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Japan (Page 1694)

Hello Kitty not picky about her jobs – this time she gets baked!

We’ve said before that Hello Kitty doesn’t appear to be too picky about her jobs – she seems willing to take on an awfully wide range of engagements upon request. Well, we’ve recently discovered that Ms. Kitty, as we sometimes like to call her, now has an amazing new job. This time, believe it or not, her job involves being baked whole and then sold as kongari-yaki or “golden brown baked Kitty”. What will become of our beloved Kitty? Will she come out of this endeavor unscathed? Read More


  • Apr 21, 2012

Beautiful “transparent” biological specimens a work of art – you can actually buy them and they look amazing!

Have you heard of a series of unique creations called “Transparent Specimens” produced by Iori Tomita? It may sound bizarre, but they are specimens of different living creatures including fish, arthropods, reptiles and mammals that have been specially treated to make them transparent. And the end result is far from bizarre – in fact, the specimens are so beautiful that the series of work have a considerable following of fans.

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The Japanese version of the popular travel information site Trip Adviser recently published a list of the best factory tours in Japan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the nation’s most popular exports makes it to number one. Read More

Smartphone Too Smart For You? Analog Smartphone Coming Your Way…

Japanese mobile company AU has unveiled its latest concept phone featuring a wind-up analog clock.

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We Order Whopper With 1050 Bacon Strips, Struggle to Level Comically Huge Burger

Well that didn’t take long.

Just yesterday we shared the story of how our own Mr. Sato capitalized on Burger King Japan’s current 15 bacon strips for 100 yen (US $1.20) promotion by ordering a Whopper with 105 bacon strips.

While Mr. Sato managed to finish the burger, he didn’t seem to be in the best shape afterwards, falling into a meat-induced coma and then suddenly breaking out of it only to run out of the room with his hand covering his mouth.

Surely, we thought, Mr. Sato has finally learned his lesson; that consuming stacks of bacon is a task better left to professionals.

So imagine our surprise when he came in the office holding a plastic bag sagging under the weight of a 1050 bacon strip Whopper.

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Why is Japan Turning Blue at Night? More and More Streets Being Draped in Peacefully Bizarre Azure Lights

A growing number of people all across Japan have been noticing their neighborhoods getting a little jazzier these days.  If you live in Japan and haven’t seen them yet then just wait.  But why have cities all over the country been trading in their traditional yellowish lights for the blue light special?

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  • Apr 18, 2012

A Sweets Lover’s Paradise – Tokyo Confectionery Land opens in Tokyo Station and their “drinkable” cream puffs are a must try!

We have good news for all of you cream puff lovers out there. Three major confectionery makers have joined efforts to open “Tokyo Confectionery Land” in the “Tokyo Station First Avenue” shopping area on the Tokyo Station premies, and one of the confectionery companies involved, Fujiya Co., Ltd, is selling a seriously delicious confectionery – the “drinkable” cream puff! For anyone who loves cream puffs, or sweets in general for that matter, we think this is a must try! Read More


  • Apr 18, 2012

The perfect summer snack – potato chips that are made to be cool, literally

Aren’t potato chips just great? They’re the ultimate comfort food (well, at least they are to me) and they come in a wide variety of flavors to suit your every mood. Well, there’s going to be another novel flavor for potato chip lovers in Japan to try, and the flavor is not the only thing that’s interesting about these new potato chips. Read More

Burger King Japan Offering 15 Bacon Strips for $1 So We Order Whopper With 105 Bacon Strips

Burger King Japan recently launched a promotion giving customers the option to add 15 pieces of bacon to their Whopper for a measly 100 yen (US $1.20).

That’s 500% more bacon for your buck (it’s usually 60 yen for 3 strips). It’s almost as if Burger King is operating under some CIA plot to undermine Japanese longevity by poisoning us with copious amount of cheap junk food.

Well we accept your challenge, America! In fact, we even raised the stakes to make things interesting, sending resident reporter/guinea pig Mr. Sato to eat a Whopper loaded with not 15 but 105 strips of bacon.

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Ice Cream Too Hard? No More!

We’ve probably all experienced that struggle, that anguish – you go to eat your ice cream only to discover it’s still frozen solid and your spoon can only make pathetic little dents in it. The folks at Lemnos Co. could not let this injustice go unaddressed, and have invented a special spoon to do the job. Read More


  • Apr 15, 2012

Have the Ultimate Domino’s Pizza – All the toppings and Over $100!

Our adventurous reporters previously tried a plate of Coco Ichiban Curry with everything on it, and this time we decided to follow that up with an order of Domino’s Pizza with all the toppings on it. But we didn’t order just a regular pizza with all the toppings; that would be too simple.

No, we ordered a Triple Mille-Feuille crust pizza with all the toppings! The Triple Mille-Feuille crust consists of three layers of thin ultra crispy crust with plenty of cheese sandwiched in between. So, we placed our order and waited to see what the pizza would be like. Read More

New iPhone Attachment Takes It Back to ’07, By Which We Mean 1907

Apple has had their share of run-ins over patent infringement these days, but it looks like Sanyo Transport’s recently released iPhone attachment may get an angry letter too – from the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company.

The iPhone 4S/4 Exclusive Bugle-Type Speaker certainly doesn’t win points for a catchy name, but it may hook you in with its low price, simplicity and heck even for its retro charm.

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  • Apr 14, 2012

You’ve probably never eaten melon with mayonnaise before. Well, we saw it being done by actress Erika Toda on the T.V. drama “SPEC” and thought we would give it a try. But seriously, melon with mayonnaise? Wouldn’t melon taste better as, well, simple melon?

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KDDI Releases First Iridium Satellite Phone with GPS Capability

On April 13, KDDI will begin selling “Extreme,” the newest Iridium satellite phone model and the first equipped with a GPS function.

With the GPS function, Extreme users can periodically update people in their address book on their location via email. In case of emergency, they can push the SOS Button on top of the unit to send an automatic message containing their GPS position.

At 10% thinner and 7% lighter than 9555, the previous model, it is now the thinnest, lightest Iridium satphone, and it also features better resistance to water and dust. Read More

Newspaper Companies Rally Against Inevitable Demise by Giving a Few Free Copies Away with the Purchase of an Egg McMuffin

McDonald’s may not be the best place to get nourishment for your body, but for one week at selected branches you could get some food for thought, in the form of a free newspaper.

That’s right, McDonald’s restaurants and the Japan Newspaper association have collaborated to bring you Spring Newspaper Week (April 6 to 12), which many are lauding as a glorious waste of time.

The purpose of Spring Newspaper Week is to combat the growing trend of young people not using newspapers.  Strangely, more and more younger people prefer reading their news on phones that fit in the palm of their hands rather than cumbersome sheets of paper that make their fingers black.

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Fukushima Refugees Rather Gamble than Work, Claims Iwaki City Mayor

The city of Iwaki lies 30km south of the Fukushima Daiichi just outside of the evacuation zone created after the nuclear disaster struck.  As such it has become home to approximately 25,000 displaced people from Futaba District, where the Daiichi reactor is located.

On 9 April, Iwaki Mayor Takao Watanabe had this to say about the evacuees: “With the compensation money they received from TEPCO, most people are choosing not to work.  The pachinko parlors, however, are packed every day.”  Pachinko is a highly popular game similar to pinball that is often used for gambling much like slots or video poker in other parts of the world.

Although this may sound like another case of a Japanese politician putting his foot in his mouth, it appears Mayor Watanabe is not alone with his opinion.

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Time limit, cutoff, due date. AKA “deadline”. Of course the concept applies to any number of jobs. But let it be said that the real experts on the subject are cartoonists / comic book artists.

These professionals truly know the possibilities of pre-deadline behavior. Today, we present to you 99 ways comic book artists find themselves approaching, or avoiding, their day of reckoning. See if you compare… Read More


  • Apr 11, 2012

Hello Kitty turns scary and cosplays as Japanese horror character – but still manages to be cute!

What happens when you combine one of the cutest, most beloved mascot characters in the world with one of the most terrifying characters in modern Japanese fiction and cinema? You get “Sadako Kitty”, or Kitty dressed up as Sadako, the character from the hit Japanese horror series “The Ring”. Of course, it’s Hello Kitty, so she’s still cute, but she does look quite different from her usual self. Read More

Forget Surgical Masks and Fake Glasses, Wear Your Allergy Remedy Around Your Neck With the Virus Blocker!

Spring brings new life, new love, warmer weather and so many other great things. It also brings with it heaps of pollen, and we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of pollen season. While it’s been a pretty easy year in terms of pollen, many of us are still shut indoors and suffering. I may have stumbled upon an easy, cost-effective way to take care of that, though.
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Panasonic Developing 24-Fingered Hair-Washing Robot


If Panasonic has its way, the next human task we entrust to Japanese robots will be hair-washing. The electronics manufacturing giant is developing a hair-washing robot and hopes to put it into actual service in beauty salons before the end of the year.

First, the robot moves its mechanical fingertips around the customer’s head, measuring it with sensors. Once it has an idea of the unique shape of the customer’s head, it applies hot water and shampoo and uses its 24 digits to wash the customer’s hair. Read More

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