Below is an account from Sayaka, a reporter over at our sister site Pouch. It is an intriguing look at differences in business culture between Japan and the west. It makes one realize that there is no perfect business strategy as such but by incorporating the best parts from each culture, one can get pretty close to their own perfect business model. Moreover, Japan’s business culture has to be one of the most unique in the entire world.
USA (Page 47)
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Tokyo Station as well as Grand Central Station, New York: two titans of transportation who have served their respective metropolises proud.
To honor this centennial, Grand Central hosted “Japan Week” which drew crowds to the already crowded terminal. Hearing of this, RocketNews24 sent a reporter to investigate the centerpiece of Japan Week; the ekiben counter!
No doubt there to promote the release of new Nintendo 3DS game Luigi’s Mansion 2 (known as Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon in the West), Shigeru Miyamoto – the creator of Super Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong among others – was spotted hanging out with staff from Nintendo America in New York yesterday, not to mention looking exceptionally green. If only he’d arrived a few days earlier, this get-up would have worked pretty well for Saint Patrick’s Day, too.
A chart surface on the Internet recently titled: 100 American College Music Majors Analyze Japanese Musical Talent and the Relationship with the Number of Members.
How exactly this information came together is unknown, but the name suggests that 100 American music students were surveyed about several Japanese music acts past and present. Those results were then plotted against the number of members in each band.
The results certainly do suggest that there is a correlation between the number of members in a music act and the perceived crappiness of said act. So lets examine this more deeply with some samples and a translated version of the chart above.
55 contestants… 110 funbags!
Surely the main attraction of world-famous restaurant Hooters is the waitresses and their gigantic…appreciation for quality customer service. Now you can help select the cream of the Japanese Hooters crop in the Miss Hooters Japan 2013 by voting for your favourite “pair” online. The first round of voting runs from February 1-14, and the lucky finalists will be announced on the website Feb 16.
Space: the final frontier. This is the voyage of a homemade rocket carrying the fearless Hello Kitty as its sole passenger. Its mission: to explore the effects of altitude on air pressure and temperature, and to boldly go where no Kitty has gone before… Read More
Slappy Cakes is a popular pancake restaurant in Portland Oregon that lets customers create their own custom pancakes at their tables. It’s a fun time for those who want a completely new pancake experience. However, its popularity has resulted in some long wait times.
Luckily, Slappy Cakes’ success has allowed it to expand, but rather than add another location in Portland they decided to set up shop in completely uncharted DIY pancake house territory: Shinjuku, Tokyo. We sent Mr. Sato to a pre-opening demonstration for a report.
Propaganda is an ugly art. History is full of distorted and racist imagery of one nation’s enemies during times of war. Looking back on them now we can chuckle at the absurd lengths people went to in an effort to instill hate in one another, but they often remain shocking nonetheless.
This series of paintings from North Korea surfaced on the internet around 2010, but it’s uncertain exactly when they were created. Judging by the American uniforms they’re most likely Korean War era. We can also see this by the one where US soldiers are depicted sawing open a guy’s head (they got lasers to do that nowadays).
Salty tears roll down your cheeks as you spend yet another night alone eating instant ramen. You despondently stare at the ripples formed as you continue to sob into your noodles. The broth takes on a miserable taste you are all too familiar with.
Singles rejoice! Your nights of eating alone will be made a little less lonely thanks to this new invention: the anti-loneliness ramen bowl!
In Japan, people generally eat jellyfish, not decorate with them, but if you are the kind of person who eschews conventional interior design, you’ll want to have a look at these charming hanging lamps made by California-based Roxy Russel Designs. Faithfully modeled on real jellyfish, these translucently luminous creations will enchant even the most jelly-phobic decorators. Read More
Son, have you been drinking tonight?
Yes officer, I must say I’ve enjoyed a few libations this evening.
Well, I think you’d better step out of the car; we’ve got some pretty strict laws against that kind of stuff in this state.
But I wasn’t driving officer!
Isn’t anyone else in the car, son. Seems you’ve had more than just ‘a few’.
Honestly, Officer! Mr. Toyota has been at the controls the whole time…
Toyota Motor Corporation announced it would be unveiling a self-driving car at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) being held in Las Vegas January 8 to 11, 2013. The car, a Lexus LS600, is outfitted with radars, cameras and an array of sensors that allow it to be cognizant of its immediate environment.
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Robotic Firm Boston Dynamic working with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made a splash with a demonstration video of a highly functioning quadrupedal robot called LS3 (Legged Squad Support System).
When many internet fiends in Japan laid eyes on it they couldn’t help but think of Homo, a parody of girls into homoerotic art (fujoshi). It was developed on Twitter from ASCII art (┌（┌＾o＾）┐ﾎﾓｫ). Since then it has become something of a subculture phenomenon spawning various merchandise.
A few months later, has the US military improved LS3 enough to quell the giggling of otaku everywhere? Let’s see.
It’s winter and by now your feet probably turn to icicles as soon as they hit the hardwood floor in the morning. Wouldn’t it be nice to slip into something warm and comfy to protect your feet from the winter chill? But why settle for plain old boring slippers.
The folks over at ITmedia have discovered an etsy shop in the US that offers 100% handmade sushi slippers!
For those who can’t get enough, the sushibooties etsy shop also offers sushi baby booties, nunchuck pillows and rattles, and fortune cookie baby booties and slippers.
Even more popular than Minesweeper, Solitaire was a favorite of office workers everywhere. A free game that came bundled in old Microsoft computers, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who has never played Solitaire.exe.
Now you don’t even have to have a clunky old computer to play pixelated palm tree and sandy beach motif solitaire, you just have to pick up a deck of these cards.
*For maximum enjoyment please read this article in the husky hushed voice of Brad Pitt. Thank you.*
It’s not a journey, it’s Sushi, a scent developed by Demeter Fragrance Library. The scent maker is hoping to catch the freshness of Japan’s signature dish so you have it with you all day.
But does it smell like raw fish? Does it have the eye-watering aroma of wasabi? Demeter says of course not, but what it does smell like is the source of some controversy.
Who doesn’t love a Twitter war? This wonderful modern age we live in lets celebrities make snide comments to and about each other as we all read along. And with the unprecedented interactivity social networks you too could be arguing with Ashton Kutcher about something!
Last week mobile phone mogul Masayoshi Son, who has a history of large donations, offered US$500,000 through Softbank to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy in North America and then tweeted about it. This act of philanthropy irked a twitter user by the name of o44o. Feeling that this was an act of blatant advertising through the use of a good deed he decided to voice his opinion to Mr. Son.
When travelling to America, most Japanese people usually have one or two “must-eat” foods on their itinerary, the most popular of which are probably hamburger and apple pie.
When our Japanese reporter, Yoshio, visited America last month, he wasted no time in seeking out the former. His haste and curiosity led him to something called the Donut Burger, which, as you might imagine, didn’t go over so well.
Determined not to commit the same mistake with his apple pie, Yoshio had his American acquaintances point him in the direction of the best damn all-American apple pie the country has to offer.
Where did that take him? Check his report below to find out!
American Soldier Suspected of Trespassing and Assaulting Okinawan Middle School Student After Curfew
Since 16 October a curfew has been in place on all US soldiers stationed in Japan restricting them from leaving their bases from 11pm to 5am. This was in response to an incident where two soldiers allegedly raped a young Japanese woman in Okinawa.
However, on 2 November what appeared to have been a drunk American soldier trespassed into a room and struck a young boy. The police investigation is ongoing.
Meeting a movie star can be like finding winning the lottery for many people. Having lived in Toronto for 5 years where a great number of Hollywood movies are shot and home to a major film festival, the biggest celebrity I ever saw was a lady who did 5 minute segments between reruns of The Simpsons and Married With Children on the local station.
On the other hand some people have all the luck like our very own Yoshio who scored big on his first day of a business trip to New York running into none other than Ferris Bueller himself, Matthew Broderick! More amazing than seeing the star of the American Godzilla in the flesh was discovering his superhuman ability to blur his own face in photos.
On a late night light rail train in Phoenix, Arizona on what authorities believe to have been October 6, a man rescued another passenger from a fight by wielding his samurai sword towards the assailants.
The incident was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube. None of the parties involved have been identified and the police are currently investigating.
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