cool (Page 185)

Epic body slam action at US Sumo Open【Video】

One of Japan’s most ancient sports, sumo is both steeped in tradition and considered to be one of the most demanding in the world. Professional sumo wrestlers, or rikishi, must not only commit to a strict regime of physical training and the daily consumption of gargantuan meals in order to maintain their enormous mass, but also obey rules that cover everything from their hairstyles and the clothing they may wear in public to the use of vehicular transportation.

Although sumo’s popularity in Japan is on the wane, the sport is becoming increasingly popular in Western countries, particularly in the United States where groups such as USA Sumo are growing ever larger and receiving more and more media attention with each year that passes. And we’d be willing to bet that after seeing the following video taken at the US Sumo Open 2013 event, even the most sceptical of Western sports fans will start taking sumo a little more seriously.

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Hardcore Totoro: Western fan art reimagines Studio Ghibli classics with gritty realism

We’ve already seen what can happen when artists take the creations of Studio Ghibli and thrust them into the world of the macabre, but the following collection of fan-art posters has left us feeling quite on edge.

Reimagining all of your animated favourites with a shocking level of impact and realism, it’s fair to say that these posters are perhaps truer to their films’ roots than Ghibli would ever care to admit, but at the same time we’re quite sure that, had the films had debuted with these as their official posters there would be far fewer kids pestering their parents to go and see them.

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Keep your clothes clean with Sailor Moon bibs from high-end Tokyo department store

We were recently duped into thinking some high-quality pieces of Sailor Moon fan art were from the upcoming new installment in the anime franchise. In light of this, we’ve decided to be more skeptical about news concerning the lunar-themed heroine.

From now on, we’re not believing anything until we’re holding the real deal in our own two hands! Which is just what we did with a set of adult-size Sailor Moon bibs.

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Given the massive popularity of virtual idol Hatsune Miku, it’s easy to forget that she really hasn’t been around that long. The singing computer construct only recently celebrated her sixth birthday, which inspired one fan to whip up a Miku-themed cake.

This is far from the first time we’ve come across food that’s supposed to resemble the aqua-tressed songstress, and we’ve previously reported on Miku meat buns and even Miku bento. This just might be the most detailed recreation we’ve seen of the Vocaloid in edible form yet, though.

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Amazing! This 3-D itasha looks like a portal into the anime world

A true symbol of status for a whole lot of folks is the kind of car they drive. So what does it say about a person when a larger-than-life magical girl is bursting out the back of their van?! Someone is either absolutely amazing or amazingly disturbed to have so much love for an animated character. Either way, this has got to be one of the most awesome things we’ve ever seen rolling down the Japanese highway!

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We’re not in Kentucky anymore – KFC Japan offering chicken-flavored rice balls

Recently, the American expat staff here at RocketNews24 felt a twinge of shame when we heard that KFC’s Japanese division had leapfrogged its US counterpart by developing fried corn soup. The embarrassment we felt at being beaten in fried food innovation, something we’d always assumed America did better than anywhere else, was quickly replaced by simple joy when we tried some for ourselves and found out just how good it is.

Now, KFC Japan is showing they can do Japanese standards too, with their new chicken-flavored rice balls.

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My first time apartment hunting in Japan didn’t go so well. I ended up in a bunker so cramped that the only fridge I could fit inside could hold a carton of milk, a carton of orange juice, a tube of wasabi, and honestly not a whole lot more. By necessity, I subsisted on a cornucopia of non-perishables, often microwavable rice, topped with the contents of a pouch of instant curry from the convenience store down the street. It wasn’t gourmet, but it was a hot meal I could prepare in about the time it took to take off my suit and hang it up nicely.

But as simple as that was to make, Nissin Foods now has something even easier: instant curry and rice all in the same container.

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Brighten your day at the Magical Art Museum in Ueno 【Photos】

From now until October 6 at the Ueno Royal Museum, a very special art exhibit is on display called Trick of the Light『Magical Art Museum』~Art in Wonderland. This unique collection of modern art encourages participation from visitors, rather than mere observation, creating an individualized artistic experience for every person taking part.

The magical exhibit houses 19 installation art pieces put together by 11 very talented artists. Felix Sayaka, talented reporter for our Japanese sister site, Pouch, visited the museum to give us all an illuminated introduction to four of the exhibition’s stellar works.

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Japan waits with baited breath for local distributor of spreadable beer

These past few days, the Internet has exploded with word of Italy’s new beer spread. For a land like Japan, where beer is more than just a popular choice of beverage and is more-or-less central to their lifestyle, the invention of spreadable beer is cause for great excitement. Soon, rather than have a handful of snacks with their mugs full of beer, they’ll be spreading blobs of beer over their favorite snacks!

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Best job ever? Japanese man makes 1 million yen for three months of gaming

For all you fellow gamers out there, both hardcore and casual, how many hours have you wasted away powering up the pixels on your computer screens and game consoles? How many paychecks have disappeared into the latest expansion packs? How many hours of sleep have been lost to an addiction to online multi-players? Society doesn’t always understand, but we know it’s worth the time and the money when we get the fierce gratification of overcoming an in-game challenge. If we could, I’m sure many of us would love to make a living off of the lives we lead in the virtual world.

For one Japanese man, referred to by his handle name, Moru-chan, that dream is a reality. Moru-chan spends approximately 12 hours a day doing nothing but gaming for a paycheck of one million yen (US$10,043)! He’s earning this money by basically living out three months of his life in the online world of fantasy role-playing game, ArcheAge. RocketNews24 has the scoop here in an exclusive interview with this very lucky man at the one-room apartment provided to him by his company.

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Mario, Luigi, Link to appear in Capcom’s Monster Hunter 4

Sadly, there are very few ways to make money spontaneously appear in your pockets. We hear animal sacrifices work, but there’s all kinds of ethical complications, plus you need a rock solid alibi when your neighbor comes asking if you know where her poodle went.

But game manufacturer Capcom has found a simpler way that won’t get them arrested: adding Nintendo mascots into their games.

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Tokyo Olympic stadium looks like aliens landed downtown

As we’re sure you’ve heard, Tokyo was selected by the International Olympic Committee to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

Of course, no host city would be complete without a ludicrously over-designed Olympic stadium that looks like a race of aliens that watched Blade Runner on VHS one too many times took a wrong turn somewhere and landed their space ship downtown. Welcome to New National Stadium!

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We try KFC Japan’s deep-fried soup

Since September 5, Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan has started selling what they call a “corn potage fritter.” It sounds fancy, but when you really get down to it, it’s just deep-fried soup. To our Japanese reporter who hasn’t been versed in the wide variety of bizarre things Americans manage to fry up at county fairs across the United States, the very idea of fried soup was quite surprising. Half-convinced that such a snack even existed, he went down to his nearest KFC and gave it a try.

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Dream gaming cabinet puts 119 consoles, 75 controllers at your fingertips

In the topsy-turvy world we live in, where console manufacturers are reluctant even to let people bring their last-gen games to their newest hardware, a lot of gamers may be feeling fatigued, longing for the good old days when a pixelated blue hedgehog fighting a fat scientist with a weird fetish for forest creatures was the definition of a triple-A title.

One gamer, at least, was so fed up with the current gen console wars, he decided to ball up basically the entire history of gaming consoles into one sexy rig with 75 distinct controllers jutting out from it as if the cosmic protagonist of Katamari Damacy had rolled it through a vintage game store.

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Hold on tight: 10 unmissable roller coasters in Japan

When people think of Japan, they usually think of sushi, girls in kimono, otaku types camping outside electronics stores, and maybe this guy. But did you know that Japan is home to some seriously intense roller coasters? Yup, there are more corkscrews, loops and positive Gs in Japan than you can shake a paper fan at, so we decided it was about time we introduced you to 10 of the best roller coasters the country has to offer. We hope you had a light lunch!

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Would you drink hot ginger ale from a can? Coca Cola thinks you will

Fall is right around the corner, and winter is around the corner after that, and after that… wait, back up, you’re just going to end up in the same place you started. Let’s focus on fall.

Fall in Japan, like every season in Japan, is a chance for companies to come up with new seasonal convenience store items with fancy color-coded packages. And in summer’s case, tons and tons of salt. In the fall, especially, manufacturers gear up with all kinds of crazy concoctions because it’s (probably) a verifiable fact that everybody eats like a damn starved pig in the fall and they know you’ll eat or drink just about anything if they put some pretty fall leaves on the package.

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Artist amazes with Mario and Yoshi water sculptures

It’s one thing to look up into the clouds and see the vague shape of some video game character you recognize or maybe a dinosaur or something. After all, clouds are slow moving and amorphous; you’re bound to see some sort of Rorschach-esque pattern in there. But would you believe that a splash of water might, just for one instant, contain something as awesome as Mario and Yoshi?

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KFS? Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan offering deep-fried soup

It’s no secret that the RocketNews24 team is pretty enamored of life here in Japan. It’s hard not to have a good time in a country with such deep traditions and cultural events throughout the year.

That said, I always get just a little homesick when autumn rolls around. As great as Japanese festivals are, they simply can’t match American county fairs in terms of fried food offerings.

Thankfully, KFC Japan is ready to take a little of the sting out of fall this year with a new menu item: fried soup.

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Inevitable massive headache adds to challenge of Street Fighter II Virtual Boy port

The Virtual Boy was a product ahead of its time. The 3D effect from the ill-fated Nintendo console was pretty cool and the graphics engine could do some amazing things back in 1995; although the bright crimson red would leave your vision awash in a berserker rage effect for several minutes after playing.

Virtual Boy’s only drawback, and what ultimately left it doomed for failure, was its tendency to cause huge headaches after more than a few minutes of play. One Western Virtual Boy fan, though, apparently decided that he enjoyed the extra challenge of trying to pull off complicated combos while virtual icicles are being shoved into his eye sockets and, nearly 20 years after the console’s debut, ported classic fighting game Street Fighter II to the Virtual Boy:

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Do you remember giant robots? Full-scale Macross Valkyrie lands in Yokohama

The deployment of anime mecha to Yokohama continues. Earlier this month the Ingram from police story Patlabor made an appearance in the bayside city, and now comes a life-size VF-25 Valkyrie from Macross Frontier.

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