Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
Japan (Page 1549)
Hayao Miyazaki, often referred to as “the Walt Disney of Japan,” is undoubtedly famous in his home country. With record-breaking films such as Academy Award-winning, Spirited Away, and the iconic, My Neighbor Totoro, it’s easily assumed that everyone in Japan has watched at least one Miyazaki movie. A recent poll conducted by a Japanese movie rental chain reveals that, actually, almost everyone in Japan has.
Naotake Odake, former managing director of the Japan Tourist Bureau (JTB) and once director of the Tokyo Convention and Visitors Bureau, spent years of his professional life traveling to cities across the globe in order to promote Tokyo as a worthwhile tourist destination. In his travels, he noticed a trait shared by all the major cities: they each had a unique and well-recognized landmark embodying the history and culture of the land. According to Odake, a structure of this sort is vital to bolstering a spirit of pride in any given population. Unfortunately for Tokyo, he believes that this sort of historical landmark is something that Japan’s capital city severely lacks. What he has against Asakusa Temple, Tokyo Tower, or Tokyo Skytree, I’m really not sure. But, it is for this reason that Odake has taken the lead as the chairman of a non-profit organization which hopes to rebuild the Edo Castle’s innermost tower. “In order to present Tokyo as a proud tourist city, we need something like Edo Castle,” he says. But will the payoff really outweigh the costs?
Telephone fraud is a serious problem in Japan and many elderly people fall victim to it each year. Known as “ore ore sagi“, fraudsters often pretend to be the call recipient’s son, using such lines as, “Mom, it’s me, it’s me! I’m in trouble!” to trick large sums of money from the unsuspecting party, and banks now post warnings next to their ATMs asking people only to send money if they’re 100-percent sure of who they’re sending it to.
Thanks to increased awareness of the problem, however, more and more people are beginning to see through this type of scam. One particularly clued-up 69-year-old who realized something was wrong, in fact, has recently been co-operating with local police by pretending that she had been duped by a call she received from fraudsters, ultimately leading to their arrests.
A Nagaski area public toilet is proving that the future that Blade Runner envisioned is now, and it’s in Japan.
The public toilet in question is apparently about a 10-minute walk from the station proper, at an unassuming location near a pedestrian underpass. To even gain access to the toilet requires you to figure out a complex series of buttons and probably pass a retinal scan to ensure you aren’t a Replicant.
We’ve all been there: you’ve got your shiny new laptop, smartphone or tablet computer and you’re lounging around on the floor at home, watching videos on YouTube, tapping away at Plants Vs. Zombies… when suddenly your pampered, first-world body throws a hissy hit. “I’m tired! Why do I always have to hold all the expensive electronic devices!?” it moans as you start to lose the feeling in your arm or your left leg goes to sleep. You wriggle around and find a new position, but before long your body’s complaining again and you just can’t get comfy.
Oh, wouldn’t it be great if there were something – a piece of furniture perhaps – that would hold your tablet or computer for you while you did massively unimportant web browsing and lay on the floor!?
Enter the Goron tablet cushion, which not only supports your head and neck while you laze around, but comes complete with an adjustable holder for tablets, laptops and even small monitors! Yep, gamers just got that little bit lazier!
In the early days of the iPhone in Japan it was under an exclusive contract with telecoms giant Softbank, which gradually gave way to AU availability as well. This left NTT’s Docomo, as the only big mobile carrier without any Apple product of its own.
However, coinciding with the Japanese launch of the new iPhone5S and iPhone5C today, Docomo has finally jumped on the iPhone bandwagon and is carrying the unit that so many people have been clamouring for. No one was more thrilled at the news then our own Mr. Sato, a long time Docomo subscriber. So he headed down to the Docomo store in Marunouchi to get one as soon as it came out. Turns out he was their very first customer.
Japanese seem to love giving their drinks an unexpected twist. They’ve tried hot ginger ale, orange juice that looks like soy sauce, and a milk drink with tomato and lemon flavoring. Compared to those wacky creations, Yakult’s popular probiotic dairy drinks seem positively pedestrian, but now they’ve upped their game.
Care for a hot, potable yogurt, anyone?
“I hate this job.” Not exactly uncommon words, are they? While you may not necessarily love the work you do, it’s always nice to at least not hate your job, right? Unfortunately, it seems that all too many of us are stuck in life-draining professions, wishing we could start all over. And, it turns out, over half of young “irregular” Japanese workers can sympathize.
Most Japanophiles in the world have heard of the smash hit anime, Dragonball Z. Recently the series gained yet another surge of popularity due to its 2009 remastered broadcast, hooking a whole new generation of fans. But how many viewers have kept up with the voice actors who worked on DBZ since the show’s final episodes aired? For instance, did you know that Ryo Horikawa, the voice of Saiyan prince, Vegeta, just recently started up a rock band?
Are his badass readings breaking your scouter yet? Just wait until you hear who else has joined his team…
Kimokawaii is a relatively modern concept in Japan describing something that’s so kimoi (gross) it’s kawaii (cute). Well if that’s the case, this family of mushrooms is the most adorable thing we’ve ever seen. The Nameko Family is a new television series featuring Nameko, an anthropomorphic nameko mushroom, the slimy fungi often found in miso soup, and features an entire household full of deformed, strange and down right kimoi characters. But has this new show crossed the line, being too gross for even the biggest kimokawaii fan to find cute?
Hiroshi Yamauchi, the former head of video game giant Nintendo who helmed the company during its period of skyrocketing growth in the 1980s and 90s, has passed away at the age of 85. The entertainment visionary succumbed to pneumonia on September 19.
Many would agree that smartphones are the easiest and most convenient way to stay entertained no matter where you go, provided there’s reception. Although, they do distract us from what’s happening in the immediate vicinity. Texting and checking apps while walking through the streets of a busy city can lead to collisions with people or signposts, or even traffic if one isn’t careful! Now, a recent string of scams in Tokyo shows that the distractedness we experience when on our phones also make us a target. Read More
Amazing as Japan’s metropolises are, after spending enough time in some of the most densely populated spots on the planet, urban fatigue starts to set in. There’s nothing like a getaway to the countryside to refresh your spirits after one too many days scurrying around downtown in packed train and subway cars.
The Shirakawa-go district, located in Gifu Prefecture, is close enough to Tokyo or Osaka that it makes an easy weekend escape for residents, as well as a simple side trip for overseas tourists crisscrossing the country. In terms of atmosphere, though, Shirakawa-go is worlds away from Japan’s largest cities.
Edible art is kind of a thing these days, especially in Asia, where seemingly every dish is so artfully crafted and cute you couldn’t possibly eat it – especially when it takes the form of a cat poking out of your latte.
This admittedly somewhat wasteful art form may have reached its pinnacle with these mind-boggling works of makizushi magnificence.
When you’re hovering on the verge of leaving this world, the last thing you want to feel is lingering regret about those unique foods you never had the chance to try and all those unimaginable flavours and textures you missed out on, or never knew existed. To avoid such a terrible fate, a list of 20 strange bucket-list foods has recently been compiled by a British news site and has been widely commented on in Japan, as it features two home-grown favourites: fugu and shiokara. Fugu is the poisonous pufferfish of Simpsons fame, while shiokara is a relatively harmless dish composed of shreds of meat from a sea creature (commonly squid) in a slimy paste of its heavily salted, fermented raw guts. I mean, viscera.
So my taste buds won’t spend an eternity regretting the tragic circumstances that left their fugu and shiokara cherry unpopped, I aim to get to the bottom of these Japanese dishes! Er, okay, maybe not right to the bottom. I’ll have a few cautious bites and see how it goes.
If you’re going to Tokyo Tower anytime soon, you probably won’t be able to go up to the 250-meter (820-foot) Special Observatory, which stands high above the 150-meter (492-foot) Main Observatory. Why? The one-and-only elevator providing service to the higher level has been temporarily closed after a piece of flying metal broke one of the glass walls!
Located in a remote section of a remote prefecture of Japan, Kumamoto’s Amakusa City faces the same problem a lot of rural towns do: its population is dwindling as children born there generally have to leave to pursue an education or career, and few move back.
As part of an effort to boost the remaining residents’ spirits, as well as hopefully garner a little tourism publicity, Amakusa recently held a World Santa Congress.
While traveling in Iwate Prefecture recently, one of our reporters stumbled across a brightly decorated pack of instant ramen. Although first drawn by the buxom moe character on the front, it was the name – Rare Cheese Kimchi Natto Ramen – that made this a must-buy.
We’ve no doubt all seen some horrendous fashion crimes out on the streets before now, perpetrated by people of all ages, but older people in particular seem to get a bad rap when it comes to dressing themselves for the times, with endless jokes made about things like mom jeans, grannie panties and middle-aged men in sandals and socks.
The creators of the Japanese fashion blog L’idéal, however, decided that it was time to take a stand and right the wrongs unintentionally done to the country’s elderly. Showcasing some of the coolest and most beautifully dressed older Japanese women we’ve ever seen, L’idéal challenges stereotypes and hopes to change our outlook on this estranged generation.
One of Japan’s most ancient sports, sumo is both steeped in tradition and considered to be one of the most demanding in the world. Professional sumo wrestlers, or rikishi, must not only commit to a strict regime of physical training and the daily consumption of gargantuan meals in order to maintain their enormous mass, but also obey rules that cover everything from their hairstyles and the clothing they may wear in public to the use of vehicular transportation.
Although sumo’s popularity in Japan is on the wane, the sport is becoming increasingly popular in Western countries, particularly in the United States where groups such as USA Sumo are growing ever larger and receiving more and more media attention with each year that passes. And we’d be willing to bet that after seeing the following video taken at the US Sumo Open 2013 event, even the most sceptical of Western sports fans will start taking sumo a little more seriously.
Canned cuteness as Hello Kitty and friends kick off Can Chara capsule toy line【Photos】
Majority of Japanese women in survey regret marrying their husband, but that’s only half the story
Visiting Japan’s Gyarados Pokémon park in the city with a special connection to Magikarp【Photos】
Japanese vending machine serves up unique drinks at four Tokyo train stations
Starbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
Boro the Caterpillar anime now showing at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo 【SoraReview】
Japan Airlines debuts airport translation panels, translation error quickly results
Which Japanese beef bowl chain’s near-identical demon grater onioroshi ponzu gyudon is the best?
We try an unusual buffet of dishes made from wild game at a roadside stop in Chiba
7-Eleven Japan’s ramen-cooking robot whipped us up a bowl of noodles【Taste test】Starbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
Starbucks Japan releases new Frappuccino and latte for Valentine’s Day
Our 52-year-old pole dancing reporter shares his tips for achieving your New Year’s exercise goal
Totoro cream puffs and Catbus cookies are finally available in downtown TokyoMajority of Japanese women in survey regret marrying their husband, but that’s only half the story
Massive manga collaboration bringing 100 years of Shueisha manga to Uniqlo T-shirts【Photos】
Giant hotel rooms in Osaka reflect the new non-niche face of travel in Japan.
Japanese women showing rebounding interest in giving Valentine’s Day chocolate【Survey】
Japan’s kid-friendly ski program is now selling Pikachu snowboards for a limited time only
Ramen restaurant’s English menu prices are nearly double its Japanese ones, denies discriminatingStarbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
10 times to avoid traveling in Japan in 2026
Starbucks Japan ready to get Year of the Horse started with adorable drinkware and plushies【Pics】Starbucks Japan releases new Frappuccino and latte for Valentine’s Day
7-Eleven Japan starts new temporary luggage storage service in over 300 branchesOur 52-year-old pole dancing reporter shares his tips for achieving your New Year’s exercise goal
Disillusionment at Tsukiji’s tourist-target prices led us to a great ramen restaurant in TokyoRamen restaurant’s English menu prices are nearly double its Japanese ones, denies discriminating
Starbucks teams up with 166-year-old Kyoto doll maker for Year of the Horse decorations【Photos】
Japan may add Japanese language proficiency, lifestyle classes to permanent foreign resident requirements
Survey asks foreign tourists what bothered them in Japan, more than half gave same answer
Japan’s human washing machines will go on sale to general public, demos to be held in Tokyo
We deeply regret going into this tunnel on our walk in the mountains of Japan
Studio Ghibli releases Kodama forest spirits from Princess Mononoke to light up your homeStarbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
Major Japanese hotel chain says reservations via overseas booking sites may not be valid
Put sesame oil in your coffee? Japanese maker says it’s the best way to start your day【Taste test】
No more using real katana for tourism activities, Japan’s National Police Agency says
Starbucks Japan reveals new sakura drinkware collection, inspired by evening cherry blossoms
Updated cherry blossom forecast shows extra-long sakura season for Japan this year
Boro the Caterpillar anime now showing at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo 【SoraReview】
Japan Airlines debuts airport translation panels, translation error quickly results
Which Japanese beef bowl chain’s near-identical demon grater onioroshi ponzu gyudon is the best?
We try an unusual buffet of dishes made from wild game at a roadside stop in Chiba
7-Eleven Japan’s ramen-cooking robot whipped us up a bowl of noodles【Taste test】
Private booths are coming to Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains even sooner than we’d thought【Video】
Rumors say Tokyo’s Sensoji Temple sticks you with bad fortunes, so we bought 100 to find out
Sleep in a futuristic space pod at this interstellar capsule hotel just outside of Tokyo
Sanrio pancakes celebrate My Melody’s birthday, and Cinnamoroll too, at Japanese cafes
11 different ways to say “father” in Japanese
Sanrio Character Ranking results: Cinnamaroll’s five-year streak broken, poll still goes to dogs
How to make a massive deep dish Chicago Pizza…in your rice cooker
Street Fighter Hadouken Churros to be launched and eaten in Tokyo, Okami pudding on offer too
Studio Ghibli releases 400 images from eight movies free to download online
