As you probably are already aware, Hello Kitty is definitely one very busy cat! In some of our past posts, we’ve seen her being baked into golden brown treats, or collaborating with Sadako from the “Ring” series. This time, Ms. Kitty will help make your shopping experience at the supermarket more environment-friendly and hassle free (on top of adding an element of cute, of course), with the new “Hello Kitty Premium Basket Cooler Tote Bag“. Read More
fashion (Page 80)
I can’t recall how many times mobile phones and mp3 players have slipped out of the front pocket of my shirt. Always ending with that cringe inducing thud as my precious device hits the cold hard ground. There was even one incident involving a turtle pond and now-gone iPod Classic that I can’t bear to go into.
If someone was videotaping all these moments in my life it would have made an excellent opening to a commercial for K-Pocke (pronounced like pokemon), a pocket designed so that nothing slips out.
The staff of an umbrella shop in Tokyo recently must have their work cut out for them these days as they explain to confused customers why boxes of lettuce are sitting in their displays. The answer, of course, is Vegetabrella; a fusion of two completely ordinary yet completely unrelated objects, an umbrella and a head of lettuce.
Xenon has just started selling a futuristic USB recharging cable for iPad, iPhone, and iPod, which not only lights up, but you can see how fast your device is recharging by how fast the light pulses along the cable. And when your charge is full, the light turns off. Read More
Ladies, are you looking for something to liven up your wardrobe but not go overboard? Are you tired of the man in your life not paying attention to your new shoes that you spent hours choosing?
If so, then visit etsy.com for your next pair. Here you can find sparkly and eye-catching designs that are too far over the edge of good-taste. I guarantee your husband or boyfriend will compliment you on your 1-UP designed shoes faster than you could imagine.
Read More
Around the world women often turn to bizarre-looking contraptions in the quest to look more beautiful and Japan is perhaps home to some of the strangest. Sometimes it even seems like beauty product makers are playing a huge joke on their customers by making them look more ridiculous than beautiful.
The latest of such products is Hana-Tsun (Pointy Nose), produced by Glim Inc., who are no strangers to thinking outside the box when it comes to beauty products.
Supermarkets all across Japan have been struggling to keep up with demand for that barely-tolerated gritty beverage known as tomato juice. This is the latest in an ongoing series of food fads many in the country believe to be effective in reducing weight like cabbage and bananas.
At the beginning of February one supermarket in Osaka had a well-stocked shelf of tomato juice daily, most likely catering to the odd person avoiding blood clots or making Bloody Marys. However, on the weekend of February 10, hordes of shoppers descended on their supply of juice like so many locusts on a farm. By the 14th, the staff was turning desperate dieters away as new shipments could not reach them in time.
Read More
Are you looking for something to give to that special someone in your life? Choosing the right gift is a huge burden for many of us this time of year, especially with so many options to choose from.
There is a shopping wonderland where every item is only about a buck and you can buy pretty much any daily necessity and a whole lot of stuff you didn’t even know existed. This fabled place is the Japanese 100 yen shop, and it’s head and shoulders above the dingy dollar shops you know from home. You can even pick up a stylish cover to pimp your iPhone, with an unexpected abundance of styles and colors to satisfy even the most demanding fashion divas.
Of course, price is one thing, but quality is also going to be a major factor. Can decoration-loving fashionistas really buy with confidence? Can these cheap covers really protect our all-important iPhones? Rocket News decided to find out.
Read More
Recently on our Japanese site, we introduced a picture (above) uploaded to reddit of a young black male who had sits causally with his pants pulled up over his shoulders. The picture was a hit with our Japanese readers, who interpreted it as a herald of the end of koshipan—the Japanese word for ‘saggy pants,’ which is a portmanteau of hips (koshi) and pants (pantsu)—and the beginning of a new age: the age of kubipan (kubi = neck).
Feeling it our mission to keep Japan up to date with the latest hip-hop fashion, we called upon our own Mr. Satoh to model the basics of kubipan for our Japanese readers who are interested in trying it themselves.
However, we soon realized how foolish we were to believe such a challenging new style could be easily manipulated. Read More
I slung my camera over my shoulder, ready to invade the world of cosplay for the first time at this year’s summer Comic Market 80 at Tokyo Big Sight.










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