Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
The insane queues for the release of Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus were reported by media outlets around the world, but what fewer of them have picked up on is the aftermath of the hype, and what was left behind once Apple fans had got their mitts on the latest slinky gadgets.
Pop idols exist in this strange space between reality and fantasy. While they are living, breathing individuals, they are set on a pedestal and rarely get to interact with people one on one. While groups like AKB48 may be tied to a certain location to serve as a symbol of pride for one area’s people, outside of meet and greet events, fans cannot really get to know them. Of course, the biggest taboo of all is for a pop idol and a fan to begin dating. But one brave group has decided to step forth from the binds of their image. Meet the members of the idol group Happening Girls. These four lovely ladies depicted here are unique in the idol community because they are allowed to foster relationships, date, and even marry their fans.
Part of my job at RocketNews24 is providing English titles for the videos on our YouTube channel. So my knee-jerk reaction when stumbling across a clip, from a different source, with the title “flute performance butterfly stop the face” is to point out the capitalization and syntax errors.
But you know what? Full points to whoever thought it up anyway. That jumbled cocktail of nouns and verbs just about perfectly captures what would run through any of our heads if we experienced what the woman in the video did: a butterfly crawling around her face in the middle of an important flute performance.
Most of us grew up being taught to respect our elders. In fact, this is one of the most fundamental values traditionally taught to Chinese children. But the video we’re about to see is a stark reminder that the times they are a-changing, and that even in China there are some real brats who think nothing of verbally abusing their elders.
Watch as this little Chinese girl threatens to kill the older woman after she apparently took a photo of her misbehaving onboard the train.
Halloween is still more than a month away, but Tokyo’s witch population has gone up by one with the DVD and Blu-ray release of the live-action Kiki’s Delivery Service. To celebrate, the Tokyo Prince Hotel is delivering a double dose of tie-ins with the main character of Eiko Kadono’s novel series and Hayao Miyazaki’s anime, in the form of a bakery selling Kiki-themed treats and a hotel suite decorated with props used by the actors in the film.
Fights have broken out all over the world in the last couple of days in front of Apple Stores as people queued for the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Apple iPhone releases have been known to make people do crazy things. Whether it’s dressing as a blue slime and sleeping on the street for days or using your nipple to unlock your phone, there’s a sense of excitement and ceremony surrounding each new model that makes us want to push the boundaries and just have fun.
The latest release on the weekend was no different, and in our excitement to test out the much-anticipated ‘Digital Image Stabilization’ (DIS) on the iPhone 6, it seemed entirely sensible to line up two different models side-by-side and give them both a good shake. And how better to do that than by strapping them onto a vibrator?
Nowadays, it seems everyone is surrounded by multiple electronic gadgets that need constant managing and charging. And we all know it can be a drag remembering to keep all those devices juiced up. Well, you might as well do the charging in style, right? In that case, these adorable USB power adapters may be just what you need to get the job done. Yes, our favorite friends from Disney have turned themselves into power adapters for your precious gadgets, but in this case, they’re keeping their faces hidden — and displaying their cute bottoms instead!
Meet μ [the Greek letter mu], a four-year-old Scottish Fold female cat who enjoys all the typical feline hobbies of catnapping, meowing for treats, coughing up hairballs, and sitting down on your laptop while you’re trying to work. But μ has another hobby which is a bit more, shall we say, atypical in nature. Like many human children (and adults!), μ likes nothing better than to cuddle up with her favorite pink stuffed animal when she falls asleep!
Earlier in our thankfully extremely sporadic series, “Oh Boy, That’s Pretty Racist,” we covered a Japanese “comedian” (I use this term loosely) who posted Vine videos as a poorly acclimated Indian guy living in Japan, complete with racist accent and affinity for curry, of course.
For our second installment, we have a Japanese woman living in Taiwan explaining the reasons people should choose Japanese women over Taiwanese women using broad cultural stereotypes that at best unfairly pigeonhole Taiwanese ladies, and at worst are outright false. Let’s take a look:
This “disappearing picture” is a neat optical illusion we’ve never seen before. If you stare at it long enough, it disappears! Now to me, that sounds suspiciously like the time during my first year of middle school when the teacher sent gullible little me to ask the teacher next door for a “long stand”. (Incidentally, did you know the l’s are silent? The correct pronunciation is goo-ible.)
But I digress. This disappearing picture trick is pretty cool, and it really does work! All you need is your eyes and a little patience.
If you’ve ever visited Japan, chances are pretty high that you’ve been through Narita International Airport (and perhaps even been lucky enough to sample the perfect beer served there), no doubt thinking that you were flying to directly into Tokyo only to discover that you were still an hour train ride away from the city. The smaller Tokyo International Airport, commonly called Haneda, is, however, actually located within the city, but has until recently been considered Tokyo’s main domestic airport.
But all that’s about to change. As well as increasing the number of destinations it serves, Haneda has been improving its facilities and significantly upping its game in an effort to become more of an international hub. In fact, it was recently awarded the coveted 5-Star award from the ratings company Skytrax, making it the first airport in Japan and only the fourth in the world with that title.
On the evening of 19 September, JR Osaka Station became the scene of unseasonable weirdness as dozens of photographs of an unknown teenage boy seen sitting on the train fell from the sky like giant snowflakes of randomness.
Upon investigating the incident, Osaka Prefectural Police found this to have been an act of revenge by what is fast becoming Japan’s most oddball sub-culture: train otaku.
If you’re an Apple fanboy living in Japan, you may have noticed – while waiting in a ridiculously long line for your latest gadget – that there was a huge number of Chinese nationals waiting in line along with you.
That’s because, for the last couple of years, heading out to other countries to buy up the latest Apple products and sell them for a profit back in China has become a popular pastime for China’s more enterprising scalpers.
But this year, when Apple stores unexpectedly sold out of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 + before lines could dissipate, things got a little out of hand with the remaining Chinese customers, who reportedly stormed at least one Tokyo-based Apple store and wrecked the place – in addition to leaving piles of garbage out on the streets. Which would not have gone down well had it not been for the actions of one man.
Apple’s iTunes service released a trailer for the English dub of Studio Ghibli and Isao Takahata‘s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya on Monday.
On the application for a lot of jobs in the service sector, they’ll ask if you’re willing to work nights and weekends. Oftentimes, it’s hard to see this as anything other than a trick question. On the one hand, candidates obviously want to put their best, most eager face forward, and if you say you’d rather not take shifts then, you’re opening yourself up to the very real possibility of losing the job to someone who’s, at least on paper, more industrious.
Honestly though, no one really wants to be working at those times, since nights and weekends are some of the best times to enjoy spending the money you earn as part of raising your overall quality of life. Thankfully, one udon chain seems to understand this, and as part of their recruiting advertising, points out that working at its restaurants won’t get in the way of the more important things in life, life spending your weekends at an anime convention.
For most of this summer, Kyoto Prefectural Police have been carrying out an aggressive campaign of going to people’s homes and asking them to voluntarily give up their shoes with built-in hidden cameras. These house calls have resulted in hundreds of pairs of these “tosatsu shoes” (voyeur shoes) winding up in police custody.
This plan to deter the use of tosatsu shoes to illegally film in private areas such as up women’s skirts had proved so successful that police in Kyoto are spreading the word to other departments and will continue the same tactics in the future.
PelleK is a Norwegian rock and metal singer who doesn’t just limit himself to screaming about death and darkness, and uses his amazing vocal talents to cover anime songs and more, uploading them to YouTube for everyone to enjoy. Check out his awesome voice and performances in the videos below.
This month Kantai Con, ‘the anime convention on an aircraft carrier’, was held aboard the USS Yorktown in South Carolina, and attracted some fabulous cosplayers dressed up as the hottest warships in town.
While the English edition of RocketNews24 is primarily focused on Asia in general and Japan in particular, our Japanese-language sister site, Pouch, covers stories from around the world. Sometimes, the source information they work with is in English, so Pouch’s team members are always on the lookout for ways to brush up their language skills.
So we weren’t shocked to hear that one of Pouch’s writers, Marie, had recently gotten really into a new English-learning smartphone app. What did surprise us, though, was when we took a look at the phrases she was learning, including such nuggets as, “I just took a dump.”
7-Eleven Japan now offering baked-in-store pizza by the slice with two very different topping sets
Starbucks Japan releases first-ever gacha capsule toys, featuring iconic menu items as plush coffee charms
7-Eleven Japan adds new cold soup smoothies to its convenience store drinks range
New Studio Ghibli washi tape adds anime flair to Japanese stationery
Starbucks Japan opens new store inside historic seaside quarantine station near Tokyo
Japan’s foreign resident population hits record high as Japanese population hits record low
New service lets Tokyo tourists display their faces on giant screen at Japan’s busiest intersection
Studio Ghibli releases new Spirited Away earrings featuring mysterious anime bathhouse character
Okayama man arrested for catching butterflies in central Japan
Tokyo subway installing new ticket gates that don’t accept payment through Suica or other IC cardsTokyo subway installing new ticket gates that don’t accept payment through Suica or other IC cards
Japanese Shinkansen becomes an overnight hotel for three nights this summer
Giant Evangelion Spear of Longinus to be installed at Japanese train station with Eva art trains
Face lettuce appears in Japan, with the face of Death Note’s Light Yagami, but why?
Starbucks Japan releases a miniature display rack so you can create your very own store at home
99-year-old woman rescued while attempting to climb Mt. Fuji
Pokémon Card Stores requiring facial recognition scans for entry in Japan in latest anti-scalper move
Kyoto receives more foreign tourists than ever before, but fewer visitors say they’ll return
Family Mart’s new Famima flagship in Tokyo has a hidden gem that most visitors miss
Starbucks Japan unveils exclusive new Frappuccinos limited to three regional areas
Studio Ghibli has a new anime out, and there’s only one place in the world where you can see itTokyo subway installing new ticket gates that don’t accept payment through Suica or other IC cards
Salomon releases Japan-exclusive Mt. Fuji hiking gear that doubles as an amazing souvenir
Japan now has human refrigerators inspired by Japanese vending machines
Hatsune Miku collaborates with Hokusai’s art in new Vocaloid ukiyo-e illustration series [Pics]
New Shinkansen luggage drop-off system begins in Japan, making train travel even easier
Japan triples departure tax, foreign tourists and locals now must pay more to leave country
Studio Ghibli releases anime T-shirts that pay homage to one of Hayao Miyazaki’s most personal films
Family Mart opens new “Famima” flagship store in Tokyo that’s like a tourist attraction
Uniqlo looks back to the very start of Pokémon with new black-and-white pixel art T-shirts[Pics]
Japan announces sudden 400-percent increase in visa fees for foreigners entering the country
Japan’s human washing machines will go on sale to general public, demos to be held in TokyoStudio Ghibli has a new anime out, and there’s only one place in the world where you can see it
Starbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
Starbucks Japan releases new sakura goods and drinkware for cherry blossom season 2026
Japan’s newest Shinkansen has no seats…or passengers [Video]Tokyo subway installing new ticket gates that don’t accept payment through Suica or other IC cards
Japanese ninja certification exam attracts 131 candidates from Japan and abroadSalomon releases Japan-exclusive Mt. Fuji hiking gear that doubles as an amazing souvenir
Put sesame oil in your coffee? Japanese maker says it’s the best way to start your day【Taste test】
Japan’s foreign resident population hits record high as Japanese population hits record low
New service lets Tokyo tourists display their faces on giant screen at Japan’s busiest intersection
Studio Ghibli releases new Spirited Away earrings featuring mysterious anime bathhouse character
Okayama man arrested for catching butterflies in central Japan
Tokyo subway installing new ticket gates that don’t accept payment through Suica or other IC cards
Studio Ghibli Laputa figure looks like it’s really flying thanks to cool visual trick
Studio Ghibli adds new Ponyo glassware to its anime lineup for summer
Sanrio’s newest item looks like dog butt, exactly like it’s supposed to [Photos]
Kyoto receives more foreign tourists than ever before, but fewer visitors say they’ll return
Katana of one of Japan’s most famous swordsmen goes on display to help Kumamoto earthquake victims
Starbucks Japan unveils new coffee drinks… for people who don’t drink coffee
Life-size Legendary Pokémon Mega Rayquaza digitally greeting travelers at Tokyo train station [Vid]
Cup Noodle unveils first-ever cold-water instant ramen in Japan
Kumamoto Castle left illuminated all night long as symbol of hope for earthquake victims
