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“Do you want some ramen with those eggs?” Our reporter tries ramen with ALL THE EGGS!

So, you like eggs, but with all the conflicting research about the little balls of protein, it’s hard to decide if you should be eating zero eggs, an egg a day, or as many as you can stuff in you face. Sadly, we’re not entirely certain either, but if you simply don’t care about what’s good for you or not, we’d like you to meet your comrade-in-shells, P.K.

Our clothes-hating Japanese reporter P.K. is a huge fan of the unfertilized bird babies, and he recently read that all that research saying you shouldn’t eat too many eggs is bunk. So he decided to make up for lost time and headed down to Ramen Kagetsu Arashi to get a bowl of noodles with more eggs than a chicken coop. Egg lovers, get ready to hear your stomachs growl!

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The quintessential Kyoto experience: becoming a maiko for the day! 【Pics & video】

They say that it’s rare to see a real maiko walking the streets of Kyoto, since these artists usually work at night and live in their own secluded world, far from the rest of Japanese society. In fact, if you spot a maiko strolling around Gion during the day, there’s a good chance she’s a tourist who’s undergone a fabulously elaborate makeover.

We took our Japan Wish competition winner Ashley to a studio in Kyoto’s Gion neighborhood to have a maiko-over and be transformed in an amazing process that yielded completely stunning results. Ashley was able to choose her own kimono and obi sash, and as part of the deal she was treated to a professional photography session and the opportunity to take a stroll around the streets of Gion in full maiko garb!

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Facial recognition website decides how masculine or feminine you are, suggests famous look-alikes

Ever wanted to know who your celebrity look-alike would be? Wonder no more – there’s a website that will tell you! By uploading a selfie, facial recognition technology will guess your age, gender, and celebrity doppelganger.

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Even among otaku, those with a fondness for anime series Love Live! are known for being particularly obsessive. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that the Love Livers, as the franchise’s fans are known, worship the show’s central characters.

And if that’s the case, one arcade figured, why not give fans a place where they can kneel down and make offerings to their anime idols?

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Cardcaptor Sakura is ready to capture your phone with this elegant anime iPhone case

Cardcaptor Sakura’s titular heroine keeps her captured cards in a magic tome called the Clow Book, pulling them out as needed in the course of her adventures. In your daily life, though, you probably don’t run into that many occasions that call for instantly producing wooden cages, creating a labyrinth in an alternate dimension, commanding the sun to rise, or any of the other mystical functions of the Clow Cards.

On the other hand, you probably whip out your smartphone several times a day, and the next time you do, it could be inside this regal-looking Cardcaptor Sakura iPhone case.

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7 Japanese customs that even Japanese people wish would just disappear

Japan has a lot of unique customs, and not all of them make sense to newcomers. Eating fried chicken on Christmas Eve, anyone? How about the weird ritual of girls giving chocolate to guys on Valentine’s Day (do guys really like chocolate more than we girls do?).

But it turns out that there are plenty of customs that even Japanese people think are a waste of time. Here’s the top seven worst offenders, and why they are so annoying…

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Mos Burger’s sauce-soaked Wet Burger sure is wet, but is it worth your burger bucks? 【Taste test】

A few days ago, we talked about fast food chain Mos Burger’s plan to unleash something called the Wet Burger, or Nure Burger in Japanese. Unlike normal sandwiches which are content to have their sauce on the inside, the Wet Burger is submerged in tomato sauce before serving.

But is this new challenger a legitimate rival to the standard Mos Burger, already considered one of the stars of the Japanese fast food scene? Or is it simply too bold and saucy for its own good?

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5 discriminatory interview questions employers in Japan are no longer allowed to ask

For many young people in Japan, August means summer vacation, festivals and free time. For fourth-year university students however, it means time to start interviewing for jobs. The job-hunting process in Japan is long, grueling and very systematic, culminating in interview after interview for the jobless, soon-to-graduate, young adults.

Interviews can be nerve-wracking for even the most experienced candidates, but Japanese companies don’t always ask the most predictable questions. In fact, some of their questions can be downright weird. Many of these oddball interview questions, however, may not actually be legal.

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All our culinary dreams come true with gyoza-flavoured cup ramen

When it comes to ramen, nothing goes better than a side serving of gyoza (dumplings) washed down with a beer. Now our culinary dreams are about to come true with the release of gyoza-flavoured cup noodle ramen.

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Will whiskey aged in space taste smoother? Suntory is set to experiment this month

Japanese brewing and distilling company Suntory Holdings Limited recently announced their plans to send samples of whiskey to the International Space Station in order to investigate the effects of zero gravity on the aging process.

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Smoking food and sword juggling at Kyoto’s Ninja Labyrinth restaurant【Video】

Time to rewatch Naruto and brush up on your ninjutsu, folks! We took our Japan wish competition winner to experience a modern twist on an ancient part of Japanese culture. Come and take a look at the spectacle inside Kyoto’s mysterious and shadowy ninja restaurant.

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These crustaceans are going to make you put fountain pen to paper

How often do you sit down, dip your pen in some ink and write a letter or put your thoughts down on paper? The art of handwriting might be lost in the West, but surprisingly, students in Japan will often practice cursive writing even though they aren’t taught it in class. And in Japan, there are still plenty of chances for people to write things out from resumes and New Years cards to love letters and condolences, so there is always an opportunity to show off your epic penmanship.

And if you feel your written notes are lacking a certain artistic flair, the stationery store KINGDOM NOTE has just the thing for you: Colors! It’s not just normal boring colors that they are offering either, but original inks in colors inspired by crustaceans.

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How do they make those amazing life-size anime statues? We find out (and snap tons of pictures)

The twice-yearly Wonder Festival exhibition is all about models of anime, video game, and other 2-D characters. Just like with model airplanes or trains, you can often find multiple versions of the same character in different scales, usually several times smaller than the heroes and heroines they’re based on are actually supposed to be.

Walking around the convention, though, we came across two stunning life-sized figures. It wasn’t just their size that impressed us, though, but their amazing attention to detail. Not only did we stop to gawk and snap pictures, we also got an explanation of how they were made, and it involves a 3-D printer!

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Despite raging typhoon, Gion Matsuri goes on as it has for over 1,000 years【Video】

The Gion Festival, or Gion Matsuri, has been celebrated consistently for over a thousand years and is one of the most famous festivals in Japan. The highlight is the Yamahoko Parade which occurs twice, on July 17 and July 24, and our competition winner’s wish was to see it happen with her own eyes here in Japan. This year, with a incoming typhoon, there were rumors swirling about the festival being cancelled, but with hardly any interruptions in its long history, this parade wasn’t about to be stopped by mere weather!
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WikiLeaks reveals US spied on Japanese government and corporations for at least three years

Uh-oh, looks like the political relationship between the US and Japan may get a little shaky as whistleblower organization WikiLeaks has exposed America’s three-year surveillance of the Japanese government, major industries and banks. Even worse, it looks like the US may have also shared their collected info with other countries.

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World’s smallest “hopping mouse” could fit into your pocket’s pocket

What would you do if you suddenly saw a tiny little fur ball jump across the road in front of your car in the middle of a country road? Could you stop in time? We’re not talking about some normal rodent either, but an adorably cute fuzzy critter only as big as a plastic bottle cap.

Learn all about this adorable creature that narrowly avoided being hit by a car in China with pictures and more, after the jump!

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History Channel shows our Mr. Sato to the U.S.…as a student who’ll eat anything for five bucks?!?

Here at RocketNews24, we like to think our Japanese-language reporter Mr. Sato doesn’t just belong to us, but that he belongs to the world. After all, the value of panning for nuggets of wisdom in his stream of craziness transcends any mere national boundaries.

And now it seems Mr. Sato belongs to history as well, as we recently found out he was featured on American TV as part of the History Channel’s family of programing. It’s a great honor…except for the part where they mistakenly introduce him as a college student who’ll eat anything for five bucks!

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Feast your eyes on yet more adorable 8-bit GIFs depicting daily life in Japan

A while back, we shared a series of super-cute 8-bit GIFs created by talented Tumblr user 1041uuu which depict everyday scenes of life in Japan in a whimsically awesome, old-school way. Now we’re happy to report that the artist has been busy creating even more GIFs in the same great style!

Get ready for some super sweet moving pixel art!

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Dragon Quest XI’s main protagonist’s outfit may reveal a spoilery secret origin

Common knowledge to basically anyone conceivably reading this website, Japan is responsible for two of the world’s biggest, longest-running and most well-known console RPG series: Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. While both have historically featured similar gameplay (random enemy encounters, turn-based battles and the like), the two series are distinct enough that many JRPG fans prefer either one or the other series.

While Dragon Quest has evolved into a kind of cutesy, anime-inspired, all-ages RPG series, for example, Final Fantasy has always taken a more adult tack. And while each game in the Final Fantasy series takes place in a totally distinct universe from other entries, the games of the Dragon Quest series are at least loosely related to one another, making some interesting and sometimes dark game-to-game connections evident to observant players.

And one such dark connection may be hiding in plain sight in the upcoming Dragon Quest XI’s promotional materials.

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