Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
Some Japanese companies are known for making really clever commercials, others are known for making some really dumb commercials (looking at you Sony).
Mobile carrier au (pronounced “A-U”) has proven itself a part of the former camp with its fantastic new commercial, “FULL CONTROL/Xmas”, which shows what Tokyo might look like if it were turned into one giant night club.
Can you tell who the character in the above picture is? She’s cosplayed, posed nude and even turned herself into various edible treats before, but once again Ms. Kitty stretches the boundaries of her professionalism, this time by turning herself into human form, and an über-hot, sexy form at that. And you’ve got to admit, she really isn’t looking too bad, to put it mildly. Read More
It pays to keep a keen eye on Japan’s Yahoo! Auctions every once I a while. You’ll never know when you can get a personal live performance form your favorite band, or the opportunity to hire them to clean your home.
So imagine our surprise when the chance to have the Dragon God, Shenlong, from the Dragon Ball series for one day went under the hammer! And in this deal you aren’t limited to one wish like in the manga, you can make as many as you want.
You, Me, And a Tanuki is a weekly featured blog run by Michelle, a Californian who is currently one of only two foreigners living in Chibu, a tiny fishing village on one of the Oki islands in Japan. Check back every Saturday for a new post or read more on her website here!
I remember during my school days in the United States, we would have a “Code Red” drill once a year where we practiced the proper protocol in the event a gunman came to school. We were taught the proper way to build a barricade using desks and chairs in our classroom, the best place to build it, and the different announcements and signals that we could expect to hear should such a situation occur. But the thing is, there was never an actual gunman or anyone playing the part of a gunman during the drill.
In Japan (or at least in my area of Japan), they do Code Red drills a little differently. First of all, in the Code Red drill scenario, there is no fictitious gunman, instead there is a fictitious crazy person trying to stab people. Read More
Japan gets all the cool Kit Kats. Since 2000, Nestlé has introduced over 200 flavors and varieties of the chocolate bar to Japan, from chestnut and espresso to baked corn and soy sauce.
Some flavors come and go with the seasons and others are exclusive to certain regions; at the souvenir shops of my home prefecture Nagano you can find the tasty Shinshu Apple flavor and the questionable Ichimi Ground Red Pepper flavor.
One of our Japanese reporters recently came across a new variety of Kit Kat at Nagoya Station that we thought was pretty cool. While the Kit Kat bars themselves are the regular milk chocolate flavor—which, mind you, differs from country to country—the box art is inspired by the Tokaido Shinkansen line and should be familiar to anyone who has ridden the bullet train in Japan.
Even without ever having gone to Tokyo one can probably imagine the sprawling metropolis of 13 million people. It’s an ocean of buildings spackled with LED lights and paper signs threaded by vines of elevated walkways sitting atop a massive labyrinth of a subway system.
Of course it wasn’t always like this. Thanks to an incredibly well made and well preserved piece of film we can get a glimpse of a rare Tokyo. It was taken right between the city’s two 20th century destructions during the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1944 firebombing campaign.
The dubbed Blu-ray version of recent hollywood smash The Avengers hasn’t even made it into stores yet, but Japanese film fans are already writing it off as junk.
Despite the Japanese releases of previous superhero movies – The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man and Thor included – being voiced by professional, suitably cast voice actors, the dubbed version of The Avengers in cinemas featured none of the same voices, despite the movie being based around the premise of bringing these much-loved heroes together in one spot.
Movie buffs had hoped that Disney Japan, the company behind the Japanese Blu-ray release, would reinstate the original super heroes’ Japanese counterparts for the home release, but it has become clear that those wishing to enjoy the action movie without subtitles will have to put up with the same subpar voice acting that was shoehorned into the cinema release.
Imagine you want to ask that girl or guy of your dreams out this holiday season, but maybe you’re too shy to do it out right. You could send a text or e-mail, but that’s kind of lame and bland.
Go figure: the megacorporation Coca Cola is here to provide you with a sweet, intimate, and memorable way to tell people how you feel.
It works kind of like a sugary time bomb of love. All you need is a plastic bottle of coke and a marker.
State media in North Korea, notorious for its far-fetched claims like the late Kim Jong Il’s near-impossible golf scores and how the earth around his birthplace cracked at the moment of his death, is reported to have told its public last week that the lair of a mythical unicorn-like creature had been discovered by archaeologists.
Cue the sound of crayons being dropped the world over and dewy-eyed children turning to their parents and yelling “See!? They are real!”
Finally you can put awesome power of giant battle robots in the palm of your hand— or around the palm of your hand—with GIANT ROBOT BATTLE FISTS. Now available in Japan! Sounds like the perfect Christmas gift to me!
Animal Crossing: New Leaf, or Tobidase Dōbutsu no Mori as it’s known here in Japan, has officially become Japan’s most wanted videogame, but not simply because of high sales figures.
The game, which allows you to customize and decorate your home or otherwise while away hours at a time exploring a town populated with cute anthropomorphic animals, has been literally impossible to get hold of since the end of November, with staff in electronics stores across Japan simply shrugging their shoulders when asked when they’re expecting to receive new stock.
Despite incredible demand for the title, with the problem “unlikely to be fixed any time soon,” president of Nintendo Japan Satoru Iwata took to the stage this week to apologise to consumers in an official statement punctuated with plenty of long, deep bows and, for the briefest of moments, an expression of absolute terror.
In Japanese eating culture, holding chopsticks improperly might be frowned upon (see: Proper Way to Hold Chopsticks), but how does it compare to that other notorious dinner table offense, chomping down on your food with your mouth open?
According to denizens of Japanese message board site 2channel, who recently discussed the matter in depth, noisily eating your food is a far graver crime than poor chopstick handling. Let’s take a close look at their discussion below. Read More
Big-budget live-action remakes of anime and manga are tricky business. One one hand, you’ve got to please the fans, who you know will be sitting in the theater with pen and paper scrutinizing every scene. But you also have to make money, which often means watering down the source material to make it digestible for regular movie-goers. As a result, live-action remakes are usually denounced by fans (and critics), but still manage to turn a profit in the box office.
This is why we love DragonBall Z: Saiyan Saga, a live-action non-profit Dragon Ball Z trailer made by fans not because they want to make a buck, but because they love the series so damn much.
The 5 minute 44 second trailer was finally released on YouTube yesterday after months of production, and looks absolutely amazing. Check it out below!
It’s nearly Christmas! And that can mean only one thing: romantic dates on December 24th!
What? Did you think we were talking about the pagan festival-cum-Christian holiday on December 25th? No, no, no; the 25th is just a normal working day here in Japan, and everyone’s already forgotten about Christmas. People without plans for December 24th, however, might as well join the ranks of those who use trains on dates and pay money to sleep next to strangers.
With the romantic dates of December 24th, Valentine’s Day and March 14th’s White Day in its sights, snack maker Koikeya is about to launch a new range of potato chips — or crisps to backwards Brits like me — made especially for couples. And thanks to some clever packaging, Koikeya guarantee that these new chips will be the most romantic salty snack you’ve ever enjoyed…
Is everyone ready for the end of the world in a few weeks? In preparation for Armageddon I’ve decided not to pay any of my bills. And that new toothbrush will have to wait until after 21 December, when the Mayan Long Count calendar expires.
I thought I had everything covered until reading reports from Chinese media about Lu Zhenghai from Xinjiang. The engineer is currently finishing off his own “Noah’s Ark” with an estimated price tag of two million yuan (US$320k).
It came as an enormous shock to the entire team to hear that the legend that is Mr. Sato rarely visited Starbucks coffee houses.
Surrounded by the well-dressed, coffee sipping elite and with fancy lingo like “tall” and “grande” being thrown around, our reporter felt completely out of his depth at Starbucks and rarely dared to set foot inside even to grab a quick take-out coffee.
But after playing a lot of Black Ops 2 on the new office Wii U, a brilliant idea came to us…
Back in the 90s, I was a huge fan of the Iron Chef when it got imported to North American television. Although I was normally uninterested in cooking programs, something about the drama and pageantry that went on in Kitchen Stadium struck a chord.
The show was even imported to western countries who tuned it to suit their own tastes, and a lot of others around the world got into those weekly culinary competitions.
So when Fuji TV announced the return of Iron Chef to primetime television, a lot of buzz was generated. However, their two-hour debut claimed just a 10% share of the ratings, half of what the original program regularly held. It got worse from there as later episodes slunk to around 7%.
So what happened to our beloved Iron Chef? Everyone’s got an opinion and so do we.
During her recent trip to the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain, RocketNews24 Japan writer Megumi stumbled upon something that, to her videogame-tuned eyes, could look like only one thing.
The above image is one taken by Megumi when she visited the fantastic Brunells patisserie, or Pastisseria i salode te Brunells to be more exact, showing what is known as a “melonmelon” sweet. Although you and I see little more than a piece of rich, sugary confection, when Megumi first laid eyes on this delightful little green tongue pleaser, she could only think of one thing: a Bubble Slime from the hugely popular Dragon Quest role-playing games.
It has been revealed by Russia Now, a news blog that reports ‘beyond the headlines in Russia’, that people in the city of Tomsk, Western Siberia, are preparing for the end of the world.
The survival kit pictured above was put together by none other than a wedding planning company. Seems a bit morbid for a company that makes money on helping people plan their special day, but perhaps it’s intended to encourage couples to tie the knot before it’s too late?
The reason a survival kit is necessary in the first place is because of the rumour and Internet scaremongering surrounding the ancient Mayan calendar, which some allege puts the date of the end of the world at December 21st, 2012. On paper it does look kinda scary, all those ones and twos lining up like that, but really? That is just around the corner!
The president of the wedding planning company, Yurianna Shichogorewa, leapt at the chance to implement a new marketing strategy with this prophecy, coming up with the idea for a survival kit. Borrowing tips from a Mexican acquaintance, she was able to produce a kit in just two weeks. Read More
Tokyo’s Super Mario Christmas decoration displays are super cool【Photos】
This downtown Tokyo cafe is like a time machine that takes you back 50 years into the past
Station of despair: What to do if you get stuck at the end of Tokyo’s Chuo Rapid Line
Sailor Moon and J-pop mega-star Ayumi Hamasaki team up for collaboration, pre-defeat scalpers
Japanese train station vending machine has the best souvenirs for rail otaku
Police called out to investigate suspicious Santa in Wakayama
Japanese government will check and judge new baby name pronunciations, presents guidelines
Nintendo launches awesome, free Super Mario Wallpaper Maker website for PCs and smartphones
The results are in! One Piece World Top 100 characters chosen in global poll
Disney young adult novels get new beautiful shojo anime-style covers for JapanThis downtown Tokyo cafe is like a time machine that takes you back 50 years into the past
Japanese company develops classy heavy metal band frames for glassesStation of despair: What to do if you get stuck at the end of Tokyo’s Chuo Rapid Line
Studio Ghibli showcases traditional craftsmanship with new wallet range
Major Japanese city is abolishing extracurricular activities at all of its middle schools
One of Japan’s rarest sweets is a sell-out hit that looks and tastes like frostJapanese government will check and judge new baby name pronunciations, presents guidelines
Mysterious light-up rainy night-sound Totoro figure doesn’t actually show a scene from the anime
Shakey’s is back! All-you-can-eat pizza chain returns to downtown Tokyo’s Shinjuku
Starbucks Japan releases a new Frappuccino that looks and tastes like a floral bouquet
Possessing Harry Potter’s Sword of Godric Gryffindor is now illegal in Japan
Uniqlo announces first-ever collaboration with horror manga master Junji Ito【Photos】
J-pop mega star Ado reveals she’s been living in the U.S., may not understand language acquisition
Starbucks Japan is calling it quits with paper straws
Japan’s most popular castle raising ticket prices by up to 200 percent for non-local tourists
Furikake rice seasoning sales are soaring, which is bad news for Japan as a wholeJapanese company develops classy heavy metal band frames for glasses
Studio Ghibli releases new range of cardigans for anime fans
Studio Ghibli heroine cardigans give you warmth and strength to face everyday challenges
Eight unforgettable hot springs, as recommended by Japan’s “Professor Bath”
McDonald’s new Happy Meals offer up cute and practical Sanrio lifestyle goods
Foreign tourists on Shinkansen bullet train break suitcase etiquette, angering local passengersPossessing Harry Potter’s Sword of Godric Gryffindor is now illegal in Japan
[Deleted] Article written for April Fool’s Day 2018
Japanese government to make first change to romanization spelling rules since the 1950s
Foreigner’s request for help in Tokyo makes us sad for the state of society
Japanese convenience store Family Mart announces abolishment of eat-in spaces
Life-size vibrating Legend of Zelda Master Sword for sale from Nintendo【Photos】
Princesses, fruits, and blacksmiths: Study reveals the 30 most unusual family names in Japan
Studio Ghibli releases free-download board game — Here’s how to play it without reading Japanese
Police called out to investigate suspicious Santa in Wakayama
Japanese government will check and judge new baby name pronunciations, presents guidelines
Nintendo launches awesome, free Super Mario Wallpaper Maker website for PCs and smartphones
The results are in! One Piece World Top 100 characters chosen in global poll
Disney young adult novels get new beautiful shojo anime-style covers for Japan
Discovered: An even better way to open Japanese convenience store rice balls【Video】
Evangelion theme song lyricist talks about her annual royalties, buying caves in Turkey
Haku is…Chihiro’s dead brother? Studio Ghibli fans blown away by Spirited Away theory
Celebrating legal marriage days in Japan with budget-friendly photoshoots
Starbucks Japan’s new strawberry Frappuccinos are so social media-savvy their names are hashtags
Nakano Broadway sells a fukubukuro lucky bag for foreigners, but is it a good deal or a scam?
Clever design trick means beautiful Ghibli Artboard Jigsaw Puzzles won’t have bittersweet ending
Is real Tokyo as dangerous as the Yakuza video games? Chapter 4: Not Like a Dragon