy

We recently found out that you can use a rice cooker to make awesome, gigantic pancakes. Our first reaction was surprise, as we’d honestly never even thought to try. Soon enough, though, our surprise faded and was replaced by something even stronger: hunger.

So we decided to get off the culinary sidelines and whip up a batch for ourselves. Since we were using Japan’s most beloved kitchen appliance, we decided to take another cue from our adopted country and spruce things up a bit by making matcha green tea pancakes.

We’re going to spoil the ending right now and tell you that they taste amazing. Want to make them yourself? Read on and we’ll give you the whole incredibly easy recipe.

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  • Jul 1, 2014

We attend Sailor Moon’s birthday bash — and watch a preview of Sailor Moon Crystal!

Do you know what June 30 is? Well, it may be the day where you say to yourself, “Oh my gosh, half the year is over! How could it have gone by so quickly?” but you just might find yourself being punished in the name of the moon if you don’t remember one other important event that takes place on that day. Yes, June 30 is Sailor Moon’s birthday, or Usagi Tsukino’s birthday if you prefer to call her by her “human” name.

With the new Sailor Moon Crystal anime series soon to be released, this year’s birthday was bound to be a special one for our Usagi-chan. And special it was! A huge birthday event in honor of our beloved warrior princess, including a preview screening of the first episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, was held in collaboration with fashion magazine ViVi on June 30 in the Tokyo Odaiba area. And since it was supposed to be kind of a girls’ night out, the event was apparently only open to women, or men accompanied by women.

We definitely couldn’t miss out on this party, and we promptly sent one of our reporters from our Japanese sister site — we couldn’t wait to see what the huge do would be like!

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Netizens balk at Ibaraki Prefecture town’s sea life-encrusted mascot character

Anyone who has ever visited Japan or spent any amount of time browsing our pages will know that the country is home to literally hundreds of mascot characters, or yurukyara, each weirder than the last. From developmentally challenged sushi to the nightmarish Okazaemon, there’s certainly no lack of originality and quirk to be had.

But one small Ibrakai town has a new mascot character that, according to Japanese net users and our own Japanese staff, “even a mother couldn’t love.” This, ladies and gentlemen of the internet, is Araippe, a creature with bird-like feet, a shell for a nose, and dangling locks of hair that are actually fish fry.

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Our Japanese reporter talks to a stranger on Skype…things get awkward

Skype is known around the world as a convenient, free video calling service and enjoys widespread popularity in Japan. As with any online communication website, you’re bound to be contacted by someone you don’t know. If you simply ignore the contact request, nothing will come of it, but what if you didn’t? What sort of mischief would come about as a result of your imprudent actions?

This brings us to the first and hopefully last installment of what our Japanese correspondent likes to call “My English battle with a foreigner who suddenly decided to contact me on Skype”.

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Bibbidi bobbidi boo, wonderful new Disney accessories for you!

Summer is here! The days are long, the evenings are muggy and we can’t wait for these hot and humid days to pass. But nothing helps get the weather off a girl’s mind more than stories of princesses. Escape to a fairy tale wonderland with the all new Disney Jewel Summer Collection!

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Homeless in Japan and still earning a decent salary

When we picture homeless people, the images that usually come to mind aren’t exactly pleasant. While the social stigma of homelessness is brutal to say the least, the fact remains that being homeless is not something most people would choose for themselves.

And while most homeless people probably haven’t “chosen” their life, they’re not all necessarily suffering either. Some homeless men in Japan have a yearly “salary” that is down-right respectable!

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Attack on Titan star Levi graces cover of Japanese women’s magazine

Well, the public has already come forward and said that Attack on Titan‘s abrasive, but secretly caring Levi is one the most dateable anime characters of all time (the public also said they love boobs… a lot), so it’s no surprise that Levi is getting the star treatment even outside of anime circles.

On June 27, Levi graced the cover of the popular women’s magazine, FRaU, for the magazine’s book and manga special edition that included a manga awards page – several of which, no doubt, Levi is now the proud owner of.

Artist and Attack on Titan creator Hajime Isayama drew the cover especially for the issue, which features Levi reclining in a fancy office chair, with a manga and a pair of classy loafers; a look the youthful hero probably doesn’t get to sport too often in the world of Attack on Titan.

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Saudi Arabian TV tempts would-be thieves in Tokyo to test Japan’s honesty

Besides great sushi, great customer service and ubiquitous vending machines, another great thing about living in Japan is the relatively low crime rate there. Although the country certainly has its criminals (including very cute and cuddly ones), visitors, tourists and expats in Japan routinely extol how Japanese culture has created a society where even a wallet full of cash will be returned to its owner most of the time. After hearing about Japan’s reputation for being an honest, rule-abiding country, a Saudi Arabian TV show created a social experiment to see what would happen when they left a very conspicuous wallet on the busy streets of Tokyo.

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After spending a year in college studying in Tokyo, I moved back to Los Angeles for about two years before coming back to Japan for work. Having always prided myself on my familiarity with Japanese slang (partly to distract myself from my terrible penmanship when writing kanji characters), I was surprised to find out how many new terms had sprung up in just the 22 months I’d been away.

At the same time, it turned out that a few of the vocabulary words I’d picked up while studying abroad had since passed their expiration dates and become obsolete. This wasn’t a one-time transition, either, as language is constantly evolving, and today we bring you a list of eight words that’ll at best make you sound like a senior citizen, and at worst simply won’t be understood by anyone under the age of 25.

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Japan’s most successful manga artists draw their characters for the camera 【Video】

Although most manga artists have a team of assistants backing them up, compared to live-action films, comics allow for a much more direct transmission of the creator’s vision. Movie and TV programming are by nature a collaborative effort, and you can’t really watch a scene go from concept to finished version in real-time.

With manga, though, you can give a talented artist a pen, and within minutes see him or her transform the emptiness of a blank sheet of paper into a character that will inspire and entertain countless fans, like in this video featuring some of Japan’s most popular manga artists and characters.

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Japanese Americans tell STORIES FROM TOHOKU

Filmmakers Dianne Fukami and Debra Nakatomi are sansei (third-generation Japanese Americans) from California who met while serving on the 2009 Japanese American Leadership Delegation, a cross-cultural program sponsored by the U.S.-Japan Council. When the triple tragedy of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster hit the northeastern region of Japan on March 11, 2011, Fukami and Nakatomi decided to make a documentary that told the stories of survivors.

They met a woman who managed to recover her old kimono and makes dolls out of the fabric; a struggling organic farmer in Fukushima; a cafe owner who cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner to refugees in a shelter during the first six months after the disaster; and mothers in Fukushima who commute to a kindergarten an hour away so that their children can play outside.

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As the rainy season in Japan begins to wind down and we head into the sweet spot of midsummer, more and more people are hitting the beach and working on their tans. For followers of a certain fashion aesthetic, there’s nothing more appealing than a beautifully bronzed body, which holds true whether we’re talking about men, women, or even video game consoles, it seems.

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Some reflections on the popularity of Japanese manga in Spain

You may be surprised to hear this, but Japanese manga is thriving in Spain. Look no further than massive conventions such as Madrid’s Expomanga and Barcelona’s Salón del Manga, where fans can celebrate their favorite series and characters with other like-minded people. So what are some of the factors that contribute to manga’s success in España?  

The folks at Japanese website Niconico News recently caught up with David Hernando, the Editorial Editor of Planeta DeAgostini Comics, which is a Spanish-Italian publisher that distributes many beloved Japanese manga series throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Mr. Hernando graciously shed some light on the current market for manga in Spain in an exclusive interview with them, and the following piece will attempt to summarize some of his key points, along with some other related topics we have taken notice of.

We would love to hear the thoughts of our readers residing in Spain as well, so please leave your comments at the end of the post!

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Smush your favorite One Piece characters

Luffy’s Gomu-gomu powers have gotten him into quite a few awkwardly shaped situations. Being made of rubber means that you can become pretty malleable when you’re in tight space, but does that make it any more comfortable? Well, Bandai’s latest line of gashapon toys delve into that idea, not just for Luffy, but for several other members of the Straw Hat crew. Presenting, the One Piece Hasamare Straps!

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Questionable decisions: Denny’s releases instant jambalaya, we put it in our mouths

When it comes to cuisine from the United States, there’s just nothing like jambalaya. And you definitely don’t need to be from the South to enjoy it–who could say no to a hot plate of home-cooked jambalaya? Or, if you’re in Japan, a Denny’s cooked plate of jambalaya? Not us, that’s for sure.

But what about a microwaved cardboard cup of jambalaya? Well, we might need a minute to think about that one…

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Rowr! This anti-power harassment poster is too sexy for its own good

If there’s anything Fifty Shades of Grey has taught us, it’s that SM isn’t quite as underground as some might think. Of course, it’s also showed us what bad writing looks like, but mostly it’s the SM thing. Whether this mainstreaming of SM will prove to be a fad like Kabalah in Hollywood, or a long-term change, is still unclear, but there’s no doubting that a lot more people have come to appreciate a bit of domination in their lives.

Of course, just because you like domination in your personal life doesn’t mean you necessarily want it from your boss, Secretary and Be My Slave notwithstanding. In fact, “power harassment” has become a bit of a hot topic in Japan, along with sexual harassment. It’s gotten enough attention to warrant a public education campaign, complete with posters for the workplace. One poster in particular has been getting a lot of attention on Twitter…though not exactly for the reason you might expect.
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Rare and empty pack of smokes now selling on Yahoo! Japan Auction for $300,000

Ever since 2005, the Japanese government has mandated that at least 30 percent of a tobacco product’s warning label contain a written warning about the hazards of smoking. Even prior to that in 1990, there was a mandatory warning written along the side of packs which read, “Warning: too much smoking is a risk to your health.”

In fact we have to go way back to before 1972 until we can find Japanese cigarettes without a warning label. One such pack is currently under the virtual hammer of Yahoo! Japan Auction with bids starting at 30,000,000 yen (US$296,000). Appropriately, the name of this brand of cigarettes is Hope.

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