China’s knock-off game has a number of surprisingly similar elements and characters that look weirdly like the originals from Pokémon Go.
apps (Page 3)
Let your smartphone take the guesswork out of finding your way around Shinjuku and Tokyo Stations.
As hugely popular instant messaging app LINE supplants most other forms of communication in Japan, a poll asks young Japanese people: Is it okay to break up with someone by IM?
The Vocaloid star has been secretly hiding in your smart phone, just waiting for the right application to let her loose.
Tired of Apple’s standard apps clogging up your iPhone or iPad screen? This simple workaround can help!
Developers assert that they were motivated by philanthropic sentiments to help roughly four out of every five women in the world.
As further proof that cats rule the Internet and humanity at large, the relaxed, mostly goal-less mobile app time waster, Neko Atsume—which tasks players with simply collecting a bunch of cartoon cats and kind of just watching them do stuff—proved a massive success in Japan despite a distinctive lack of explosions, destruction and, er, constantly running from left to right that are the typical hallmark of successful mobile games.
In fact, the game is so popular among cat lovers (read: everyone) that the Japanese version of the game began trending abroad, even though the large majority of fans surely had to resort to Internet guides to make any sense of the Japanese kanji plastered all over the in-game menus and inventory.
Said fans were in for a great surprise, though, when last week, developer Hit-Point updated the game with full English support thanks to renowned localization agency 8-4. We had a chance to sit down with the 8-4 team and chat about the behind-the-scenes work that went into localizing the app for an English speaking audience.
Thanks to the world of smartphones, we’re now able to connect to ourselves on a physical level in a way we never could before. Fitness apps and wearable devices like the Fitbit wristband allow us to monitor everything from the number of steps we take to our walking speed and heart rate.
While activity trackers usually take physical data from our wrists, Japanese eyewear brand JINS is taking a very different approach by monitoring not only our physical but also our mental state, with the new JINS MEME glasses. Using a number of built-in sensors to gather data from the eyes and body, now you can monitor everything from posture to alertness levels and find out how your body and mind “age” alters throughout the day.
Are you wishing you had a cat to cuddle up with, but for one reason or another you can’t? I understand that nothing can truly fill that furry void like the real purr-y thing, but you gotta make do with what you have, so here it is guys, the online purr generator, which allows you to create your own customized rumble-y purr, straight from your speakers!
Game developer Square Enix, renowned for its number of long-running Japanese RPG series, announced yesterday that a new, smartphone-only entry in the fabled Dragon Quest franchise will hit online stores sometime this year.
I think we can all agree that math is a pretty handy thing to understand, right? A basic concept of things like fractions and algebraic equivalents is what keeps us from getting taken advantage of by con men who make such tempting offers as trading two of their shiny monies (or even three!) for our one paper money when the latter is actually of greater value.
Still, basic math is all about following the proper procedures to arrive at the one true solution, which is why you don’t get partial credit for having the wrong answer on your math assignment just because you took a novel approach and wrote the numbers with nice penmanship. As such, you can program a machine to spit out the answer in a fraction of a second, and with a new smartphone app, all you have to do is snap a picture of the math problem, and let the app take over from there.
One thing that Apple fans tend to bring out during the enormous Android vs iPhone flame wars is apps. While both systems have a huge number of applications, people often claim that those on iOS are either better or cover a broader range. We won’t even pretend to have an opinion on whether or not this is true, but it looks like Android may have Apple beat in at least one area! Though we’re not so sure Google will be proud of this accomplishment.
It looks like there might be an Android app in China that you can use to find some tough guys to rough people up for you!
While trains in Japan are revered for their reliability and punctuality, sometimes the inevitable happens, and services become delayed. If you are one of the hundreds of thousands in Japan who depend on the trains to get you to and from work each day, it can really put a damper on things to arrive at the station and find your platform crowded with other commuters, expecting a long wait.
If you had known about the delay beforehand, you could’ve planned a different route, or if that’s not an option, you could have stopped somewhere for some coffee to kill the time. It would be great if there was an app for that, you think.
Well, lucky for you there is!
Although still relatively unknown in the West, Naver Company’s Line is by far the most popular messaging application in Japan right now, with millions of active users. But when an app comes to be embraced by so many people, it’s often only a matter of time before someone with too much time on their hands decides to spoil the fun for everyone by hacking users’ accounts in an effort to make money.
Cases of Line accounts being taken over have been on the rise since May this year, with many people claiming to have received messages from both anonymous users and those already in their contact list, asking them to purchase pre-paid WebMoney cards and send a photo of the card’s number over to them so that they can claim it.
Thankfully, most Line users are bright enough to recognise a scam when they see it, and know exactly how to respond…
Smartphones and tablets improve almost faster than consumers can keep up with, and the apps designed for them change even more quickly. That means that there is a lot of opportunity for plagiarism. But surely sometimes it’s just a coincidence, right? It’s not out of the question that two developers could realistically be trying to fulfill the same need.
This week has brought us one more heated internet debate: Is hotel application Tonight by Japan’s GREE a rip-off of North American app Hotel Tonight, or are their similarities just coincidence?
As we’ve said before, Japanese isn’t actually as hard to learn as it’s often made out to be. Unlike English, for example, Japanese follows its own grammatical rules far more rigidly, pronunciation is easy because there is only one variant of each vowel sound to choose from (none of this tomayto/tomahto business), and it’s possible to create entire, perfectly meaningful and valid sentences without uttering a single pronoun or bothering to conjugate a verb.
Nevertheless, the language will not magically seep into you through a desire to speak it alone — you still need to encounter and study it as often as possible. With that in mind, we’d like to present to you the six and a half resources that no dedicated student of the Japanese language should ever be without. Oh, and the good news is some of them are completely free.
In our modern world, with the sometimes questionable motives of our political leaders and the abundance of often conflicting information available online, it’s perhaps not surprising that countries’ armed forces have a hard time finding new recruits.
While the United States Army opted to take a rather gung-ho approach to recruitment by releasing a free-to-play tactical first-person shooter video game in the form of America’s Army, Japan – who, following its defeat in World War II, is permitted only to have “Self-Defense Forces” that remain on Japanese territory – has its own methods of rallying support and enticing potential new recruits. Its latest recruitment drive, for example, is so fantastically quirky that is positively screams “Japan”.
Say hello to the JSDF “cheerleading shout” app that allows future soldiers, sailors and pilots to take selfies and insert them into Mii-like avatars that dance around when special augment reality (AR) cards are scanned.
MOST POPULAR
Now
You can assemble a well-balanced team of Pokémon, them eat them, thanks to Japanese cake chain
Sailor Moon’s Artemis is part of the Artemis II NASA mission control team[Video]
Pokémon and Ikea Japan cross over into each other’s worlds with collaboration events
Starbucks Japan closing only Shinkansen platform branch for popularity-triggered renovations
Princesses, fruits, and blacksmiths: Study reveals the 30 most unusual family names in Japan
Japan’s full-facemask Ninja Parka still lets you eat ice cream[Photos]
Japan reportedly adding Japanese language skill requirement to most common foreigner work visa
Animal Crossing plushie pouch towels and cozy socks show up at Family Mart convenience stores
Protect your sweets from fridge thieves with Japan’s Pudding Alert 2.1 system!【Video】
Japanese kindness restores our faith in humanity after a highway bus accident in Tokyo
Weekly
- Pokémon and Ikea Japan cross over into each other’s worlds with collaboration events
Tokyo’s best museum for foreign travelers finally reopens after being closed for four years
Pokémon lacquerware series expands for Year of the Horse with new handcrafted design[Video]
Two food hacks take Japan’s convenience store fried chicken to amazing new sandwich heights
Tokyo subway and almost all Tokyo train lines now accepting credit card tap payments
Totoro Fund line of beautiful artwork and apparel lets you help the real-world Totoro Forest
Fading Tokyo – Searching for signs of the Showa era as local neighborhoods evolve[Photos]
Famous Tokyo cherry blossom spot installs view-blocking screens to fight overcrowding[Video]
Tokyo turns its phone booths into free Wi-Fi hotspots, and here’s how to use them
Studio Ghibli adds new My Neighbour Totoro 2026 Corn Gift to its anime store for Mother’s Day
Monthly
- Pokémon and Ikea Japan cross over into each other’s worlds with collaboration events
Japan now has a special desk for people who work at home with a pet cat[Photos]- Famous Tokyo cherry blossom spot installs view-blocking screens to fight overcrowding[Video]
Uniqlo announces new T-shirts for One Piece, Naruto and more for manga publisher’s 100th birthday
Train station platform ramen store closes its doors on half a century of history in Tokyo
Starbucks Japan releases new My Fruit³ Frappuccino at only 34 stores around the country
Studio Ghibli releases Catbus pullback keychain that runs like the anime character
Krispy Kreme releases Super Mario doughnuts in Japan for a limited time
Japanese onsen egg maker from 100-yen store Daiso needs to be on your shopping list
Nine great places to see spring flowers in Japan, as chosen by travelers (with almost no sakura)
Yearly
Survey asks foreign tourists what bothered them in Japan, more than half gave same answer
Japan’s human washing machines will go on sale to general public, demos to be held in Tokyo
Starbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
We deeply regret going into this tunnel on our walk in the mountains of Japan
Studio Ghibli releases Kodama forest spirits from Princess Mononoke to light up your home
Starbucks Japan releases new sakura goods and drinkware for cherry blossom season 2026
Japan’s newest Shinkansen has no seats…or passengers [Video]
Major Japanese hotel chain says reservations via overseas booking sites may not be valid
Put sesame oil in your coffee? Japanese maker says it’s the best way to start your day【Taste test】
No more using real katana for tourism activities, Japan’s National Police Agency says
RECOMMENDED STORIES
Japan’s full-facemask Ninja Parka still lets you eat ice cream[Photos]
Japan reportedly adding Japanese language skill requirement to most common foreigner work visa
Animal Crossing plushie pouch towels and cozy socks show up at Family Mart convenience stores
Protect your sweets from fridge thieves with Japan’s Pudding Alert 2.1 system!【Video】
Japanese kindness restores our faith in humanity after a highway bus accident in Tokyo
No one knows what Bandai’s real-life Pot of Greed does, but it’s still pretty cool
The “Party Lucky Bag” from Amazon wasn’t quite the party we were expecting
Japan’s premier beatboxer sets YouTube ablaze, annoys fans with lack of beatboxing
With hand-painted faces, no two Totoro kamikogei traditional papercraft figures are the same
Twitter user shares her cakey creation that looks just like a plate of curry rice
Initial D wet wipe cases and bento boxes drift into Japan, available at Narita Airport too
Bring spring into your home with pink flower-themed Le Creuset pots and tableware!
Take a trip to Japan’s Dododo Land, the most irritating place on Earth
-
