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New father dresses like iconic pop culture characters and takes baths with his kid

Normally I pride myself on being able to come up with at least somewhat clever headlines for my articles, but this story is so bizarrely specific, I ran out of space just trying to come up with a comprehensible title.

What you’re looking at is a new father who got the idea to pose with his daughter in the bathtub every couple of weeks to record her growth from gross poop machine into vaguely human infant. The man’s wife apparently proposed that they add a little makeup to dad’s face to make things interesting and then the situation, as you can see, kind of escalated from there.

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We visit the Hello Kitty theme park to eat an adorable Sanrio meal

Even though it doesn’t boast the kind of attendance numbers that Tokyo Disneyland gets, Hello Kitty actually has her own theme park in Japan. Located in Tokyo’s northwestern Tama New Town district, Sanrio Puroland is dedicated to the beloved feline and her Sanrio brethren.

Puroland has the rides and shows you’d expect from an amusement park that was created to help fans spend the day with their favorite fictional characters. This being Japan, though, you also need special munchies to draw people to a destination, which Puroland has with its lineup of cute, colorful Sanrio foods.

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This “godly item” will help you achieve the perfect double eyelids

Honestly, I’m a bit terrified of Japanese fashion magazines, and some of the outlandish things they advertise. So when our sister site Pouch ran a piece about a special technique to achieve double eyelids that a popular Japanese fashion guide was advertising, I was a more than a little hesitant to read on, especially after seeing the photos from last time of Mr. Sato trying out the now infamous Eyelid Trainer contraption.

But curiosity eventually got the better of me, and it turns out that the trick uses a secret item that is not only inexpensive, but you probably already have it lying around. 

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These new “wet swimsuit” and “men’s bra” t-shirts will help you find your inner baka this summer

Japan’s hot and sticky summer days may mean that people are wearing slightly less than usual, but unless you’re some kind of magma demon impervious to the 34-degree heat we’ve been having recently, it also means you’ll be throwing sweat-soaked t-shirts and underwear into the washing machine with depressing frequency, making every other day laundry day.

Fortunately, book and cutesy crap emporium Village Vanguard has a couple of new t-shirts that are perfect for summer – and one of them already looks drenched before you even put it on!

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The awesome costumed fans of Nagoya’s World Cosplay Summit 【Photos】

With schools in both Japan and abroad on summer vacation, we’re right in the prime seasons for pop culture events like San Diego Comic-Con and Chiba Prefecture’s Wonder Festival. We recently attended both, snapping pictures of all the cool cosplay costumes, but the hobby’s most prestigious gathering was yet to come.

Last weekend the 2014 World Cosplay Summit was held in the city of Nagoya. Our own cosplay efforts aren’t quite competition-level, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy all the awesome costumes that were, so we grabbed our camera and hopped on the Shinkansen.

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One Piece takes over Yamanote train for 15th anniversary

The One Piece anime is turning 15 this year, and one of the birthday surprises includes a One Piece takeover of JR’s Yamanote Line.

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Do you use these “Philippine English” words and phrases?

Here at RocketNews24, we spend a lot of time talking about language–particularly Japanese and English in Japan. It’s no secret that English is a difficult language to learn, and not just for folks from Japan. Part of the reason for the difficulty arises from the numerous variations English has–from American to Australian to Singaporean. But one country in particular that stands out is the Philippines, which the BBC recently called “the world’s budget English teacher.” While it’s not exactly the most complimentary title, it certainly is true that the country takes English as one of its official languages (along with Filipino, which is basically a standardized form of Tagalog). Of course, in a country with around 170 living languages, it should be expected that Philippine English is quite a bit different from English in the US or the UK.

But just how different is it?

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Given the small size of many Japanese homes, by the time you get all your furniture and other belongs in, it’s not uncommon to wind up wishing you had more space for yourself. Eventually, though, you learn to maximize your apartment’s storage capacity.

Bulky winter coats get folded and boxed up during the summer. Space under the couch? Fill it with storage containers. Too many DVDs? Throw out all the cases and stick the disks in a compact travel case.

And that tiny empty patch on the shelf? Prefect for a cute little cat.

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Let’s go! Japan’s best fireworks festival is waiting for you!【Photos】

Summer in Japan means a few things. For some, the negatives, such as the endless days of heat and humidity, are what always weigh on their minds. But for others, summer means mainly two things: festivals and fireworks! While most cities have a summer festival to call their own, the most common and most popular type is the fireworks festival (hanabi taikai). RocketNews24 wants to introduce you to the  fireworks festival that sits at the top of many peoples’ lists as the biggest and best fireworks festival of the summer! The location will definitely surprise you!

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Martial arts “master” demonstrates his incredible technique, leaves us laughing

When it comes to martial arts, there’s almost as much fantasy as there is reality. Despite the rise of MMA and full-contact contests designed to ferret out the “ultimate” style, debate still rages about everything from who’s the best fighter to whether or not Shaolin kung-fu is totally awesome. (It is.) One controversial topic that simply won’t die, though, is chi. Is it actually possible to project your chi out of your body like a Street Fighter character? Or is reality actually just a total bummer?

Normally, this would be when Dr. House would hobble into the room and smack someone on the head with his cane, but instead we have a video of a middle-aged Japanese demonstrating the fearsome power of his…eyes??

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We check out the view, eat amazingly delicious squid at Japan’s first underwater restaurant

In many cases, the Japanese language uses the word umi, literally “sea,” to mean “beach.” For example, if your friends extend the invitation, “Hey, let’s go to the umi next Saturday!” they’re expecting you to show up with a towel and sunscreen, not a compass and cutlass for fending off pirates as you sail your ship full of cargo to the Bahamas to exchange for molasses.

So when we first heard about a restaurant in Kyushu right in the middle of the umi, we thought it was built on the sand. And while we like an eatery with an ocean view as much as anyone, the reality is even cooler, as the restaurant is actually built off-shore, with half of its seating area below the surface of the water.

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I’m not sure which is more surprising, the fact that Japan has convenience stores everywhere, or that every clerk working at them seems to be polite and attentive. Even with those high standards, though, occasionally you’ll come across a real standout employee, such as Family Mart’s Kato.

As we reported in June, Kato throws himself into his work with more energy and enthusiasm than any manager has a right to expect of front-line customer service workers. But while Kato’s unbridled passion for his job has made him something of a minor Internet celebrity, it’s also attracted the attention of Family Mart headquarters, which has asked the animated clerk to consider toning his act down.

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Not as easy as it looks! The making of viral video “Mario Jumps into Battle”

Just under a week ago, a fan-made video featuring Nintendo’s Super Mario appeared online. Titled “Smash Bros. Mario Jumps Into Battle”, it showed the portly plumber doing a bit of shopping in a real-life Tokyo store before realising that he was late for his appointment in Nintendo’s upcoming brawler, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS, and dashing across the capital city.

Due to its incredible animation and clever blending of real and computer-generated images, the video was quickly picked up by a number of gaming news sites (and shared on our own Facebook page) and scored thousands of hits in the blink of an eye. But even short videos like this don’t just pop out of question-mark blocks; they take weeks of hard work…

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Compared to cats and dogs, fish do have a couple of undeniable drawback as pets. You can’t really play fetch with them or take them on walks, and while there’s nothing physically stopping you from holding a goldfish on your lap and petting it, the sight of it desperately flopping around makes it far less relaxing than petting a purring kitty.

That’s not to say fish don’t have anything going for them. For example, they’re far less likely to pee on the sofa or cough up a hairball than a dog or cat. Plus, since they live in the confined space of a tank of water, you can create amazing scenery for them, like these amazing artistic aquariums.

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A sperm donation from your father-in-law? Maternity clinic in Nagano sparks debate

When a couple is ready to have children but there is an infertility issue with the father-to-be that prevents normal conception, in this day and age they have a number of options to consider. Artificial insemination from an anonymous donor is one route to take, as is as adoption. Or here’s another approach–if you’re the mother, how about getting pregnant through in vitro fertilization with a sperm donation from your husband’s father? 

For this article, we’ll be taking a slightly more serious tone than usual as we explore that very issue and the current controversy surrounding it. It’s become the topic of intense debate in Japan over the past few days after new details about the practice emerged from a maternity clinic in Nagano Prefecture. Join us as we introduce the facts and examine some of the ethics involved through reader opinions.

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It’s been about a week since we first saw the commercial for the Pikachu Tairyou Hassei Chu (“An Outbreak of Pikachus”) Pokémon event going on this month in Yokohama. And while fans are no doubt looking forward to the projection mapping show and Pikachu Café, the real draw is the promised 1,000 Pikachu that will be on hand to greet visitors to the city’s Minato Mirai bayside district.

While we’re still a few days away from the official start of the festivities, the loveable pocket monsters have already started showing up, as shown in these surreally cute photos of the assembled Pokémon hospitality corps.

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You can now get physical with your virtual girlfriend thanks to Oculus Rift and a dubious pillow

Are you starting to feel that your virtual girlfriend just isn’t real enough? Craving the feel of her soft skin against your own? With the technological leaps being made in the field of virtual reality gaming headsets, otaku are being offered the chance to get closer to their digital darlings than ever before. But can they handle it?!

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Little girl sings her heart out while selling rice cakes, leaves us blown away 【UPDATED】

As someone whose singing voice sounds like a baboon trying to speak English, I am always amazed by people who can just belt out a solo without even a piano to back them up. But I’m doubly impressed when that person is a little kid selling rice cakes on the side of the road!

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A six-year-old smashed the previous limbo skating record, in case you wanted to know

Who would have thought the world of limbo skating would be so competitive? Also, who would have thought limbo skating was a thing that exists?

Limbo skating is the sport of using old-school roller skates – we presume there’s some kind of rule about them having to be in pastel colors – to project yourself across the ground while staying as low as possible. Sometimes, limbo skaters can squish their bodies down to about the same height as a Coke bottle while bending their ankles at seemingly impossible angles to keep the roller skate’s wheels on the pavement.

So, since we went ahead and told you that limbo skating is a thing, we might as well also tell you that a 6-year-old just broke the previous limbo skating world record by limbo skating under 39 cars like it was nothing.

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