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Nagoya NPO releases survival guide for hikikomori for when their parents are gone

The social phenomenon of hikikomori, where people are compelled to remain confined in their own homes, is not new anymore. What is new, however, is the looming issue of what happens when a hikikomori’s parents become elderly or die.

Recently a scattering of cases has begun involving people who have filed for government support after their parents have died. And with estimates of the hikikomori population hovering around one million in Japan, experts are suggesting this is just the tip of the impending iceberg.

One group called Nadeshiko No Kai out of Nagoya is looking to take the bull by the horns and is nearly ready to issue a manual – the first of its kind – for hikikomori to aid them in becoming independent once their parents are no longer able to help.

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Helicopter dog would prefer his boy wore water wings

Pets are pretty great: they are cute, funny and occasionally do crazy things. It doesn’t hurt that they just love us so much (probably more than we deserve, most of the time). You’ve probably heard of helicopter parents, but what about helicopter pets? If you don’t believe me, check out this video. This dog is so sweetly over-protective that it’s bound to inject some happy into your day.

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Mr. Sato takes on Family Mart’s “All-You-Can-Eat Convenience Store Challenge!”

Imagine if you had ten minutes to run amuck in a convenience store and could eat whatever you wanted and as much of it as you could. Now imagine it’s a Japanese convenience store where the unwritten rule is: If you can’t find something you want to eat, you aren’t hungry.

Our well-seasoned convenience store correspondent Mr. Sato had just gotten such an experience recently in the FamilyMart booth at Niconico Super Party III, but discovered that an all-you-can-eat convenience store experience isn’t without its difficulties.

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Hotties from history: the geisha of Japan’s first beauty pageant【Photos】

While the origins of the modern pageant are firmly rooted in 19th century America and P.T. Barnam’s popular photo competitions, Japan apparently didn’t take long to get on the bandwagon. The first beauty pageant was held in Japan in 1891, with a vote on Tokyo’s most beautiful geisha, and we just happen to have the winner and four runners-up in photo form for you here today.

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Burger King launches perplexing ‘PooPoo Smoothie’ in China

Burger King has raised some eyebrows with its latest menu addition in China, called the “PooPoo Smoothie.”

The drink as similar to a Taiwanese boba tea, or bubble tea, and has pulp-like “pearls” inside that are supposed to “explode in your mouth upon consumption,” according to the Daily Meal.

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Boat believed to be debris from Japan’s 2011 tsunami drifts all the way to Washington

A small boat thought to have journeyed across the Pacific Ocean from Japan after the March 2011 tsunami has washed up in Washington this week. The boat, which is encrusted with unusual-looking barnacles, is believed to have travelled an incredible 6,500 kilometres (4,559 miles) across the ocean in the three years since the tsunami and earthquake disaster struck east Japan.

State officials are checking the boat, which drifted ashore in Ocean Shores on Monday, to confirm its origin. It’s the second boat to wash ashore in Washington state in two weeks.

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Japanese YouTuber shows you how not to brush your teeth

YouTube isn’t all cat videos and aspiring singers, you know; it’s actually filled with genuinely creative and talented folks. As proof, we present to you a Japanese guy’s channel dedicated to brushing his teeth with guns.

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Movie magic? Or movie tragic?【Video】

In today’s fast-moving world of entertainment television and movies, many productions have been made possible with the advent of computer-generated images (CGI). A lot of movies and TV shows wouldn’t be conceivable without a little help from the green screen. That’s why it’s so rare today to see some production crews go back and do it “old-school”.

A small production in Taiwan has shared the secrets behind their “movie magic” in a short video, and it’s something that you really have to see, if only because it’s sure to put a big smile on your face.

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A house from a 3-D printer – in China they are about to “make it so”

Three-dimensional printers are the wave of the future. They are already changing the way some products are manufactured and what can be printed is now only limited to our imagination. Most people are thinking small, but a company in China is thinking big, as big as a house…actually, literally a house! Once these houses pass the requisite safety checks, a massive number of people could be living in 3-D printed houses in only a few short years!

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Authentic video game ceramics from Square Enix look beautiful but don’t come cheap

Almost all of the nice tableware in my apartment are pieces that my wife brought with her when we moved in together. As a bachelor, most of what was in my cupboards came from the 100-yen shop, with the exception of one pricy whiskey glass I bought when I decided that even if there was no one around to see me do it, I really shouldn’t be drinking straight from the bottle.

Of course, this scrimping on cutlery and dishes meant more money to throw into buying video games. I may have considered upping my eager budgets for such things if I’d seen these awesome plates and cups from fabled game publisher Square Enix.

That is, until I saw their astronomical price tags.

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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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When most people hear “Japanese female musician,” the image that springs to mind is an idol singer, covered in frills and girl-next-door sweetness. You’ll get no arguments from us against the theory that Japan produces more bubblegum pop princesses than anywhere else, and the county’s not likely to lose the top spot on that list anytime soon.

But not every female vocalist to achieve success in Japan did so by hitching her wagon to the idol system star. While its popularity has ebbed and flowed multiple times, the history of girls’ rock stretches back at least three decades in Japan, and today we take a look at, and a listen to, some of its stars.

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Gogatsu-byou: The “sickness” that strikes Japan each and every May

As well as being the start of the new business and academic year, April in Japan also marks the time when new graduates make their first forays into the world of full-time employment and many companies rotate their staff both to keep them on their toes and help them acquire new skills. It’s a fun, frenetic time of year, and everyone from kids in their new school uniforms to fresh-faced employees wearing crisp, black suits looks tremendously smart and presentable as they hurry to their place of education or employment, eager to make the most of their day.

In May, however, it all comes crashing down. Reality sets in and people start to realise that everything is just as awful as it was before, albeit with a few quirks and a shiny new name badge or lunchbox. The fire in kids’ bellies goes out, the twinkle disappears from new employees’ eyes, and they start to approach their work with all the enthusiasm of a pot-smoking snail going through a serious emo phase.

This, dear reader, is gogatsu-byou; the phenomenon that occurs every May and affects millions of Japanese to some degree or other.

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This massive ball of fur is the cat-of-the-moment on Twitter in Japan!【Photos】

It’s an indisputable fact that the Internet loves cats. But does the Internet love fat cats too? The answer is yes! Japanese netizens have been amazed and smitten by Kintoki, possibly the biggest house cat we’ve ever seen on Twitter. Check out this larger-than-life kitty!

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Every weekend is an itasha car show at Akihabara’s UDX parking garage

A friend of mine has a theory about Japanese pop idol performances. In his opinion, the real show isn’t the performers on stage, but the fans in the audience putting their unabashed passion on display as they cover themselves from head to toe in clothing bearing the likeness of their favorite singer.

You can make a similar argument about Tokyo’s anime shopping mecca of Akihabara. Sure, the neighborhood is packed with specialty stores, each of which is in turn packed with the rarest and/or latest merchandise. As interesting as the inventories of professional products may be, though, they’re often upstaged by the creations of fans who flock to the district to show them off, such as the anime-decaled cars of Japan’s itasha capital, the Akihabara UDX parking garage.

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Survey reveals that secretaries in Japan say ‘no’ to these types of husband

Rakuten Research has released the results of an online poll about the kinds of men women in Japan do not want to marry, and as a result the heads of lonely trolls are exploding all over Japan.

Collating results from 100 female secretaries between the ages of 30 and 49, the survey had three possible answers for each prompt: “I’d be OK with marrying him,” “I’d be hesitant to marry him,” and “I absolutely would not marry him.” Only the 10 list of undesirable traits in potential husbands were published, and only three qualify as being so bad that the respondents said there’s no way they’d marry them.

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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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Malaysia didn’t start looking for the missing plane until 4 hours after it disappeared

Malaysian officials have released a preliminary report about the Flight 370 disappearance that says the official rescue operation didn’t start until four hours after the plane vanished from radar.

CNN reports that Malaysian officials also noted it took 17 minutes for anyone to notice that the plane had gone off the radar.

The gist of the report — officials are still far from finding the missing plane.

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Fishermen in Hokkaido hope their shrimpy anime mascot will convince you to eat more ebi

When you’re in charge of marketing for an organization with a name as bland as Kitarumoi Fishery Cooperative Association, we can see how you’d come to the conclusion that your employer could use a quick injection of stylishness and visual appeal in the public eye. This being Japan, there are two quick ways to do this.

The first is to hire a popular actress or idol singer, dress her up in a short skirt and/or revealing top, and get her to pose with whatever product you’re promoting, which in the case of the Kitarumoi Fishery Cooperative Association is currently amaebi, or sweet shrimp.

We’re not sure if this was cost prohibitive or if every spokesmodel on the company’s shortlist turned out to have a shellfish allergy, but the marketing team instead went with plan B: turn the shrimp they’re selling into a cute anime girl.

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With only about 20,000 residents, the city of Oarai, in Ibaraki Prefecture, isn’t exactly bursting with entertainment options. If you do find yourself with some time to kill there, though, you could stop by the Aqua World aquarium, where aquatic life including sea lions, jellyfish, and dolphins are on hand to greet visitors.

The facility is even home to a number of sharks. Don’t worry, they’re not man-eaters or anything. The sharks might just eat each other, though.

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