McDonald’s Japan’s menu item base costs leaked, make us wonder what’s in the burgers

It’s no secret that RocketNews24 writers are big fans of McDonald’s Japan, with its selection of artery-clogging novelty menu items providing endless amusement and article fodder at price ranges that even an Internet “journalist” can afford day after day.

Every once in a while, though, we find it necessary to dish the dirt on McDonald’s Japan so that our readers don’t think we’re on the Golden Arches’ payroll. So, fortuitously, an anonymous Netizen recently leaked McDonald’s Japan’s base costs for its most popular menu items and we have to admit, we found the dangerously low – sometimes single digit – yen values to be alarming and disturbing at the same time.

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Japanese netizens (almost) score 95% discount on premium steaks

Japanese Internet shoppers thought they got an amazing deal last month when they paid just 1,000 yen (US$10) for a 18,840 yen package of three premium Japanese steaks. Word of the 95 percent discount on the shopping site Rakuten Ichiba spread like wildfire with a flurry of tweets, blog posts and message board announcements. Alas, things were not quite as they seemed.

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Amazing Japanese grade-schooler enters fast track to playing soccer for Real Madrid 【Videos】

These days, it’s not uncommon for Japanese soccer players to be placed on foreign teams. Shinji Kagawa with Manchester United and Yuto Nagatomo with Inter Milan are just two examples of Japanese athletes who play for teams abroad.

Now, the island country can lay claim to a new rising star, a nine-year-old soccer player who recently signed a contract with the world-famous Spanish soccer club, Real Madrid. Read on for a full introduction to this talented young player, as well as some videos of his amazing play style!

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Ninja life skills: The most hardcore way to get infinite 1-Ups in Super Mario Bros. 【Video】

You can’t keep a good plumber down, and Super Mario Bros. is still going strong decades after it first launched. Veteran players will no doubt already know the locations of every hidden block, the route to every warp zone, and how to score easy extra lives by bouncing Koopa Trooper shells off staircases, but this last trick for unlimited 1-Ups isn’t so easy. Yup, it turns out that sometimes if you want infinite lives you actually have to work for them.

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It’s alive! How to turn a cucumber into a writhing snake

We apologize in advance if you have a strange fear of cucumbers or an all too common fear of snakes, but this was just too cool to pass up. The following video shows how a humble green cucumber can be transformed into what can only be described as a pickle python.

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Nissan rolls closer to self-driving cars, but is the world ready?

Cars sure are great. They look cool, they go vroooom really loudly, and they can even get us around to different places much faster than just walking. But there are a few drawbacks, too, perhaps the chief of which is that they’re incredibly dangerous! Zipping around at high speeds reduces the amount of time we have to react to dangerous situations and this can turn even small mistakes into giant disasters.

Of course, that’s just a problem with everyone else, right? I mean, I know I’m a great driver–this wouldn’t be an issue without everyone else on the road. Fortunately, Nissan is working on just the thing to help keep me safe: autonomous cars!

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Cats in bowls, buckets and boxes: smile guaranteed!

Feeling blue? Is Monday ruining the week for you? Try a bowlful of snuggly warm kitty, cozily comfortable and soooo cute, in a ridiculously small vessel. It’s good for what ails you.

These cats should feel right at home in an average Tokyo apartment!

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Manga and anime, my how you’ve changed!

Anime and manga have been in the global mainstream for a few decades now and like anything else, they have a way of evolving over time. Sometimes, though, the changes are so gradual that we don’t notice it until someone throws it all up in a handy infographic such as this one that surfaced on the internet recently. In it, the creator points out some key differences between female characters in the 1990s and those of the current decade. Let’s see what’s going on in the translation below.

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American casting for Hana Yori Dango (Boys Over Flowers) TV series receives harsh Japanese criticism

Starting this November, the first episode of a new romantic young adult series, Boys Before Friends, will be released to American audiences. The series is based on Japan’s hit manga, Hana Yori Dango (aka Boys Over Flowers). Already, the series has inspired the creation of anime, novels, and live action television dramas from Japan, Korea, and China. However, what should be a highly anticipated American adaptation of this much appreciated manga is encountering a lot of skepticism, especially from the Eastern side of the globe. It makes sense that some changes have to be made to implement an American setting for this Japanese tale, but how much change can the story endure before the tone of the original is totally lost?

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Japan’s coolest capsule hotel to close: Last chance to experience sleeping in the future!

Capsule hotels, the uniquely Japanese accommodation solution no doubt on every Japanophile’s to-do list, have never really caught on outside of their homeland. Whether it’s down to individuals’ ideas of what constitutes comfort and privacy, or simply the fact that so many Westerners freak out at the very thought of climbing into a space resembling something between a spaceship escape pod and a coffin, most capsule startups outside of Japan have failed. While these unique hotels continue to serve those who are on a budget or simply too intoxicated to make it home safely, and show no signs of disappearing from Japan’s cityscapes any time soon, it is with deep regret that we bring you news today that Kyoto’s Nine Hours, arguably the coolest and most modern capsule hotel in the country, is to close.

Tourists, late-night drinkers and those who have always fantasised about waking up in an Aperture Science test chamber have only until October 31 to check out the hotel and experience space-age comfort, so we’re here to show you exactly why you should head over to Nine Hours’ website right now and make a reservation.

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Qing Dynasty-era Doraemon statue raises serious questions about possibility of time travel

Doraemon, that loveable robotic, time-travelling kitty, may have inadvertently inspired an early Qing Dynasty cult of Doraemon worship during his travels through the space-time continuum, if this bizarrely similar idol of a grinning cat discovered by a Chinese tourist is to be believed.

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Students climb monument in Nagoya, piss everyone off with their “loose morals”

Let’s just cut to the chase here and face the facts: Teenagers do a lot of dumb things. Now, we’re not saying that all teenagers do dumb things, but the fact remains that the part of your brain that keeps you from, say, climbing a public monument in broad daylight clearly doesn’t properly develop in high school.

At least, that’s the conclusion you might draw after seeing the ire these students have drawn after a photo of their mindless exploits made it onto Twitter.

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Seoul food: Tourist stumbles across grocery store inside Korean subway car

Whatever the country, when taking a ride on the subway the feeling that you have entered into a whole new dimension, completely cut off from the world above, can be difficult to suppress. But in the Korea’s capital city, the division between underground and overground became a little blurred than usual for one tourist as they discovered a fully stocked grocery store in a subway car.

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The future is now: Developing robotics to help stroke victims learn to walk again

Japan is no stranger to robotics. From Asimov to Gundam, hi-tech development in both real and fictional worlds is almost taken for granted. Some days, we even wake up feeling a bit disappointed that Ghost in the Shell isn’t a documentary–though even that seemingly becoming closer to reality every day.

Here’s one example of robotics enhancing the lives of stroke victims–and looking good doing it, too!

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World’s largest game of tag to be held in Gunma Prefecture

Tag is a childhood game loved worldwide although known by different names depending on the region, and Japan is no exception. Here the game is known as oni gokko (demon play) and follows the same rules aside for the “it” person being called oni, which translates to a demon but is probably more akin to an ogre.

If you happen to be in the Gunma area this month and want to relive some childhood fun playing a classic game, Gunma University and J.League soccer team Thespa Kustasu Gunma are working to set up a Guinness World Record breaking game of Oni Gokko.

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Meet the new model set to make manga artists’ lives a whole lot easier

When it comes to replicating human poses and natural movement, artists often look to anatomical models. Traditional figures do have their limitations, though, with the lack of details making it difficult to recreate the lines of a raised shoulder or a clasped fist. But things are set to change, with a new figure on the market called the S.F.B.T-3, (Special Full-action Body Type v.3). Ten years in the making, this girl has 80 moveable parts in her body, allowing for an unprecedented number of poses and anatomical designs. We take a look at the doll’s amazing details and see how it performs in some popular anime poses for the illustrator’s eye.

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Is that a horse in your parking lot or are you just happy to see me?

While Japan is certainly home to a wide variety of animals, from adorable Shiba Inu to emotive puppies, one creature you don’t see too often is the horse. Sure, they’re out in the countryside doing horse stuff–eating, pooping, and running like the wind–but it’s not like you see a horse just hanging out in front of convenience stores. I mean, seriously, this isn’t The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Or is it??

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A musical tribute to Ghibli — Here’s to more than 25 years of epic animation 【Video】

I’m sure many readers of our site are aware of Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki’s recent announcement that he is retiring from filmmaking. Some of you may have even seen the press conference he held in Tokyo on September 6. While some people were skeptical upon hearing the announcement, since Miyazaki had mentioned retirement several times in the past, the legendary animator started off the press conference by saying that he knows he’s cried wolf multiple times concerning retirement, but that he was serious this time.

And so it was that Ghibli fans around the world had to accept that the creator of numerous acclaimed anime films such as Spirited Away and Princess Monoke was finally putting down his animator’s pen. Naturally, the news caused a huge response across the Internet, but one video in particular posted after the conference by an obviously musically talented fan has been receiving considerable attention on the Japanese Internet. We admit it is a slightly long video at 31 minutes, but if you’ve seen any of the Ghibli films and enjoyed the experience, we think it will be well worth your time to view the musical tribute.

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Creepily cute mascot Okazaemon gets female counterpart in Okazaennu

April this year saw the nationwide emergence of Okazaemon a regional mascot (called yurukyara in Japan) who operates out of Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture. In spite of looking like a strung-out cat that will stab you for its next fix, Okazaemon has captured the hearts of mascot fans with his offbeat charm.

In fact, Okazaemon’s ever-rising star has earned him second place in the Regional Yurukyara General Elections after Funasshi, another breakout mascot success of 2013. And with such notoriety there are bound to be those who emulate the formula. Enter Okazaennu: the female weird kanji cat character.

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Ministop convenience stores to begin selling Pizza (America) Dogs

Japan has a somewhat confusing take on hotdogs compared to other countries. For example, you’d be hard pressed to find packs of hotdogs on sale at any supermarket let alone buns, and yet they’re readily available on the breakfast menu of every McDonald’s.

Also, people may envision a true American hotdog to have been boiled in murky water on the side of the busy street, slathered with ketchup, onions, and relish and all served on a bun that may or may not have been used as the vendor’s pillow a few minutes earlier. However, in Japan, an “American Dog” is the common lingo to a pancakey kind of corn dog.

Now, Japanese convenience store Ministop is taking the “America” out of American Dogs and replacing it with pizza for some junk food hybrid goodness.

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