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Japanese Men and Women Rank Which Countries They’d Look to for a Mate

A lot of people have romantic fantasies of hooking up with someone from another country.  Yet there are rare opportunities for the mystery and novelty of such a relationship for most people.  That shouldn’t stop us from dreaming of it though.

The folks at MyNavi set up a survey asking men and women what country besides Japan they’d go in search of a girlfriend or boyfriend.  Based on this survey here are the top 5 countries for both Japanese men and women and reasons for their choices.

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Survey Shows 16 Out of 16 Foreigners Would Like to Date a Japanese Person, but What Would They Like to do on Their Dates?

In the midst of present day globalization, and with international marriages on the rise, how do Japanese people fare on the ‘international stage’ of dating?

We decided to find out by sending our reporter to Comiket 82 earlier this month and asking REAL LIVE foreign visitors if they would like to date a Japanese person.

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Duckbill Dog Muzzles, “Cat Shells” and Other Strange Designer Pet Goods From Japan

Japanese designer pet supplies maker OPPO aims to create products that “offer a lifestyle where humans and pets can coexist naturally as animals.”

While they don’t offer any explanation of what that actually means, a product lineup featuring items like “quack,” a duckbill-shaped muzzle, and “CatShell,” a shell…for cats, suggests what they’re really saying is: “here’s more ways for you to spend money on things your pet doesn’t need.

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Commuters, Mothers and Government Bump Heads Over Baby Buggy Posters

Japan is a country notorious for its high level of politeness.  However, deep within its tangled, serpentine train system, common courtesy is often cast aside and Thunderdome rules apply.  I’ve seen grown men push aside old ladies and old ladies push aside me in order to get the best spot.

This being the case, Tokyo Metropolitan Area’s rail companies and the city itself began to spread over 5,000 posters calling for passengers to give some leeway to women with baby carriages.  As a result, they have received over 1,000 complaints and growing.

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Germans Invent Bicycle With no Pedals, Offers “Ergonomic Ride Between Running and Biking”

Since the invention of chain-driven transmission in the 1890s, the bicycle really hasn’t undergone any major structural changes.

And what could you possibly want to change? You’ve got two wheels for movement, handlebars for direction, a seat to hold your body weight and pedals to…

“Wait, pedals?”, thought the Germans. We don’t need no stinkin’ pedals.

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On 20 August, a lengthy flight delay turned ugly at an airport in Beijing, where frustrated customers complaining snowballed into a scene from a zombie movie.  In the middle of the fracas someone took a video and posted it on the internet.

In the video, a peculiar image of an airline employee just lying motionless on the floor has people asking: “Did he confuse his ‘what to do during a customer complaint’ manual with his ‘what to do during a bear attack’ one?”

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SmartHan Rice Tubes Offer Japanese New Way to Snack! Is This the End of Onigiri?

Tired of stuffing rice balls in your bag only to have them get squished and smear sticky rice all over your important work documents?

Takara Tomy Arts is here to answer your plea with SmartHan (han means “rice”), a revolutionary new way to enjoy your favorite rice dish from home while on the go!

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AKB48, the darlings of the Japanese pop scene, may have danced one step over the line sweet Jesus with their newest commercial for Puccho candy.  The commercial first aired on 25 August and seems to have drawn a collective “yuggghhh” from the nation.

In it the girls dance away brandishing the product as only they can do.  Except this time, all but one of their bodies have been digitally replaced by 5 and 6 year olds.

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Flat-Screen Folk Art Rallies to Save the Surprisingly Deep Culture of Putting Stuff on Top of Your TV Set

After the recent switch from analog to digital terrestrial broadcasting in Japan, more and more people are making the switch to flat screen units.  And as the streets find themselves more and more littered with discarded boxy cathode ray tube model TV’s, Japan may have accidentally thrown something else in the trash – a piece of their culture and heritage.

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French fries, or “furaido potato”, as they are called here in Japan, are the standard side order to all kinds of fast food.  Which fast food shop has the best tasting fries in Japan? My Navi News  decided to find out by canvassing 1000 working men and women from the ages of 22 to 32 on Japanese social networking service Mixi.

The results show the top fast food shops ranked by their french fries along with a few select comments from those polled. Their occupations and genders are also shown and although there may not be any direct correlation in occupation to french fry tastes, their education does suggest a discerning taste in french fry eating.  The gender of the people taking the survey appears to have absolutely no significance except that ‘gender role-happy’ Japan cares about such information.

The survey was conducted by simply asking, “Which fast food restaurant makes the best french fries?”

And the winners are… Read More

Traditional Japanese House Being Sold for 1 Yen on Yahoo! Auction

Interested in investing in Japanese historical real estate but don’t have quite enough to afford a medieval castle town?

Right now there’s a 150-year-old traditional Japanese thatched-roof farmhouse for sale on Yahoo! Auction for the unbeatable price of 1 yen (about 1 penny)!

Though by judging from the pictures, it may be a bit of fixer-upper…

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Be it drowning family members or rescuing neighbors from pits of crap, China continues to not disappoint in the things that make you go “hmmm” department.

This time, let’s say that the son of a wealthy family killed an innocent bystander while drag racing on city streets and is up on a variety of charges, possibly resulting in the death penalty.

In an effort to protect their unfortunate son, the family asks you to be his substitute in prison.  The sentence is guaranteed to be reduced to – oh, let’s say 3 years – and you’ll get paid for every day of it.  What would you do?  What would you charge?

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Resident Evil to Infect Universal Studios Japan This Fall

Following in the tradition of Japan getting all the cool Resident Evil stuff, Universal Studios Japan has announced they will be converting a portion of the theme park into a zombie-infested Raccoon City this Fall.

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The sea is too clean for the fish! 

Efforts to clean up the sea have caused an adverse reaction giving the fishing Industries in Hyogo, Okayama, and Oita Prefectures along the Setonai Seaboard a major headache.  The irony being that the sea is too clean for the fish to thrive.

An analysis of the sea water by researchers found the natural levels of Nitrogen and phosphorous in the salt content of the sea water needed for the nutritional growth of healthy plankton have diminished to the point that it has effected the natural eco system of the sea. Without enough plankton, the major nutrition for many small sea animals, the whole food chain is disrupted to the point of great loss to the fishing Industry.

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Limited Edition Pikachu Yellow 3DS LL Sells Out on First Day

A few weeks ago the Pokemon Company revealed the 3DS LL Pikachu Yellow, a limited edition version of the handheld console purchasable by preorder at Pokemon Center stores from August 25 to September 14.

To the surprise of no one, Japanese customers lined up outside and waited for over 4 hours to purchase the device, clearing out stocks at Pokemon Centers in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka on the first day.

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Japanese Clothing Ad Gives Us a Glimpse at the Real Japan

People often ask me why I moved to Japan and I say “to be with people like me – with blonde hair and blue eyes.”  Japan is a homogenous country to be sure, but a recent advertisement from clothing chain COMME ÇA ISM boldly challenges this mistaken stereotype that Japan is full of Japanese people.

It’s actually full of white people!

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Tokyo Restaurant Serves Sheep Brain Curry, We Investigate

About 95-97% of the population of Pakistan is Muslim, which means there’s not a lot of pork eaten in the country. Pakistanis do, however, eat a lot of sheep. And when they eat sheep, they eat all of the sheep — meat, heart, genitals, brains, you name it and Pakistanis have a recipe for it.

If you know where to look, you can even find Pakistani restaurants here in Japan that serve dishes using some of the more exotic parts of the animal.

One such restaurant is Maruhaba in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, which serves sheep brain curry.

We recently sent reporter Mr. Sato to Maruhaba to try the dish out; after all, he looks like he could benefit from a little more brain.

His report follows below:

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Why do Foreigners Like Japanese Manga so Much? We Head to Comiket to Find Out!

While manga is ubiquitous in Japan — just ride the subway in any major city and you’ll see people from all walks of life flipping through a comic book — many Japanese people are surprised to hear how popular manga has become overseas. After all, aren’t Westerners only interested in macho superheroes or short comic strips?

Perhaps that was the case in America before, but in recent years many major bookstores have begun to reserve more space near the front of the store for Japanese comics and in some European countries like France and Germany manga occupies a large portion of overall comic sales.

But why?

Earlier this month, we sent one of our Japanese reporters to Comic Market (or “Comiket“), the world’s largest self-published comic book fair and otaku mecca, to interview real live foreigners and ask them why they like Japanese manga so much.

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Hatsune Miku 7-Eleven Parody Video Will Give You Nightmares

If you weren’t in the know (and by the know we mean Japan), Japanese convenience store chain Family Mart and Hatsune Miku are running a promotional campaign from August 14 to September 10 to celebrate the Vocaloid’s 5th birthday.

To spread word of the campaign, Family Mart created a 15-second television commercial featuring Miku singing the store’s signature jingle and posted it to YouTube on August 17, though a ripped version had been posted to Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga a few days earlier.

One group of enterprising viewers saw the video and immediately got the idea for a parody, which he posted to Nico Nico and YouTube on August 19. The parody, titled “Miku LOVES Seven Campaign [Fiction]”. features a super deformed Hatsune Miku singing the Japanese 7-Eleven jingle and is absolutely terrifying.

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  • Aug 24, 2012

It seems there’s never a shortage of character-themed steamed buns (niku-man in Japanese) coming onto the market in Japan. In the past, we’ve seen buns modeled after Hatsune Miku, Spiderman, slime from Dragon Quest and Puyo Puyo to name a few. So who’s the newest character to be steamed into a tasty little bun? It’s none other than our beloved “cat of all trades”, Ms. Kitty! Read More

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