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Kirby’s angry American version re-imported to Japan for the first time

Even as an American, it never occurred to me that the in-game cuteness of the iconic Kirby character doesn’t really carry over to the box art – where he’s typically portrayed as a Pokemon ripoff in need of anger management courses.

Don’t believe us? Take a look at this decade-old print ad for a new Kirby game in the U.S.:

Somewhere down the line, Nintendo America producers decided that Kirby should be portrayed as tough and menacing on American shores in order to appeal to U.S. audiences, who at the time were still in love with macho heroes from the ’80s action movie heydays. Even if the hero in question was a puffy pink ball of cute, Americans apparently craved sheer anger in their main characters – a far cry from the Japanese, who were raised on Kirby as an adorable, smiling murderer that ate his victims whole and gained their power like some fantasy world maniac.

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“Please help” – Note written by man in Chinese labour camp found in New York department store bag

While some of us get to spend our days taking selfies, slurping on Starbucks and shopping at designer stores, others are not quite so lucky.

In a crushing reminder of the disparities and injustice that exist in our world, a woman shopping at luxury New York department store Saks Fifth Avenue has discovered a note at the bottom of her bag written by a man imprisoned in a forced labour camp in China, pleading for help contacting his family and the United Nations.

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Obama dreams of tempura: The Tokyo restaurant where even the US President can’t get a table

A Sunday newspaper in my native England used to run a column called “Can you get a table?” in which reporters would call fully-booked high-end restaurants claiming to be representing various celebrities of differing degrees of fame, and see whether they could wrangle a table for that night. A-listers tended to garner responses along the lines of “yes, I think that can be arranged”, while talent show contestants were more likely to be met with apologies and mumbling. Thus, order in celeb-land was successfully maintained.

I was amused and impressed, therefore, to read that there’s a restaurant in Tokyo that can’t even make room for the most powerful man on the planet to have dinner with the Japanese Prime Minister. When Obama met Shinzo Abe last week, Abe took him for world-class sushi at Sukiyabashi Jiro. However, sushi wasn’t Abe’s first choice. He wanted to take Obama-san to Tempura Kondo, but the booked-out restaurant turned them down. “Customers with reservations are more important,” the owner is reported to have said. “Even for the President of the United States, I can’t disappoint my customers who already made bookings.”

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Japanese fans: New American Godzilla is “too fat”

Fans of monster movies or big Hollywood blockbusters are no doubt aware that a reboot of the famous Godzilla franchise is due to hit theaters next month. As you might imagine for a movie featuring one of their most beloved pop culture icons, the Japanese are deeply interested in how America is going to bring their national kaiju to the screen.

When clear pictures of the creature hit the net this week, the response was probably not what studio execs were hoping for. Some Japanese fans are apparently calling this incarnation of Godzilla “fat”. Ouch.

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America admits it has no idea what Kim Jong-un is doing

Almost all of the conventional wisdom from American intelligence agencies about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been wrong, Peter Sanger of The New York Times reports.

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Former PM Taro Aso celebrates Obama’s visit with one of his typically inappropriate comments

Taro Aso might be remembered by some as the last prime minister to serve during the revolving-door era of political leadership that occurred in the last decade in Japan, with the country being led by five different men between 2006 and 2012. During that time and elsewhere in is political career, however, Aso has also become well-known for his numerous gaffes such as saying he wanted to make Japan a country that “rich Jews” would want to live.

Now serving as Deputy PM and Minister of Finance, Aso’s legacy of inappropriate comments lives on. Following the recent visit by US President Barack Obama, the former prime minister felt it was time to give his two cents about the American leader.

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Japanese book blows up and the internet goes crazy…kinda【Video】

YouTuber David Douchecovny, or just “The Douche,” is a fan of putting explosives on things and then shooting them. He films these explosions and posts them on YouTube. But a recent video might have gotten him into a bit of hot water as it features a product from Japan.

The Douche says he won this book in a giveaway from another YouTuber, with an attached note that read, “have fun blowing this up.” Join us after the jump to see whose book it is and whether or not it survives the explosion.

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Justin Bieber’s Yasukuni Shrine visit draws scorn from Asian fans

Being an international pop star like Canada’s Justin Bieber is certain to have its share of pitfalls. Scandals such as unfortunate comments at the Anne Frank house and more recently charges of drunk driving and egging a house have continued to dog him.

So this Easter weekend, the award-winning performer made a trip to Japan to get away from it all. After all, what could possibly go wrong here?

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  • Apr 24, 2014

Tokyo Tower lights up beautifully in Star-Spangled Banner style for President Obama

Yes, President Obama has arrived in Japan (and apparently already enjoyed the legendary sushi at Sukiyabashi Jiro), and with all the buzz and tightened security accompanying his visit, it’s hard not to get a little excited. Well, it seems even one of the landmark symbols of Tokyo, the Tokyo Tower, is getting all dressed up to welcome Mr. Obama. For two nights only, the 333m (1093ft) tall tower will be illuminated in the red, white and blue colors of the American flag!

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NBA team logos – Now with added Pokémon!

Here at RocketNews24 we can’t resist a good Pokémon mashup, whether it’s official merchandise or fan-made goodies. Micah Coles is a fan who combined his love of Pokémon with a keen eye for design, reimagining NBA team logos with a new corresponding Pokémon! He’s made new Poké-mascot logos for each and every NBA team, plus a few extras, too!

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Sailor Moon in the City of Angels at LA art exhibit going on right now 【Photos】

Back when I was growing up in Los Angeles, as anime was just establishing a foothold overseas, my high school animation teacher gave us a class project of reproducing an existing animated character of our choosing. As I applied the finishing touches of green and pink paint to mine, I got some quizzical looks from my classmate, and more than a few comments of, “Dude, do you have a thing for girls in pleated skirts?”

As accurate as their insights were, my choice of subject had nothing to do with my preferences in women’s fashion, and everything to do with being a huge fan of the anime Sailor Moon. Confused as my classmates had been, the series’ phase of international obscurity was short-lived, and now not only is Sailor Moon loved around the world, it’s got its own art exhibit going on in Los Angeles right now.

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Four women born without vaginas receive functional lab-grown transplants

It sounds like the plot of an improbable B-movie. But sometimes the truth is stranger than science fiction. Four women in the US have successfully received implanted vaginas that were grown in a lab from their own cells.

The women, who were all born with a rare condition which means the vagina does not develop properly, underwent the pioneering treatment at Wake Forest School of Medicine, North Carolina. The engineered vaginas, the first to be grown from the patients’ own living tissue and successfully implanted, have made it possible for the women to have sex for the first time.

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Princess Peach-themed Nintendo Wii remote available later this month

If you can’t help feeling that your controller lacks a little regality or that you’d rather squish Goombas in a lighter shade of murder, we’ve got good news for you. From the end of this month, you’ll be able to pick up a special edition Princess Peach-themed Wii remote, Nintendo has announced.

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Deconstructing Lolita fashion

Since Her Excellency Tomomi Inada, Minister in charge of Japan’s “Cool Japan” strategy, visited New York, JapanCulture•NYC has been trying to define “Cool Japan” as it relates to New Yorkers. The broad range of the term can encompass an overwhelming number of areas: Food, fashion, design, travel, the list goes on.

To focus on one type of fashion, JapanCulture•NYC turns to the expertise of New York-based accessories designer Jen Green, who attended Japan Society’s Lolita fashion discussion on February 5. In this special guest post, Jen deconstructs the Lolita look and phenomenon for the uninitiated.

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Attack on Titan to run on Adult Swim’s Toonami Block

Adult Swim, the American television network paired with Cartoon Network, announced on Saturday that it will run Attack on Titan in its Toonami programming block. The anime series will premiere on the network on Saturday, May 3 at 11:30 pm ET.

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There’s a reason Yoshi dogs don’t exist in the real world: They’d be absolutely terrifying

If there are any small children in the room, now might be a good time to send them to bed or off on an errand. We can’t guarantee that they’ll sleep a wink tonight after seeing this “Nintendog” poodle with its fur dyed and made up to look like Yoshi from the Super Mario series.

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Japanese casual steak joint set to debut in New York

When one thinks of exported Japanese food, one tends to imagine sushi, miso, and other dishes that have become so ingrained in the English lexicon that they no longer warrant italics.

One thing you almost definitely don’t consider when thinking about Japanese food is steak. Why would you? Steak is the territory of Western food, often associated specifically with American diners; Which is what makes the New York debut of Ikinari Steak – a Ginza-area chain – so much more surprising.

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Attack on Titan is #5 in U.S. Bookstores in March

The first volume of Hajime Isayama‘s Attack on Titan ranked #5 on Nielsen BookScan’s list of top 20 graphic novel sales in March, followed by volume 2 at #7, volume 3 at #15, and volume 11 at #19.

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Champion competitive eater Kobayashi goes undercover to punk soccer team in wing eating contest

Our loyal readers are probably more aware of who Takeru Kobayashi – the infamously voracious Japanese competitive eater – is than the New York Cosmos professional soccer team, but it looks like the Cosmos players weren’t so familiar with the diminutive athlete… Until now.

As part of an elaborate April Fool’s joke, New York Cosmos managers put together a stunt that saw Kobayashi posing as an employee at the frankly quite delicious Buffalo Wild Wings chicken wing chain as the Cosmos team filtered into the restaurant for a meal.

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Japan ratifies child abduction treaty, but some parents may still be left behind

This week, Japan became the 91st signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which provides protection for children under 16 from being taken from their country of residence by one parent against the wishes of the other. However, the convention does not work retroactively, so parents whose children have already been taken are urging the Japanese government to stand by provisions of the treaty in their cases as well.

A group of left-behind parents organized a march in Washington, D.C., on Monday to hand-deliver 28 applications for assistance reuniting with their children to the U.S. Department of State and to submit a petition for the return of abducted children to the Japanese embassy.

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