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A message left by a Twitter user claiming to be trapped under rubble after a powerful earthquake later turned out to be fake, causing outrage across Japan.

In the early evening of Friday, December 7,  a magnitude-7.3 earthquake with its epicentre off the northeast coast of Japan caused tremors so large that the Tokyo cafe in which my boss and I sat fell silent as patrons no doubt began wondering whether they ought to take cover beneath their tables. Windows rattled and the entire building creaked and swayed for almost five minutes after the tremors stopped.

As people reached for their mobile phones, expressions of concern could be seen throughout the room as talk of “possible tsunami” and “northeast Japan” appeared on social networks and news sites.

Soon after, a tweet (pictured above) appeared online asking for help and requesting that the message be shared as much as possible. Within the next hour, concerned Twitter users had retweeted the message more than 13,000 times, with many sending messages asking for more information about the user’s location and encouraging them to remain calm.

When the writer of the original tweet resurfaced hours later, however, and began mocking those who fell for the prank, people were understandably very upset, and soon began demanding that the tweet writer’s real identity to be determined and for them brought to justice.

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Mr. Sato Takes his Wii U to Play While Waiting in Line at the Wii U Release

Mr. Sato, you are the man! Not only were you able to obtain a Wii U before the rest of us even had a chance to hold one, but you had the audacity to show up to the release of the Wii U with a Wii U! And to top it all off, you were decked out in your signature look, “Blue Slime.”

Respect where respect is due!
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An elementary school-aged girl in Aichi prefecture is believed to have reported a man to the police late last week when he stopped her to ask for directions to the station.

Most elementary aged children in Japan make their way to and from school on foot, with each’s child’s route kept on file at the school office to ensure their safety. Children are also arranged into small groups or have walking buddies who take the same route, and local Parent Teacher Associations ensure that there is always someone manning busy intersections each morning to help the children cross the street and keep any eye open for anything suspicious.

Kids are taught the safety rules of not only the road, but also how to prevent becoming victims of crime. Of course, talking to strangers is out of the question, but they are also encouraged to report anything ‘out of the ordinary’. On occasions such as these, the ‘suspicious characters’ are reported, and a letter goes out informing parents about the time and place of the sighting, as well as the physical description of the shifty-looking individual.

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【Rocket Food】 One Piece Chicken! Cook for Monkey D. Luffy at Home Tonight with this Simple Recipe

One Piece fans the world over will have no doubt lost count of the number of times they’ve seen Monkey D. Luffy chomping on a big hunk of meat.

Keen food fans that the RocketNews24 writers are, we can’t help but feel a little peckish every time we see the wide-grinning captain tucking into his meals, and we always find the food he eats, dished up by chain-smoking pirate chef Sanji, absolutely tantalising.

But now, thanks to the equally food-loving team at sister site Pouch, we have just the thing to placate our growling stomachs while we watch our One Piece DVDs or flick through our ever-growing stack of comic books: from Chef Sanji’s very own cookbook, egg-stuffed chicken!

It’s simple, nutritious and boy is it tasty. Full ingredients and recipe all after the jump >

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  • Dec 10, 2012

Doraemon (No, it’s Not Hello Kitty This Time) Cosplays to Bring You Luck in the New Year!

At RocketNews24, we love seeing well-known characters indulging in a bit of fun cosplaying. Last month, we showed you Hello Kitty turning herself into a Thanksgiving main dish, and it appears she’s not the only one transforming into food form. This time, Doraemon has made himself available in a mochi (rice cake) costume for the Japanese New Year, and darn it, he actually looks cute doing it! Read More

 

According to reports by the Chinese media, a gas station in the eastern province of Jiangsu has been identified as the source of heavily-diluted fuel that has caused numerous vehicle breakdowns in the area.

A number of cars in the city of Nantong suffered engine trouble just minutes after their tanks were filled at a Sinopec stand (owned by the China Petrolium and Chemical Corporation), with each car later found to have water in its fuel tank.

It wasn’t long before mechanics and motorists alike began to notice a pattern between the sudden engine failures and visits to the Sinopec stand.

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It seems like nearly every city, town, and village in Japan has a cute mascot character to represent it. Usually these are yuru-kyara, anthropomorphic characters often designed with qualities representing whatever that municipality is known for.

The city of Suwa, Nagano, however, knows that the worth of a mascot character should be judged not by how well it represents the region, but by how well it sells. And in Japan, nothing sells better than cute anime girls.

That’s why they came up with Suwa-hime, or Princess Suwa, a young anime princess from medieval Japan with her own manga, voice actress, and line of original figures and goods.

Since her creation in 2011, Suwa-hime has been such a success that the city has even started printing her on their official marriage certificates, and the nerdy public official who came up with her is likely basking in splendid vindication of his hobby for the first time in his life.

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Amazing AU Commercial Turns Tokyo Into Night Club— With Daft Punk!

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.

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  • Dec 9, 2012

Hello Kitty Now A Hot Sexy Kitten (And She’ll Warm Your Legs Too!)

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

Day of Wishes from the Dragon God Available on Yahoo! Auction, Seller’s Sister’s Panties Also Up for Grabs

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.

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“A crazy man is coming to school today and he’s going to try to stab us”: Japan Takes Code Red Drills to the Extreme【You, Me, And A Tanuki】

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

High-Speed Chocolate: A Look at the New Shinkansen Kit Kat and Other Cool Japanese Kit Kat Packages

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.

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Amazing High Quality Color Footage of a Very Different Tokyo Circa 1935

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.

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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.

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Send Your Loved Ones Christmas Greetings, But Send it Secretly with Coke!

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.

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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!”

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Giant Robot Battle Fists Now On Sale in Japan! But With Great Robot Fists Comes Great Responsibility

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!

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Animal Crossing 3DS Countrywide Shortage Prompts Terrified Apology from Nintendo Boss

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.

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