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Don’t like drinking with the boss? No Promotion For You!

In Japan, husbands often hand over their pay packets to their wives, who are the chief financial controllers for the household. Husbands then receive a fraction of their pay in the form of a monthly allowance, which has to cover costs such as cell phone charges, lunches and all-important networking and relations-building nomikai, or work drinking parties.

According to a survey by Shinsei Bank, the average office worker receives an allowance of 39,600 yen (US$398) a month. But when the average cost for attending a drinking party is 2,860 yen ($28.75), and one lunch is an average of 510 yen ($5.13) a day, many workers are now choosing to skip out on after work drinks. What they don’t realise is that this attempt to save some yen is actually jeopardising their careers.

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  • Apr 21, 2013

The Portable Watermelon Fridge — Could It Be The Perfect Gift For The Person Who Has It All?

We all love coolers, don’t we? They keep our drinks nice and cold, wherever we go. Well, here’s a gadget that does the job even better! This little guy on wheels, believe it or not, is a portable mini-refrigerator/heater and goes by the cute product name of “Tama-chan”. But why is Tama-chan shown with a watermelon inside? Read More

MOS (Mountain Ocean, Sun) Food Services announced on the 18th that it would open all 1,400 of its MOS Burger outlets at 7:00 a.m. by the end of the year. The hamburger chain already operates 430 of its stores from that early hour and plans to progressively open the remainder at that time. McDonald’s Japan had been aggressive in the breakfast space with its “Morning Mac” campaign, and MOS Burger’s move is expected to intensify competition. At a press conference MOS President and CEO Atsushi Sakurada explained that the number of people eating breakfast out was increasing, especially among the elderly and working women, adding, “Change in the morning person market is accelerating. I want to strengthen our preparedness.”

Could this mean additional woes for an already troubled McDonald’s Japan?

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We Made Coca-Cola Transparent and Colorless. It Tastes Like…

The OKO is an “advanced filtration water bottle” that features a filtration system developed by NASA. It’s so powerful that the makers claim it can filter cola into transparent, colorless liquid. The original promotional video is pretty convincing, but there were plenty of people on the internet crying foul. How can this mere water bottle turn dark brown cola into what appears to be water?

We here at RocketNews24 knew what we had to do: go on a quest for this magical bottle and try it out ourselves. Ladies and gentlemen, we have indeed succeeded in turning cola into transparent, colorless liquid. It looked good enough to drink, but as we held the liquid to our quivering lips, we could only image what it might taste like.

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Dragon Ball Creator Akira Toriyama’s Newest Work Released… to Japanese Environmental Groups

Since the end of Dragon Ball’s massively successful series, creator Akira Toriyama has been putting out a fairly steady flow of one-shots, the most recent of which being 2010’s Kintoki.

Now, Toriyama’s newest work titled Lord Wu of Delicious Island (Oishi Shima No Wu Sama) is available for limited release.

How limited?  Well, your best chance is to become a primary school student participating in an environmental study group in Anjo, Aichi Prefecture.

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Sushi-Flavored Meiji Curl Snacks From Thailand Only Taste Like Seaweed

It looks like Thailand is coming out with all the cool foods this week. First it was the McGrilled Chicken Curry Rice at McDonald’s (hurry on over, it’s only sold for a limited time), now we found bags of sushi-flavored Meiji Curl snacks in a Thai convenience store.

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Suspected of violating laws related to acts of violence, the first trial for company employee Yoshihito Harada, 25, was held at the Nagoya district courthouse on 16 April. Harada stands accused of puncturing the tires of parked cars that were driven by women in an effort to strike up conversations with the drivers. When asked if there was any truth to the indictment, Harada admitted, “It’s true, I did it.”

According to the opening statement by prosecutors, between April 2011 and December 2012, Harada used a screw driver or other sharp object to puncture the tires of five different cars. The cars had all been parked outside supermarkets in the cities of Miyoshi, Nisshin and Toyota, Aichi Prefecture. In all cases the stated reason was so that Harada could establish contact with the women.

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A thesis which assesses the risks of internal radiation exposure within Fukushima Prefecture following the explosions at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, suggests that the effects of internal radiation fall far below that recorded after Chernobyl.

Ryugo Hayano, who works as a professor at Tokyo University’s Science Research Department, has collected the findings of doctors who conducted research into internal radiation exposure among those living inside of the Fukushima Prefecture. He consolidated these findings into an English journal entitled ‘Proceedings of Japan Academy Series B89’, which is available on the net.

The latest journal is a collection of reports that looks at the degree of radiation exposure through daily food consumption and it is reported to be the first of its kind.

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Not So Smooth Criminal: Woman Tries to Pay With Obviously Photocopied Yen

An unemployed young woman was arrested in Shizuoka Prefecture this week after she tried to pay at a convenience store with an obviously photocopied counterfeit bill. The master criminal’s excuse? “I was in a bind because I didn’t have any money.” Read More

Mos Burger Goes Green With Their Mos Natsumi Burgers

Just as KFC’s Kentucky Chicken Rice and other mega size deals appeared to put Japan on a slippery trans-fat laden slope to rampant morbid obesity, Japanese burger chain Mos Burger has stepped up and offered their own line of bunless burgers.

This time, rather than a pair of fluffy golden meat holders, your favorite Mos Burger sandwich will be nestled in the leafy green goodness of a wad of lettuce.

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A new service is gaining popularity among Chinese gamers. For the small fee of 15 yuan an hour (about US$2.40), you can play your favorite online game with a beautiful woman. Strait News reports that male game fans are calling it “good news.” Read More


  • Apr 19, 2013

I’m sure there are many of you who like to bake your own bread. (I, unfortunately, lack the culinary skills to do so and have to resort to store-bought goods.) But bread doesn’t always turn out the way you intended, does it? It certainly didn’t when Twitter user korpi baked a batch of what was supposed to be harmless, wholesome cheese bread, and the pictures she shared on her account have apparently caught the attention of Japanese Internet users — with their shock value. But what could be so alarming about some pieces of bread? Read More

The Xbox 360’s successor may well be just around the corner, but Microsoft has a serious problem on its hands in Japan. According to sales figures published by Japan’s Dengeki Online, even last week’s top-selling Xbox 360 game, Gears of War: Judgement, only managed to sell a paltry 347 copies in total. In a country where sales for Nintendo’s handheld 3DS reached almost 60,000 units in the exact same period, it’s clear that Microsoft’s console is struggling to keep its head above water.

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Facebook Opens Brick-and-Mortar Store in Myanmar – Or Does It?

In a recent visit to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, we made a rather interest discovery; it would appear Facebook was trying to muscle in on the hot Southeast Asian clothing market.

Even after closer inspection, however, we were unable to determine whether or not Zuckerburg and crew were in fact the backers behind this chic apparel retailer.

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iOS Facebook Chat Update Includes Awesomely Disgusting Projectile Vomit Emoticon

Facebook, possibly in an attempt to outpace Asia’s reigning chat program king LINE, updated their iOS Facebook Chat program on April 17, adding “stickers” that can be used in chat conversations much like LINE’s “stamps” (also called “stickers” in English language versions).

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Japanese Style Yakisoba Flavored Yakisoba: It’s Confusingly Delicious!

Yakisoba (fried buckwheat noodles) is a standard food in Japanese cuisine which can be found in restaurants, food stands, and convenience stores across the nation served in a variety of ways such as on hotdog buns or in an omelet.

There is also a variety of instant yakisoba noodle packs among which is the decades old Peyoung brand – loved by Japanese people of all ages for its delicious taste and easy preparation.

Occasionally the company releases special flavors like curry and super-hot, but this time they came out with perhaps the most unexpected flavor of all: yakisoba flavored yakisoba.

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Having ruled out Colonel Mustard with a candlestick in the dining room (thanks Hasbro), Osaka prefectural police at the city’s Taisho station are trying to figure out who made off with national flags from two of the district’s elementary schools on April 16.
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It became evident on the 16th that as a general rule, Chinese authorities would soon ban domestic media companies from using quotes from foreign media sources and information garnered from Weibo, the country’s popular microblogging website. Citing the need to “form a healthy reporting structure,” among other reasons, authorities are preparing to lay out strict reporting regulations

The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), state authorities that control domestic media, made it clear they will start “requesting reporters and editors” not to use reports from foreign media sources or citizen-generated content from the Internet without first gaining prior approval.

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Woman Barred From Boarding Flight with Foul-Smelling Durian Flies into Rage, Angrily Chows Down in Middle of Airport

There are a lot of things that can ruin a good vacation and lord knows one of them is the whole airport/airplane experience in general. Lost luggage, security checks, kids kicking your seat.

But this bizarre news story from China will make you grateful those security checks are there after all. Read More

There’s a Snake in my Soup! We Taste Test Some Popular ‘Soul Food’ from Hong Kong

Have you ever heard the phrase “you are what you eat”? Perhaps this is why every region has its own brand of “soul food,” embodying the heart and history of its people. For Japan, the most basic and invigorating dishes you can find would probably be natto and miso soup. But how about the powerhouse city of Hong Kong? Apparently, and much to our surprise, Hong Kong’s home-grown food for the soul is snake soup! Before hearing of this, the thought of eating a snake had never really crossed our minds, but we couldn’t help but be curious about the taste. And so, we took to the streets of Hong Kong in search of a restaurant that would sell us some freshly prepared snake. Read More

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