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Stay at the unique Artist in Hotel and absorb some Japanese culture — through your hotel room!

Tired of staying at nondescript, ordinary-looking hotels? If that’s the case, and you’re traveling to Tokyo, you may want to check out this highly unique hotel located in the Higashi-shimbashi area. In fact, when you stay at this hotel, you may not want to leave your room, because the rooms there have practically been turned into works of art, and not just any kind of art — each room is filled with elements of Japanese culture. So, why don’t we take a look at the stylish rooms at the Artist In Hotel, where the interior is not only stunningly artistic, but can be a cultural lesson as well!

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Lingerie retailer catering to flat-chested girls inundated with orders within hours of opening

“Why should only big-breasted girls get all the fun of lingerie shopping?” is apparently the question that led Japanese fashion school student Gomi Hayakawa to design and sell these stylish lingerie sets, tailor-made for flat chested girls, under the brand name of “Feast.”

Now, I understand that, in English, “flat-chested” has mildly derogatory connotations (imagine how a guy would react if you described him as having “micro junk” or something), but trust me, in this case I’m literally just directly translating. Japanese has so many words for varying sizes, textures and shapes of breasts your head will spin.

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In Japan, the common thinking is that if you want the absolute best-tasting food, you have to go to an independently run restaurant, generally with a long wait for tables and/or high prices on the menu. But what about those times when you’re hungry, but not in the mood to spend a large chunk of either your free time or disposable income on a meal?

That’s when you turn to one of Japan’s national chains, and if you can’t decide which, maybe this survey on the top 12 chain restaurants in Japan can help you.

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5 awesome Japanese ice creams that are perfect for summer 【Video】

It’s the middle of August, and while the days we’ve been having recently aren’t quite as face-meltingly hot as those a couple of weeks ago, it is nevertheless still pretty toasty out there. Thankfully, just like when suffering with a cold or sore throat, the summer heat does afford us one very tasty luxury: a genuine excuse to gorge on delicious ice cream!

If you’re feeling the heat this summer, or are just curious about some of Japan’s go-to ice cream treats, join us after the jump for a special video featuring five of our frozen favourites.

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Being punched in the face by Ichiro is the best moment of this girl’s life【Video】

On August 6 baseball magazine Baseball America chose Ichiro Suzuki as their number one on a list of the ‘Top 10 Most Prodigious Best Tools Winners Of The Millennium’, beating out greats such as Pujols and Verlander.

Of course he’s a legend in his home country of Japan, but during his many years in the major league he’s also gained plenty of American fans. To celebrate his win, we want to share this video of a ‘super happy Ichiro fan’, with ‘super happy’ being somewhat of an understatement.

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What if the 1945 Hiroshima bomb had been dropped on Tokyo instead?

On Wednesday of last week, the city of Hiroshima marked the 69th anniversary of the atomic bombing. When the bomb detonated in the air above Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, it destroyed the city and killed up to 140,000 people. Almost everything in a one-mile radius of the target site was immediately razed to the ground. On August 9, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing a further estimated 70,000.

Hiroshima was chosen as the primary target for a number of reasons. The US wanted a target city with an urban area of at least three miles diameter. It also had to have been untouched by other air raids, so that the weapon’s impact could be accurately observed. Hiroshima was also thought to be the only potential target city that did not have any Allied prisoner-of-war camps.

But what if the A-bomb had been detonated over Tokyo instead? Or Osaka? Using statistics collated by Dr. Mark A. Carlson at the University of Nebraska, the Japanese Huffington Post has produced this interactive Google map answering just that question.

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Scandal in North Korea after Kim Jong-un makes mildly self-deprecating remark

Every nation’s leader has to face one sooner or later and North Korea’s is no different. The DPRK was rocked recently by a scandal involving their Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un when a report came out that he once admitted he was “kind of boring” while visiting orphans at a hospital.

Although various rumors about Kim have circulated in other countries before, this would be the first time we know of that North Korea’s tightly controlled media will have reported a negative comment about him. Some fear this is only the beginning; further compliment-fishing remarks may come next such as,“Is that another grey hair?” or “You’re so lucky! Anytime I eat chocolate it goes right to my butt.” In great enough numbers these little utterances may seriously endanger his carefully engineered image of infallibility.

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Lose hair, save big! Hokkaido hotel offers discounts for bald guests

In a society that celebrates long and luscious hair, those who lose their locks prematurely are at a bit of a disadvantage. A person’s lack of hair can be caused by any of number of things: stress at work, illness, shaving it off for charity, or simply plain old genetics. But with so many products out there that promote flowing locks and even more for hiding hair loss, it’s easy to feel like a loser when you don’t have hair in Japanese society.

Well it’s time to start turning “less hair up there” into “more money in your wallet”! Hot on the heels of the Tokyo bar that gives generous discounts to bald patrons comes a hotel in Kamikawa, Hokkaido which is set to offer reduced rates to the follicly challenged! And it’s not just pure generosity behind these savings, either!

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Deplorable as they may be, you can at least follow the severely twisted logic behind the numerous train gropings and panty thefts in Japan. Men, in general, enjoy touching the female body and looking at sexy lingerie, and those transgressions are the result of despicable individuals whose enjoyment isn’t sufficiently lessened by a lack of important things like “consent” or “a girl actually inside the underwear.”

What’s a little harder to understand, though, is what ill-gotten benefit a man could procure by vomiting on unsuspecting women, as one suspect in Hokkaido is being accused of.

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A Fujoshi’s heaven on earth exists in Ikebukuro’s Boy’s Love Academy cafe

Japan should officially be known as the land of themed cafés. From cat cafés to owl cafés, character cafés and maid cafés… there’s even a café where you can pay 980 yen (US$9.57) to get two young men to share a stick of Pocky. Mouth to mouth. And that’s not all that is on their fantasy-inducing menu.

Regardless if you’re a fujoshi (girls who are fans of homoerotic fiction) or not, you should take a peek behind this particular curtain, because honestly, this probably isn’t something you’d get to see on an average day!

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Ninety-nine problems, but looking like a 5-year-old playa ain’t one of them

Preschool. That tender age between three- and five-years-old where kids cry whenever they are separated from their parents but change moods instantly when something entertaining happens. They are only beginning to discover the crazy mad, mad world around them. It’s like they don’t have a care in the world! They can eat what they want, wear what they want, and do what they want! They should cherish these worry-free years before they start encountering the real world problems of an elementary school first grader…right?

 Well…we hate to break it to you but…

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Here’s what $5 million buys in housing markets across the globe

If you’re looking for a pricey vacation home for the end of summer, we’ve checked out what $5 million can get you in real estate around the world. Our friends at Point2Homes helped us find everything from a tiny apartment in Monte Carlo to a 16,000-square-foot mansion in Qatar. Needless to say, $5 million should get you pretty far no matter what city you live in.

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We’ve talked before about kaitenzushi, Japan’s class of restaurants where customers grab whatever sushi they want off a conveyer belt that parades the plates before them. Quick, easy, and fun, kaitenzushi has seen its popularity soar in the last couple of years.

But as kaitenzushi joints proliferate across the country, one restaurant in Mie Prefecture has decided to take the system and give it a completely new menu, by creating a revolving yakiniku, or Korean barbecue, restaurant.

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【TBT】“Eyelid Trainer” creates a double-eyelid in minutes a day, Mr. Sato tries it out

Many Asian women believe that having double eyelids is a sign of beauty and many who possess single-eyelids are forever in a quest to achieve a crease above their peepers. In fact, double-eyelid surgery is the most common cosmetic enhancement in South Korea and Taiwan, and is very popular throughout Asia. For those who are hesitant to go under the knife in the name of beauty, there are plenty of non-surgical options to create the illusion of a double-eyelid such as special glues, tapes, and plastic devices.

The newest product to hit the double-eyelid market has been flying off the shelves with a reported 7,000 units sold in the first month of sales. Called “Eyelid Trainer”, this special device is worn just like a pair of glasses and claims to “create a double-eyelid with daily use.” It also makes you look ridiculous.

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Japan asks if bananas with Sprite will make you puke, Brazilian comedians answer 【Video】

Last week, we took a look at a deeply moving diaper commercial, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the RocketNews24 office (with the exception of Mr. Sato, whose tear ducts are still clogged with cheese). Today, we’re taking a look at a different video about fluids being expelled from the body.

Wow, that sounds digesting and vague, doesn’t it? Well, to be specific, it’s a video about vomiting.

Hmm…still pretty abstract and nasty, huh? OK, one more try: It’s a video about whether or not eating a banana and then drinking Sprite will make you puke (SPARKLE!).

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Japanese people reflect on examples of irritating, excess customer services in Japan

Unless you grew up in Japan, you may be baffled by the emphasis that Japanese employees place on customer service. Customers in Japan are treated as royalty from every possible angle, even if they’re just out buying a few pieces of fried chicken at the local convenience store. If you’re not used to it, you may find the special treatment to be endearing, but after a while you may come to think of all the excess services as unnecessary and annoying.

It turns out that some Japanese people feel the same way about their own country’s customs regarding customer service. Have you ever felt the same about any of the following situations?

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Turns out women STILL don’t want to see men’s nipples through their shirt

Eighty-four percent, apparently, is the magic number. And there I was thinking it was three all this time.

When we brought you the news last year that 84 percent of Japanese women said that not wearing an undershirt to work was “totally gross and, like, we can see your nipples, ewwwwww…”, little did we expect that some eighteen months later, a completely separate survey – this time with seven times as many participants – would not only confirm a general freaking-out about male summer nipple protrusion, but also come up with – get this – exactly the same number of non-nipple-showage fans: 84 percent.

This time, though, there’s a but. We should’ve known! There’s always a but.

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Carbonated sake is selling like gangbusters, just in time to rescue the drink from its demise

While I like to think of myself as one of the more cynical and irreverent – as well as dashingly handsome and sharply dressed – writers here at RocketNews24, I occasionally do come across a subject I’d rather approach with a more measured, sober point of view. Like, for example, the subject of sweet, sweet booze!

It might come as a shock to people whose primary brushes with Japanese culture come from visits to their local, non-Japan-based Japanese teppan restaurant or izakaya, but sake – the country’s national alcoholic beverage – is kind of in dire straights nowadays. The traditional, rice-based drink basically has been getting steamrolled by imported drinks like beer and wine, which have less of a “learning curve” to fully enjoy and thus appeal more to young people in Japan.

Since the 1970s, when the drink still faced stiff competition from domestic beers and imported wines but was doing pretty well for itself, domestic sake sales have hit a wall, with the number of brewers falling from nearly 5,000 in that period to just 1,000 or so now. Some have turned to foreign markets, even looking into new ways to pair sake with western food, while others have tried to innovate with sparkling sake – which is kicking ass in sales numbers and might just prove to be the drink’s savior.

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“Jibanyan, I choose you!” Does Yo-kai Watch have the power to topple Pokémon?

Pokémon is a long-running global megalith: a multi-platform media franchise like no other. Millions of kids grew up watching the anime, wearing the T-shirt, and of course playing the games. Here in Japan, Pokémon characters are everywhere – and none more so than Pikachu. Go to the mall and there’s a giant fluffy Pikachu to meet and cuddle. At school lunch, chances are a bunch of kids’ mums have made their onigiri into Pikachu’s face for them. And a whole city was recently invaded by scores of our favourite yellow friend for an entire Pikachu festival.

There’s a new kid on the “collect-all-the-monsters” block, though, and it looks to be pushing Pokémon by the wayside. Yo-kai Watch hasn’t been released internationally yet, but in Japan the 3DS game, anime and its characters have quickly gained a ubiquitous popularity that looks like it could even overtake Pokémon. Have Pikachu and friends really had their day? Or is Yo-kai Watch merely a flash in the pan?

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Pack on Titan! Anime suitcase is perfect for a trip outside the walls

In at least one way, the members of Attack on Titan’s Survey Corps have it good. Sure, they may have to spend every day in fear of the legions of man-eating giants that surround their city, but they also get to zip through the air in their cool wire-firing harness system known as the three dimensional maneuver gear.

Those of us who aren’t part of the Titan-fighting band of warriors have to make do with more mundane forms of transportation. If you’re looking to still feel a connection to Attack on Titan’s tan-jacketed group of heroes, though, this anime suitcase may be just the thing.

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