Why, hello there, crow! How may I be of service?

In many Western cultures, the owl is often regarded as a symbol of wisdom. But when you stop to think about it, wouldn’t a more fitting bird for that title be the crow?

If you’re not convinced now, we’re pretty sure you will be after seeing what clever strategy this particular crow uses to crack open an acorn! 

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Japanese nerds pick the feudal warlord they’d most like to be their boss

Sometimes you just have to take a survey for the sake of taking a survey, no matter how seemingly random or inconsequential the contents of the survey may be.

For example, we now have the results of this survey, which we’re pretty sure no one asked for, that gauges which feudal warlord Japanese geeks would rather be working under. We presume this means in an office setting and not, like, on an old-timey Japanese Warring States-era battlefield.

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Cat spotted seemingly being sucked face-first into car

This picture brings up a lot of questions, the biggest one being: “Where is your face, cat?!” Followed closely by: “What the heck is going on?!” Even one of his ears is folded the wrong way! Maybe he actually is being sucked into the car…?

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Raunchy manga title isn’t quite what it seems…or it is?

We often say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but that’s precisely what many of us do when scanning the shelves of a book shop or comic store looking for a new read. With so many titles to choose from, how do you know what is going to be worth your time? Perhaps the cool cover art is what catches your eye, or maybe an interesting title?

Manga writer Onta Sakai clearly felt that the latter was the best way to get his newest manga series noticed. Opting to go with the title “Ane no onaka wo fukuramaseru no wa boku” or “It is me to fill the stomach of the sister” in its slightly awkward English form, this highly suggestive title already has tongues wagging and could only be about one thing…

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“Wait…what?” That’s not Japanese! Clever American car commercial tricks viewers 【Video】

Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, Mazda; American car companies have always had fierce competition with their Japanese counterparts. But the American car company Chrysler is trying to change that with the recent release of a very clever commercial for their 2015 Chrysler 200 that respectfully acknowledges Japanese quality while at the same time turning heads in their own direction.

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Just a bunch of adorable cats riding on trains in Japan

Sometimes, after a long day of napping and begging for treats, a cat’s just gotta get out of the house. And what better way to get around than by Japan’s famously on-time and impeccably clean railway? If you’re still walking or taking taxis to your desired destination, take a lesson from these street-smart felines and hop on a train!

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Nikon repairs deceased Mount Ontake hiker’s broken camera, returns photos to family

The unexpected eruption of Mount Ontake on September 27 claimed the lives of 56 hikers, leaving family members to try to understand why their loved ones had been taken so suddenly. But out of this tragedy comes a heartwarming gesture, giving the family of one victim the chance to get back a small piece of their father who never made it down the mountain that day.

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Somebody call mall security! Grown man dressed as little girl shows off for shoppers

Last weekend, shoppers at Q’s Mall in the Abeno district of Osaka were treated to an appearance by this (unidentified) middle-aged man dressed in the typical garb of a Japanese junior school student. Unfazed by the public gaze, he posed for pictures and smiled for shoppers who paused to take in his… unusual choice of attire.

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We think he’s purr-fect! Meet Monty, the cat born without a nose bone【Photos】

Monty is a four-year-old rescue cat who’s amassed fans from all over the world. He suffers from a rare chromosomal abnormality causing him to be born without a nasal bridge. And Monty’s owners are hoping their cat will show the world that ‘looking different doesn’t mean you can’t be fantastic!’

Join us after the jump for more adorable photos of this happy little chap!

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All hail the mighty “muggle magic tape”! 24 awesome ways to use duct tape like magic

We’re sure you know that duct tape is not just for taping ventilation ducts. With its superb adhesion and strength, duct tape works like a magic spell for holding things together, and is a savior around the house as a quick repair solution.

If you’re an avid duct tape user, or haven’t realized what else you can do with duct tape besides fixing pipes and ducts, here are some creative (and some outrageous) ideas for using the powerful tape!

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In marketing, it’s important to deliver on the various components of the expectations you create. For example, if I advertise an apartment as having a toilet and shower, but after you move in you discover it actually only has one of those, you’re going to be pretty upset, right?

Likewise, we imagine a lot of people were excited when they heard about this video spreading around the Japanese Internet, where it’s been described with the lead-in, “The sexy ice cream stand girl in Taiwan that everyone’s talking about!” After all, ice cream and sexy people are two of the most popular things on the planet.

But it turns out that breathless description is only half-true.

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Pretty anime boys are here to save the world, and they brought a wombat

The “magical girl” anime trope is well-established in Japan. Usually, a high-school girl discovers she has magical powers and bands together with her classmates who also have magical powers in order to save the world from evil forces. But what if, instead of pretty magical girls, we had boys instead? Pretty, magical boys? Well, new series Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu LOVE (Pretty High School Boys Save The World Club LOVE) is here to break down gender stereotypes (or just pander to the female love of pretty boys) with their brand-new anime show which launches in 2015 (and, oh, there’s a video game, too…)

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It’s been a pretty rough year for McDonald’s in Japan, in the same way that getting hit by a bus on your way to work would make for a rough morning. Following a widely reported scandal in which the chain had been supplied with expired chicken by a meat processing facility in China, McDonald’s has been trying everything it can think of to lure diners back, such as giving away Chicken McNuggets for free, replacing the meat with tofu, and trying to take our mind off the incident entirely by pulling our attention towards pork cutlets instead.

After all, a restaurant chain can’t survive without customers, right? There’s one other thing you need to run a business though: employees, and these days McDonald’s is finding itself losing those, too.

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Foreign visitors and residents who haven’t yet gotten far off the beaten path in Japan might not recognize all of the final destinations of trains that depart Tokyo Station. Some of the various lines that intersect at the rail hub lead to places like Takao, Choshi, and Kurihama, none of which are exactly world-famous (even if the last one does have an awesome Godzilla slide).

The other day, though, one of the platform displays at Tokyo Station announced a train destination plenty of non-Japanese passengers are familiar with: New York.

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First nuclear power plant set to restart in Japan after 2011 meltdown

Against much public backlash, two reactors at a nuclear power plant in Sendai are scheduled to be restarted. These will be the first to restart operations after all the country’s nuclear plants were shut down indefinitely following the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011. 

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Travel through time with these old maps from the Zenrin Virtual Museum

While the average human has not yet come unstuck in time, it doesn’t mean we’re completely at a loss when it comes to time travel. Yes, we may only move in a singular direction, but at least have artifacts from the past to help us look back! Everything from old photos to old pottery help us dig through our murky cultural memory to see how things used to be.

And, thanks to Zenrin, a Japanese mapping company based in Oita Prefecture, now you can travel internationally with their collection of digital maps from the Edo and Meiji periods. Whether you think England is a conspiracy of cartographers or you know the name of every mapmaker since Babylonia, there’s something here for everyone!

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While the vast majority of Japan’s population is crammed onto its four largest islands, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido, the country’s territories extend much farther out to sea. For example, if you head about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) south of downtown Tokyo, you’ll come to the Ogasawara Islands, one of Japan’s most remote settlements.

We’ve talked about the Ogasawaras before, and how their beautiful ocean scenery has been helping to attract tourists (and perhaps even a new chef), to the archipelago. Recently, though, the islands have been seeing an increasing number of extremely unwelcome visitors, in the form of ships coming from China to poach coral.

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Foreigners buying from Japan get free stuff?! But not all buyers are impressed

With the Internet being what it is today, you can talk to, look at pictures of, even buy things from people all over the world. It’s pretty amazing, really. But, as with all international exchanges, sometimes there are some cultural misunderstandings going on across the Interwebs.

One Reddit user, unsure of how to react, recently posted a picture of a letter that he received with his package from an eBay seller in Japan. In addition to the following, very polite and sincere-sounding letter, in pretty good English, the seller included a free gift!

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A promotional video for upcoming film “Kamisama no Iutoori” (“As The Gods Will” in English) has been attracting a lot of attention online recently due to its shocking content.

Due for release on November 15, the film is an adaptation of a manga series which tells the story of a group of high school kids who, after their teacher is killed, are forced to play a number of childhood games with a horrifying twist in order to survive. In a homage to the movie, its promo features a group of bikini-clad girls playing the same game, but with tragic consequences.

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Should we call this snoring, talking Totoro plush toy cute or awesome? Either way, we want one

While in Los Angeles to accept an honorary award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, famed director Hayao Miyazaki mentioned that he has a new anime in the works, giving his fans around the globe huge smiles and racing pulses.

With no production timetable yet in place, though, we’re in for a bit of a wait until we can see the new anime. No one’s sure exactly how long that wait is going to be, but it’s probably going to be long enough that maintaining the level of excitement caused by Miyazaki’s comment isn’t going to be good for your heart. So if a few deep breaths aren’t enough to calm you down, we recommend taking a few moments to relax with this adorable Totoro stuffed animal that naps and murmurs in its sleep, just like the anime film original.

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