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Earthquake strikes Kanto region, ruins novelty goods store’s evening

At approximately 8:44 on the evening of 16 November, a magnitude-4 earthquake shook the Kanto area of Japan. Although some barely noticed the tremor, the quake dealt a sizeable blow to the Village Vanguard store in Sangenjaya, Tokyo.

Village Vanguard is a chain of book stores in Japan, but also the place to go for those looking for a Jamaican flag Zippo lighter, bag of freeze-dried astronaut food, DVD of Golden Eggs, and/or bag with a Dr. Pepper logo on it in a country that by and large neither knows of nor likes the drink.

Following the damage caused by the quake, an outpouring of support has been seen from netizens in Japan.

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Party at Sony’s place! Over a million PlayStation 4 consoles sold in first 24 hours

Pay a visit to Sony HQ today and you’ll no doubt see an awful lot of smiling, and perhaps tired-looking, faces. Following Friday’s launch of the PlayStation 4 in North America, President of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, yesterday shared the news via his Twitter feed that over a million units of the next-generation console had been sold within the first 24 hours of going on sale.

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Warning! This diet-inducing image will gross you out!

Look, we completely understand how quickly a diet can disappear when things like all-you-can-eat burgers exist in this world. And trying to implement the newest fad diet or tracking down black market diet pills seems to be a full time job for some of us. That is why here at RocketNews24, we have worked hard to find the most shocking, disgusting image that will make you immediately lose your taste for fast food, carbs, sugar, fat and anything else that tastes too good. 

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New magic powder turns your boring instant noodles into peppery treats

Are you a poor college student? An incompetent cook? Or maybe just too busy to stop for a real meal? If so, you probably have cup ramen so often that you can prep a serving with your eyes closed and your right hand tied to your left knee.

Let’s be honest here: Cup ramen is fast, convenient, and not entirely horrible tasting. But after a couple of days of the same flavors over and over, you might be wanting to add some variety to your diet. If you still can’t get a real meal, at least now you can get some magic powder to spice up your noodles!

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Nintendo prepares to launch new gaming system this month as well!

As the next-generation console wars is commencing Sony and Microsoft are currently firing off their opening salvos. Nintendo’s Wii U sales have been lagging, but Nintendo has a secret weapon coming out this Christmas season that may just trump the competition in home gaming – a mahjong set!

I said “may.”

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Bangkok brothers get banged with a Starbucks lawsuit

Starbucks has a policy of seamlessly blending their coffee outlets into remote tourist locations around the world. So when two brothers in Bangkok set up their street-side coffee cart business under a familiar looking green logo, Starbucks was quick to assert that this was not one of their operations.

Damrong and Damras Maslae are now in hot water as the global coffee franchise is coming down hard and suing them for copyright infringement.

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This year’s Mario Christmas Happy Meal in Japan is the best!

Kids nowadays have it rough. Sure, they have the Internet, sophisticated video games, and more electronics than fingers, but their McDonald’s Happy Meal toys are awful. I remember the days when you’d get a quality, hard-plastic toy that would withstand anything your imagination could throw at it. Now it’s half-heartedly put together pieces of garbage that are strewn alongside your mini pouch of fries (or apple slices if your mom isn’t cool). But in Japan, everything is different, especially this Christmas. Not only do you get a toy that blows all other modern day Happy Meal toys out of the water, your entire meal comes in a real cardboard golden arches box, just like old times. Read More

A chick, a fat guy and an Asian dude were standing in line for a PS4…

It may sound like the start of a bad joke, but when your boss says, “Bring me three PS4s!” you say, “How many games would you like with that?”

And so I found myself in uncharted territory, standing in line at 7am the day before the release of Sony’s next-gen console. I honestly didn’t know what to expect and admittedly grumbled at the thought of living on the street for 17 hours, but after Hooters girls, free swag, and a PS4 presented by the CEO of Best Buy, I’m pleased to report that I came away richer from the experience (although my bank account would beg to differ).

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Late-night adult escape game “Escape from Virginity” may lead to confusion

The popularity of “escape games” has been growing recently in Asian countries and Japan is no exception. Our own Mr. Sato took part in one not too long ago where he had to solve a series of puzzles to progress through levels and reach the end. In his case, the end consisted of a train car stocked with alcopops.

This time a unique escape game event is scheduled for after midnight on 17 November at the Asagaya Loft in Tokyo titled “R18 Real Escape Game: Escape from Virginity.” Some readers may find this name shocking at first, but after learning what really goes on at this event we can see it’s not exactly as the name suggests.

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Beijing man and tiny bird team up to make money

A video uploaded to YouTube earlier this week has been causing quite a stir amongst web users in Japan today. In it, we see what appears to be a homeless man in China’s capital city asking for money from passersby on the street.

Rather than simply holding a cardboard sign asking for spare change or sitting on the ground with a paper cup like, sadly, so many are forced to, this man has a rather neat trick for generating a little extra cash: he has trained a small bird to fly into the hand of those donating their yuan and bring the coins back to him one by one!

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Mercedes Benz measures the brains activity of Zen monks to evaluate their new car【Video】

Given Mercedes Benz’s reputation for luxury, it’s tempting to dismiss the automaker’s cars as being strictly for trust fund sorority girls or high-flying lawyers who just made partner.

Mercedes does have quite a bit of performance cred too, though, particularly for its extra-sporty cars that bear the mark of AMG, the company’s in-house tuning and motorsports division. But while you can find plenty of driving enthusiasts who get excited by the cars coming out of Stuttgart, in a new video Mercedes tries to stir the hearts of a new demographic: Zen monks.

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Doreamon get his first ever CG overhaul in upcoming movie, “Stand By Me: Doraemon”

Those encountering the wide-mouthed blue robot that is Doraemon for the very first time could be forgiven for not realising that he’s supposed to be a cat. And even once filled in we’re sure that few people would ever imagine that this earless robo-feline should be any more popular than the thousands of other quirky anime characters that exist in popular culture today.

But for most Japanese, and perhaps a handful of Westerners who were introduced to the anime as kids, Doraemon is a seriously big deal, and fans are currently buzzing with excitement following the news that one of Japan’s most-loved characters is not only getting a brand new movie of his own, but will be appearing in gorgeous 3-D computer generated form for the first time ever.

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So what was your biggest achievement when you were 15? I was pretty proud of getting my learner’s permit. I also made a couple nice tackles on the football field, and came this close to finally winning a round against my friend Eugene in Street Fighter II. All in all, not a bad year.

Of course, these accomplishments don’t seem like much compared to those of Jack Andraka, a high school student from Maryland who just made the biggest breakthrough in pancreatic cancer detection methods in more than half a century. This is simply too cool not to share.

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Anime lies! Akihabara is actually “ugly and boring,” Chinese netizens say

If anime culture were a religion, Tokyo’s Akihabara district would be its holiest site. With all the maid cafes, manga shops and cute “moe” cartoon girls plastered everywhere, Akihabara is usually a must for visitors to Japan interested in all things geek. However, Chinese netizens recently argued (on a site that hosts pirated Japanese anime nonetheless) that the geek mecca is actually really boring and Japan is using anime to make other countries think it is cool and beautiful. Sharpen your claws and join us after the jump for more.

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Cat attempts to catch running water, fails hilariously

Meet Roger. That’s not this cat’s real name, but we don’t know his real name. Still, you know, he just looks like a Roger, doesn’t he?

Anyway, Roger is thirsty. He’d like some water. And, hey! There’s some delicious, chilled water running right in front of him! Let’s how he does taking a sip…

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These 20-year-old Uniqlo commercials may be the best we’ve ever seen!

Winter is not just coming, it has arrived. The nights are cold and Japanese homes with their relatively poor insulation are no warmer than a popsicle fresh from the freezer. Fortunately, that also means Uniqlo is delivering their latest line of warm wear.

With everything from fleece sweaters to cashmere knits, you can always count on the Japanese clothing company to keep you warm for a reasonable price. You can also count on their stylish commercials to appear like clockwork each winter to announce their latest and greatest.

But a recent rediscovery of two 20-year-old Uniqlo commercials has left us shocked–and howling with laughter!

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Japanese Q&A site answerer makes starting a cult seem like legitimately good business sense

Back in the day, starting a cult was just as good a way to make a dishonest living as robbing banks or selling kidneys on the black market, but with the rise of the Internet (specifically, Snopes.com), attracting believers to your bogus religion seems like way too much work. Besides, Scientology kind of already has the market cornered.

Nevertheless, an inquisitive aspiring cultist took to Yahoo! Japan’s Chiebukuro question and answer site as part of his/her cult-founding due diligence, perhaps hoping for some basic advice like “keep human sacrifices to a minimum,” or “promise male cult members multiple wives.”

Instead, what the asker got was a detailed breakdown of what it takes to build a successful cult; an explanation so thorough and well-thought out, we’re actually considering a career change.

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Tokyo Disney Resort marks 30th anniversary with $22,000 Franck Muller watches 【Photos】

Tokyo Disney Resort is approaching its 30th anniversary, and it wouldn’t be Disney if they didn’t have a whole slew of commemorative items in the works. Recently, they announced a partnership with Swiss luxury watchmaker Franck Muller to produce a set of men’s and women’s watches for the occasion. And you can make one yours if you have 2.2 million yen (about US$22,000) to blow.

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There’s nothing particularly wrong with RocketNews24’s “.com” domain name. We haven’t declared ourselves an autonomious principality (yet), so .gov is out of the question. And while some (me) might argue that .handsomeandwittyreporterswhowritesuchgreatarticlesthatmenareinspiredandladiesswoon is the most accurate description of what we do around here, for some reason that’s not available for official use.

So we ended up with plain old .com, our only logical option out of the top-level domains recognized by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. But if only RocketNews24 had come into existence a little later, we could have taken advantage of ICANN’s recent approval of .ninja as a domain name.

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7-Eleven’s One Piece “Gomu-Gomu no Mi”: Looks kind of like an alien brain, but it sure is tasty

Always keen to cash in and come up with some new character-themed promotions, Japan’s 7-Eleven recently began selling blueberry and whipped cream-filled bread made to look like none other than Gomu Gomu no Mi Devil Fruit from the One Piece manga and anime.

We couldn’t resist finding out what the fruit that made Monkey D. Luffy the man he is tastes like, so when we spotted the new sweet bread at our local combini we grabbed one right away. Join us after the jump for our full taste test.

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