Featured

Can you handle the heat at Fukugonji’s annual firewalking festival?

Over the course of a year, we humans can accumulate a lot of mucky emotions. We inevitably forget the dangers that certain fiery passions, like anger and envy, can do to our psyches. In order to remind ourselves to retake control of these troublesome fires that burn within us, we must take a walk through physical flames and let the fear of literal fire burn away our emotional impurities.

At least, that’s the idea behind Fukugonji’s annual firewalking festival! Each year, on second Sunday of December, this Zen Buddhist temple in Aichi Prefecture invites all members of the public to step across their scorching coals and reclaim inner purity at the Fukugonji Akiba Grand Festival. This year, the festival promises to be particularly entertaining, as well as spiritual and somewhat scary, as one might expect from firewalking.

Read More

As a kid, I remember watching reruns of Mighty Mouse on TV with my dad. It was a fun little show, but what made it really special was knowing that he enjoyed it when he was growing up, and that he was sharing his memories and at the same time he was making new ones with me.

Likewise, it’s been a couple decades since Japanese animation gained a steady foothold internationally, and we’re starting to see overseas fans of the medium having kids of their own. But how to pass on that anime passion to your kids? You could go the direct route and administer a severe beating each and every time they ask to watch say, Disney’s forgettable 2000 CG film Dinosaur instead of something with more artistic merit, like Hayao Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky.

Or, like one couple, you could go with the gentler option of painting an awesome mural of Studio Ghibli characters in the nursery, letting their quality speak for itself.

Read More

Missing 80 kg of nose candy? Huge cocaine stash found off Japanese beach

The beach can be a great place to go to get away from it all. From listening to the gently rolling waves to smelling the ocean air and picking up seashells, there is nothing quite like a relaxing visit to the shore. Usually the most surprising thing found in the sand or water is a strange-looking sea creature, but one man stumbled upon a record-breaking 80 kg of cocaine on November 19 off the shores of Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture. Police say its street value is about 4.8 billion yen (US$47 million) and they are now looking into whoever was wishing for an apparently very white Christmas.

Read More

Dog refuses to leave house, do tricks until ugly sweater is removed【Video】

Some people take fashion very seriously. They wouldn’t think of putting a foot outside the door without being perfectly made up, coiffed and dressed. This obsession isn’t restricted to homo sapiens, though. Cookie the Shiba Inu simply refuses to go for walkies in this indignity of a polka dot sweater.

Read More

PlayStation 4 impressions: An Xbox fan and a Sony lover go head to head

Sony’s PlayStation 4 has been out in North America for over a week now, and is finally heading to Europe this coming Friday. Thanks to the efforts of our game-loving staff in the US, we managed to pick up a few units, and have been tinkering with them for about a week now, so felt it was time to share our thoughts on the new hardware.

Rather than getting all techy and giving you lists of stats or focusing on frames per second, however, we decided to take a slightly more human approach, and talk about how Sony’s newest console rates in the eyes of both a self-confessed Sony fan and a long-term Xbox lover.

Let the mud-slinging begin!

Read More

00

【Monday Kickstart】Corgi gets his groove on

It’s Monday again and you know what that means! Your Monday Kickstart video is here to get you going through another week. 

This week’s video features a corgi who’s so happy he just can’t contain himself. With a short stubby tail, the little dog shows his excitement the only way he can: by wagging his entire backside. Shakira’s “hips don’t lie” and twerking jokes aside, it’s an adorable video!

Read More

Visiting Leyte and sleeping with the disaster survivors

Following the recent devastation that the Philippines suffered during Typhoon Haiyan, one of our brave writers from sister site RocketNews24 Japan decided to go see the damage first hand. We’ve prepared a translation of his report to help you all get a clearer perspective of the situation on Leyte.

Read More

Impress house guests with toilet paper origami!

Hotel and restaurant bathrooms have really done a number on us by introducing a new level of hospitality through toilet paper etiquette. When the next sheet of paper on the roll is folded into a neat triangular point, we’re made to feel that extra bit special, safe in the knowledge that the area has recently been attended to, as if the place was just done up in anticipation of our arrival.

One lady in the United States has taken the triangular toilet paper fold to a whole new level, incorporating traditional Japanese origami concepts to produce a book of cute, funny and surprisingly beautiful designs to dress up the toilet roll in your bathroom. From swans to candles, who knew toilet paper could be so adorable?

Read More

South Park’s anime-style “Princess Kenny” video arrives in Japan, chuckles and confusion abound

A recent storyline in the often controversial, always hilarious animated series South Park focuses on the run-up to the Black Friday sales, and sees the fictional town’s inhabitants turning into murderous, bargain-hunting zombies prepared to gouge one another’s eyes out if it means getting a new TV for a fraction of the normal retail price.

At the same time, a war rages between the town’s kids over which console – Xbox One or PlayStation 4 – they should band together to nab in the sales, and results in Microsoft’s Bill Gates handing out weapons to young Xbox One fans (one per child, in the name of safety) to aid them in their struggle. Not wanting to be outdone, Sony strikes back by granting the leader of the competing faction – none other than parker-wearing mumbler Kenny – the power to become a real Japanese princess, transforming him into an doe-eyed anime beauty, complete with his own Japanese theme song.

Of course, it didn’t take long for clips from the show to make their way to Japan…

Read More

Tokyo Motor Show 2013: Cars! Crowds! Comely models! 【Photos】

Like a migratory bird made of carbon fiber and engine blocks, every two years the Tokyo Motor Show returns to give us all a glimpse at automakers’ visions of the future. RocketNews24 visited this year’s event, and we’re here to share with you our impressions and photos of the massive crowds, newest concept cars, and hottest current models (both automotive and female).

Read More

Donating food to the victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan

Super Typhoon Haiyan caused unspeakable damage to the islands of the Philippines. Homes were lost, but even more heartbreaking, many lives were lost in this tragic disaster. One of our Japanese reporters wanted to experience the damage in the Philippines for himself, so he headed to Ormoc City on the island of Leyte. He didn’t just want to report on the tragedy, so he decided to get to know the people on a personal level and donated food and volunteered his time to help the victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan. This is his story.

Read More

Years of labor and millions of dollars finally yield amazing french fry vending machine

For many of the world’s greatest cuisines, there is a fine line separating a stellar example of a particular dish from a loathsome, gag-inducing failure. In the case of the humble french fry, that fine line is a few extra minutes from fryer to your eager food hole; let the fries sit for just a little too long and they transform before your eyes from hot, crunchy guilty pleasure to disgusting, squishy, limp waste of calories.

Apparently deeply affected by a soggy fry incident, the folks at China’s Beyondte Electronics Co., Ltd. set out to perfect a french fry vending machine that would produce hot, crunchy fries on the spot whenever you got a craving, eliminating the need to order them at your favorite fast food joint and carry them home and – a happy side effect – also eliminating the need to actually speak to another human being to get your fry fix.

Read More

Watch China’s fastest dishwasher clean 50 plates in 10 seconds!【Video】

How long do you spend doing the dishes? It would probably take a good 10 to 15 minutes to wash up after dinner for a regular-sized family. Or perhaps you have a fancy dishwasher that takes care of the job for you. But can your shiny machine clean 50 plates in 10 seconds? This man can! Witness his crazy skills after the break!

Read More

Tiger in park causes scare in Korea

We all know the police face dangerous situations chasing armed criminals and speeding vehicles, but sometimes, the dangerous opponents they face are barely even human.

Recently, the police in Busan, Korea, received a call reporting sightings of a tiger in a park. It’s common knowledge that tigers are ferocious animals, so the police rushed to the scene at once. But a twist of events left them in a very awkward situation.

Read More

Chinese artist blends into background with chameleon-like ease 【Photos】

Have you ever had one of those moments where you wish you could just disappear and the let the world pass by? Like Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility, Chinese artist Liu Bolin has perfected the art of being unseen. Liu uses his chameleon-like skills (and a great deal of paint) to make himself barely noticeable even in some of the world’s busiest cities. Get ready to test your eyesight and take a look at 38 pictures of Liu hiding in plain sight!

Read More

Turn cleaning into a Nintendo video game with Roomba covers!

The robotic vacuum cleaner Roomba has already made life easier by cleaning floors on its own (when it is not running away), but a U.S. art exhibition recently showed how the device can turn household chores into a replay of childhood video games. At the art show, an artist crafted Nintendo-inspired covers and turned the cleaning robots into four of the most feared, but beloved video game enemies from the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda series.

Read More

Scooter dog is ready to scoot: This will be the cutest GIF you see today

Dogs, like anyone else, love to feel the wind on their furry, adorable faces. Honestly, is there anything better than rolling down the window, sticking your head and tongue out, and cruising down the road? Maybe barfing on the bed and chewing up all the shoes. It’s kind of a tie, we suppose.

Anyway! Not everyone can afford a car, as pointed out by Mr. Suzuki, but nearly anyone can buy a scooter. So even pups who don’t come from the richest families can taste the open road!

Read More

Honda’s UNI-CUB is our laziest dream come true

The good people at Honda, seemingly having read our minds, introduced at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show this beautiful luxury chair-vehicle hybrid that we never knew we’d always been waiting for.

Gone are the days of actually having to get out of your seat to retrieve the remote, or that last broken chip from the Pringles can that somehow found its way into the seat cushion of that chair you never use. In fact, with the new UNI-CUB the only reason you’ll ever need to get out of your seat again is to give a standing ovation to Honda’s brilliant – and probably equally lazy – engineers.

Read More

We try “Eel Mango Rolls” at a Japanese Restaurant in the Philippines

Sushi is without a doubt the most popular Japanese food in the world, and as such it’s found its way onto the menus of restaurants around the world. However, as we well know, different countries always like to add their own twists to imported cuisine. These countries sometimes have a special way of eating sushi beyond the imaginations of people in Japan. Our reporter Shogo, while out covering the situation in the Philippines following Super Typhoon Haiyan, had stumbled on some such sushi while visiting a Japanese restaurant there. Read More

Can video games really help “level up” your beauty stats? 【Poll】

It has been a great year for gamers. Two new game consoles—PlayStation 4 and Xbox One— have ushered in a new generation of living room gaming, and then scientists gave us some delicious data to throw back in mom’s face about how spending all that time glued to the NES was actually making us smarter. And to add to the year of good news, a very (un)official poll of about 50 couples at Joypolis arcade in Tokyo said that playing video games actually makes you more attractive on a date!

But which games are best to impress, and does it really work? Click below to find out as well as to participate in our official RocketNews24 poll to test this theory of video games’ effects on beauty.

Read More

  2. 1
  3. ...
  4. 1519
  5. 1520
  6. 1521
  7. 1522
  8. 1523
  9. 1524
  10. 1525
  11. ...
  12. 1674