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Disney cakes are adorable, artistic, and only available for a limited time

Casey Baseel
Apr 22, 2014
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With the string of holidays known as Golden Week coming up in early May, all of Japan is looking forward to a couple of days off to spend with friends and family. Whether you’re visiting a friend’s apartment or going back to your hometown for a couple of days, Japanese manners dictate that you should bring a gift, with food being the most popular choice.

If you’re stumped for what kind of food to bring, here’s an easy way to play the percentages. Almost everyone likes cake, and almost everyone in Japan likes Disney characters, so odds are this set of Disney cakes will make just about everyone happy.

Classic Japanese painting “Picture Scroll of a Fart Battle” is exactly what it sounds like

Casey Baseel
Apr 22, 2014

The earliest weapon associated with the samurai was the longbow, and many were also proficient with polearms. Neither is what first springs to mind for most people when they think of Japan’s warrior class, though. To many, the image of two opposing samurai grasping their swords, ready to duel, is by far the more iconic image.

But while the bow is technically the most traditional, the polearm arguably the most practical, and the katana certainly the most dramatic, none of these are anywhere near as funny as the depiction in this centuries-old scroll of samurai battling each other with their farts.

Pokémon XY episode about sunken passenger ship delayed

Anime News Network
Apr 22, 2014

The official website for the Pokémon XY television series announced on Monday that the previously scheduled episode for Thursday, April 24, “Kaitei no Shiro! Kuzumō to Doramidoro!!” (Castle at the Bottom of the Ocean! Skrelp and Dragalge!!), has been delayed indefinitely “due to circumstances.”

A South Korean ferry sank off the southern coast of South Korea on Wednesday. Of the 462 passengers, including 325 high school students, 87 have been confirmed dead and 215 remain missing.

Japanese pig farmer shows the world how pigs should be treated

Oona McGee
Apr 22, 2014

A pig farmer in Japan is warming hearts around the world, thanks to a photo collection that documents his life with some 1,200 pigs. Whether he’s tending to the little piglets, sleeping with the sows, or serenading them all with tunes on his guitar, this is a farmer who loves spending time in the pen surrounded by his animals.

We visit Tokyo’s rabbit café to celebrate Easter in the cutest way possible 【Photos】

Casey Baseel
Apr 22, 2014

My wife, who’s always interested in learning more about foreign culture (no doubt in an effort to better understand her insufferably baffling husband), recently asked me how Easter is celebrated in America. “We usually hunt for Easter eggs and eat chocolate rabbits,” I told her, which quickly presented us with two problems. First, our apartment isn’t nearly large enough for a proper Easter egg hunt, and while you can get special Easter donuts in Japan, bunny-shaped candies are surprisingly nonexistent.

Stumped as to how to spend the holiday, my wife offered a suggestion. “Why don’t we go to the rabbit café?”

Tokyo’s new rentable bikes are a great start, but the city is still far from bike-friendly…

Philip Kendall
Apr 22, 2014

Close your eyes and throw a stick in pretty much any Tokyo neighbourhood, and there’s a good chance that you’ll hit someone riding a bicycle. With roughly 72 million bikes on the streets of Japan, they’re an essential part of daily life for many, especially in urban areas where space for motor vehicle parking is both limited and expensive.

Last weekend, though, we stumbled upon a fleet of sparkling new bicycles that couldn’t be more different to the typical mamachari shopping bikes that everyone from junior high schoolers to worryingly wobbly grandmothers pedal around town. Sleek, compact, and with”Suicle” stamped on their crossbars, these lime-green lightweights are available for anyone with a prepaid IC bus or rail card and a half-decent sense of balance to rent.

Eager to know if the ride, and the process of renting and returning, was as smooth as a nearby sign purported it to be, we took a couple of the mini bikes out for a spin.

The pillows fans rejoice! You could win a contest to meet the band in Tokyo【Videos】

Angelina Lucienne
Apr 21, 2014

2014 marks 25 years as a band for the pillows. They are celebrating with a song entitled “Happy Birthday,” and also by announcing a cover and dance contest. For those with the misfortune of not knowing who the pillows are, they are a Japanese rock band whose style has changed over the last 25 years from pop to jazz experimentation to alternative rock.

Many of the band’s fans outside of Japan became acquainted with them through the six-episode animated series, FLCL, for which the pillows provided the music. The caffeinated, crunchy soundtrack is the perfect complement to the nonsensical but purely fun plot that includes a robot that emerges from a boy’s head wound, the spirit of a powerful pirate king and the sexy maniac who hunts him down riding a Vespa with an electric bass as a weapon.

Chiba craft brewery releases unfortunately named “Immigrant Pilsner” for sale nationwide

Mike
Apr 21, 2014

As a two-party democracy, the United States can be a fickle place for marketers. Republicans and Democrats are so different ideologically that certain words and phrases on your product label or in your ad campaign are practically guaranteed to alienate half of the market; or, if you’re especially unlucky, all of it. Take the word “immigrant,” for example – it’s a loaded word that will make Republicans shun your product believing that it advocates rights for immigrants (Remember, this is the same party whose leaders sometimes suggest in all seriousness building a moat – complete with cartoonish man-eating alligators – around the US to keep illegals out), while Democrats might see the word “immigrant” on a product and suspect some type of labor exploitation going on.

Luckily, Americans – and Japanese – of all stripes are united in their love of beer, so Chiba, Japan’s Loco Beer brewery’s rendition of an old American beer recipe, originally brewed by German immigrants, gets a pass from American expats and Japanese consumers alike on the unfortunate naming of its new Immigrant Pilsner craft beer.

Enjoy a view of Mt Fuji from anywhere in the world with these new ice souvenirs

Oona McGee
Apr 21, 2014

Ever since Mt Fuji earned World Heritage status in 2013, designers and artists have been marking the occasion with a flurry of creative merchandise featuring the famous landmark. The latest product to hit shelves shows the celebrations are continuing well into 2014, this time with moulded ice mountains that sit perfectly in your favourite drink! The attention to detail is particularly impressive, with the concentrated tip of ice perfectly resembling the famous snow-covered peak of Mt Fuji.

We take a look at the unique mould that makes them and see why this is one of Japan’s latest must-have souvenirs.

Miss Todai/weather forecaster Ayaka Sawada’s adorable drawings

Krista Rogers
Apr 21, 2014

Twenty-year-old Ayaka Sawada has a lot going for her. To begin with, she’s currently a junior in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tokyo (Todai for short), the most prestigious university in Japan. Secondly, she is the newly appointed weather forecaster on NTV’s Sunday morning program Shuichi. Thirdly, she’s drop-dead gorgeous, and was even crowned “Miss Todai 2013”! Is there anything this girl can’t do?

It’s also safe to cross art off that list, because it turns out that Ayaka’s also talented at drawing. Her profile lists drawing as one of her special skills, but we were still impressed by the following adorable sketches made by her!

Attack on Lotteria! Get your burger with a side of Levi and Eren

Preston Phro
Apr 21, 2014

Do you love burgers and enormous, skinless giants? How about sexy studs Eren and Levi from the super popular Attack on Titan? If you answered yes to any–or all–of those questions, then you better get to your nearest Lotteria this Friday, because supplies for the limited-edition mini-towel and plastic file are…uh…limited!

Also, we’d really like a milkshake while you’re there.

Japan Self-Defense Force’s elite Central Band performs Hatsune Miku song Senbonzakura

Master Blaster
Apr 21, 2014

There are a number of active bands in Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF), but at the top of them is the Central Band. In existence longer the GSDF itself, they are the go-to band in situations where it’s unacceptable to screw up, such as welcoming foreign dignitaries and ceremonies of the highest order.

Then there’s “Senbonzakura”. This song was produced by WhiteFlame (aka Kurousa-P) and utilizes the artificial vocal talents of vocaloid Hatsune Miku. After its upload to video hosting site Niconico Douga in 2011, it became a modern classic of the vocaloid genre spawning several remixes and covers online and in karaoke rooms.

So what happens when the rigid discipline and tradition of the GSDF Central Band meets the wild pop of Senbonzakura? Let’s take a listen!

Japanese Twitter users and the tale of the broken battery

Preston Phro
Apr 21, 2014

One of the benefits of living in a modern society is letting other people worry about building all the stuff we use–like cars or blenders or cell phones. After all, do you really know what’s going on inside an internal combustion engine or how your juicer works? Well, okay, actually, you might know, but even so, it’s fair to say that the average person probably doesn’t have a very clear idea of how all their appliances–kitchen or otherwise–were actually put together.

And there’s nothing wrong with that! That’s the whole point of living in a society–DIYers and insane survivalists aside–specialization is what lets us have so much cool stuff. But sometimes our ignorance can lead to certain, um, embarrassing situations, as one Japanese Twitter user recently learned.

Better know a train nerd: 36 different classifications for Japan’s “densha otaku”

Jessica
Apr 21, 2014

You may already be aware that there is a subculture of train fanatics in Japan known as densha otaku, or train nerds. But did you know that there are loads of sub-subcultures within the densha otakus? From those obsessed with train noises to experts in train lunch boxes, we’ve got them all covered for you.

Japanese women dish about being betrayed by their female friends

Krista Rogers
Apr 21, 2014

To all of our lovely women readers out there – have you ever felt betrayed by another female friend? Perhaps you were deceived and taken advantage of. Perhaps the coworker you trusted as your confidant was surreptitiously spreading scandalous rumors about you behind your back. Whatever the situation was, it was sure to have been an unpleasant experience.

A recent survey on popular Japanese site Mynavi Woman asked its female readers the same question as above. Dozens of women shed light about backstabbing friends and unbelievable scenes from the past. Have any of the following situations ever happened to you?

Healthy ice cream? Well, these new Häagen-Dazs vegetable flavors at least sound healthy!

Kay
Apr 21, 2014

Okay, we admit we have, shall we say, a certain amount of fondness for Häagen-Dazs ice cream (no, we’re not calling it an obsession, not yet). But that’s because the people at Häagen-Dazs keep giving us reasons to be obsessed about fond of their products, so it’s not really our fault, is it? And now, it looks like Häagen-Dazs might have done it again, with two new flavors, that despite seeming unconventional for ice cream, certainly sound good enough to plunge our spoons into!

Poster for Ghibli’s new movie under fire … from the big guru himself!

Kay
Apr 21, 2014

Apparently, someone is unhappy at Studio Ghibli these days with one of the posters that are lining the studio’s walls. And who might that be? It’s none other than the studio’s co-founder, Hayao Miyazaki, and the poster he’s upset about happens to be the one for Ghibli’s upcoming release, When Marnie Was There. But what doesn’t Miyazaki like about this seemingly beautifully illustrated poster?

“How many freakin’ CDs do I have to buy?” Fans displeased with idol group’s debut single

Master Blaster
Apr 20, 2014

On 16 April, idol group, Rev. from DVL, released their first major single through entertainment giant Yoshimoto Kogyo, thanks largely to the break-out success of member Kanna Hashimoto.

However, what was intended to be a celebration of the Fukuoka-based unit’s new-found fame ended up generating sad and bitter complaints from idol fans. At the center of the controversy was the inclusion of tickets to a “high-five party” bundled in with their single LOVE-arigatou-.

Japan’s king of curry restaurants enters the instant noodle market, we taste the results

Casey Baseel
Apr 20, 2014

Ironically, two of Japan’s go-to choices for a hot, satisfying meal came from overseas. Ramen is Chinese in origin, and curry came to Japan from India via contact with the British Navy.

Deciding between the two dishes can be a difficult task, which is where curry ramen, noodles floating in a curry broth, comes in. Until now, though, trying to have the best of both worlds meant giving up on the chance to eat the offerings of Japan’s most popular curry chain, CoCo Ichi. But with a new team-up between the beloved chain and instant noodle maker Ace Cook, not only can you dine on CoCo Ichi curry ramen and udon, but you don’t even have to leave the house to do so.

We try McDonald’s Avocado Beef, see if it’s as lame as people on Twitter are suggesting

Master Blaster
Apr 20, 2014

Remember the other day when we announced the surprisingly fresh looking Avocado Burger Series from McDonald’s Japan? Many, including us couldn’t help but get drawn in to the heaps of vibrant green avocado bulging out of a firm ciabatta bun, even though deep down we knew it was too good to be true.

With their release date of 17 April here, many rushed to their nearest McDonald’s outlet to get a first crack at the uncharacteristically fresh and healthy looking sandwich. Unfortunately, what the first few customers reported was not pretty.

So are these customer reviews doing the avocado burgers justice, or is there still some truth in advertising left? We picked one up to see for ourselves.