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Pocket Money for Leo: Django Unchained Star finds Extra Work Pimping Whiskey in Japan

Commercials: a lot of celebrities in the west won’t touch them with a borrowed pole. After working hard to build up their portfolio and making themselves a household name, for many professional actors the mere thought of putting their face on an advertisement is completely abhorrent.

In Japan, however, it’s a very different story. TV celebrities, singers and sports stars are a common feature on commercials, whether they be on television, magazines or even hanging over our heads as we take the train to work each morning. Watches, skin cream, beer, anti-hair loss, cars, language courses; you name it, someone famous is smiling and pretending they love it in exchange for a few extra yen.

This time it’s the turn of hollywood heart-throb Leonardo DiCaprio to take the cash and smile for the camera. Because, as we all know, DiCaprio never shuts up about how much he loves Jim Beam whiskey usually…

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Proving once again that Gloria Estefan was right and that the rhythm is gonna get you, Japanese DJ Kazuhiro Abo’s fantastic video shows a 10-minute session he did during visit to a kindergarten as part of a workshop appropriately titled “Kids and Music”. Although it takes the little ones a while to get moving at first, once they’re all up on their feet they’re bouncing and spinning around as only kids can do.

The full cute, chaotic video after the jump.

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Valentine’s Day. It may well be little more than an excuse for chocolate manufacturers to line their pockets, but its popularity in Japan seemingly knows no bounds. For those men in relationships, the day is usually one filled with gifts of fondue toilets and creepy girlfriend-shaped chocolates, but for the singletons out there it’s just another day to feel unappreciated.

But not these young men! Rather than spend February 14 without a little somethin’ sweet, they donned sunglasses and face masks and descended on Tokyo’s Machida station asking for chocolate donations from passers-by. And, would you believe it, they were actually kind of a hit with the ladies.

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No matter how much you love someone, once you start living with them minor irritations are bound to come to the surface. The object of your affections – that perfect specimen of a human being whose every movement used to be cute, sexy or endearing in some way – suddenly becomes just another person with flaws of their own. Perhaps they slurp their coffee too loudly. Maybe they have a habit of leaving hair in the plug-hole or not changing the toilet roll when the old one is finished. These minor issues are the kind of thing that we only come to notice after the initial “honeymoon” dating period when we were always dressed to impress and only have to keep our bad habits in check for the duration of a single evening at a time.

In a recent story about marital relations, Japanese website News Post Seven heard from both relationships experts and a number of married women who were distinctly irked by their husbands’ bad habits. While issues such as of a general lack of help with the housework or cooking frequently cropped up as the cause of arguments and unhappiness, one of the most common complaints made was of husbands making as mess while peeing. Told to take a seat while draining his spuds, however, one Japanese man was seemingly morally offended by the mere suggestion, stating that to pee standing up is “a matter of honour”.

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Lazy Slobs Rejoice: Upside-down “Desk” To Use While You Snooze

Now all you need is an intravenous drip, catheter and bed pan…

On 7 February, a new day of sloth dawned with the issue of Thanko’s new upside-down laptop desk, aptly named Aomuke Gorone Desk (“Napping Face Up Desk”) for 7,980 yen (US$86).

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Japan Sets Guinness Record for Synchronized Mascot Dancing 【Video】

It’s not surprising that in Japan, the land of cute and cuddly, pretty much everything has a fuzzy mascot. Even prefectural and city governments are getting in on the merchandising mania with adorable (or terrifying, depending on your point of view) characters called yuru-kyara meant to promote tourism and local products.

This week, 141 yuru-kyara from 25 prefectures across the country gathered in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, to make their mark on history by becoming the largest group of mascots ever to do the same dance together. Jaw-droppingly awesome video after the break. Read More

Desperate to Pee? Let Someone Else Shoulder the Burden with this Genius Invention: the Pee Baton!

Gadget-laden robot cat from the future Doraemon is something a national treasure here in Japan. Since the appearance of the original manga of the same name back in 1969, the subsequent TV series has been watched by multiple generations and is still on the air today. As well as remaining popular with adults and kids alike, the Japanese Foreign Ministry once declared the mechanical time-traveller the country’s official “animé ambassador”, meaning that the earless mechanical cat is sure to be around for a long time to come yet.

Perhaps the thing that people love most about Doraemon, though, is his seemingly bottomless pocket, from which the character produces all manner of gadgets and inventions in order to assist his human pal Nobita. Although the “dokodemo doa” (lit. “anywhere door”) is often given as the answer to the age-old conundrum “Which of Doraemon’s gadgets would you most like to have?”, it doesn’t stop people imagining what else could buried deep down in there.

In that vein, Yahoo! Japan recently announced the winner of its 2012-2013 Adults Only Doraemon Contest, in which contestants were asked to come up with an invention that they’d like to pull out of Doraemon’s pocket and use in real life, with the top prize being awarded to 50-year-old Rieko Honjou for her “Pee Baton”.

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Startling Nature Footage Reveals Penguins Are Kind of Jerks

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFAK8Vj62WM?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=640&h=360%5D

Penguins, otherwise known as the tuxedo wearing clown princes of the Antarctic, have amused us for centuries.  Their cute little waddles and fluffy babies can warm even the coldest of hearts.

However, new footage taken by researchers has shed light on a previously unknown facet of penguin life – they’re kind of dicks.

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Japanese Men Share Their Worst Christmas Experiences Ever: Pikachu, Platoon and Painkillers

So this is Christmas. The time where we all sip eggnog by the open fire enjoying the gentle blanket of wet snow covering a meadow as a deer scampers by, right?

Of course not, it’s raining here now and my glasses are broken. Still, I’d consider this an average holiday season for myself. For many out there, Santa has little more than a big bag of suck to stuff in your stocking.

Don’t sweat it though. Every year can’t be a winner. For those having a blue Christmas, the website MyNavi has compiled a list of Japanese men’s worst Chirstmas experiences.

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With just seven days to go, children the world over are without a doubt already finding it hard to sleep at night. Will Santa (or Father Christmas as I grew up calling him) arrive? Have I been good enough this year? Does he know about the things I did with Jane Steepleton in her tree house during the summer?

Let’s hope that we’ve all been good boys and girls and that the big man in red will pay us all a visit, unlike one unfortunate individual who found himself giftless on Christmas day one year and took to Japan’s Chiebukuro Yahoo! Answers forums to ask the nation simply: “Where is Santa!?”

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Urban Soldier: Mr. Sato Dons Camo for a Call of Duty-Inspired Coffee Dash

It came as an enormous shock to the entire team to hear that the legend that is Mr. Sato rarely visited Starbucks coffee houses.

Surrounded by the well-dressed, coffee sipping elite and with fancy lingo like “tall” and “grande” being thrown around, our reporter felt completely out of his depth at Starbucks and rarely dared to set foot inside even to grab a quick take-out coffee.

But after playing a lot of Black Ops 2 on the new office Wii U, a brilliant idea came to us…

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Your Morning Workout: Japanese Library Staff Show Us How to Strech in Hilarious / Cute Video

Oh, Japan, we love you so much.

Morning stretches, or asa taisou, may look faintly ridiculous to many westerners, but it’s not uncommon for companies both large and small to have their entire staff standing up and performing a daily warmup routine each morning, often to music. Stroll past a construction site at around 8:30 a.m. and you’ll likely see a team of burly men wearing hard hats doing shoulder shrugs in unison or doing hip gyrations chanting one, two, three, four!

Just this morning, however, we at RocketNews24 witnessed perhaps the greatest example of morning stretch routines ever; a spectacle that had us chuckling, scratching out heads and finally nodding in agreement.

Prepare yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, for the Michinoku Librarian Union’s daily exercise routine!

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It’s not easy being a kid. If you’re fat the other kids make fun of you; if you’re skinny the other kids make fun of you; if you get good grades they make fun of you… Kids don’t need a genuine reason to be tease their peers; they can make one up just as easily.

But when your parents name you after their favourite thing – be it the weather on the day you were born, the place you were conceived or their favourite snack food – things get awkward for poor little Windy Latrine Butterfinger.

Although authorities have been known to intervene when parents try to call their child things like Akuma, meaning devil in Japanese, and @ as once rejected by authorities in China, the vast majority slip through the net. Since kanji, the Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system, are based on meaning and can be read in a variety of different ways, parents giving their child a kanji-based name (some choose phonetic kana script, but this is usually just for girls) are able to choose both their child’s name and how it will be written.

For the most part, parents choose names that convey their love or hopes for their offspring, but in the land of otaku nerdism, sometimes parents just can’t help but get carried away.

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TV Blunder Labels Japan’s Potential Next Prime Minister a Pervert

Running for election in Japan isn’t easy. But when your face is shown alongside titles like “pervert” and “molester,” it’s probably a lot harder than it ought to be.

Japan’s political system is a mess right now and, despite having seen six prime ministers come and go in as many years, the country is headed for an election next month, with one-time PM Shinzo Abe putting himself forward to be re-elected.

The politician was made a laughing-stock earlier this week, however, when the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) early morning TV show Asazuba accidentally displayed Mr. Abe’s photo alongside a news report about a sex offender’s arrest.

Despite having no relation to the incident whatsoever, Mr. Abe’s face filled viewers’ screens along with the shocking titles, prompting the nation to spit out its corn flakes, or at the very least dribble a bit of natto onto the table.

Suffice to say, the politician was not pleased, and, suspecting this to be part of a “campaign of negativity”, took to his public Facebook page to tear TBS a new one…

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“Aaaaargh!!!” Baby Red Panda Makes his Dramatic Screen Debut

We’ve all seen those popular internet videos like the sneezing baby panda and dramatic look gopher, but in Hokkaido today a new internet phenomenon may have been born.

While filming at Murayama Zoo in Sapporo, visitors watched as a baby red panda, known as Gin, received a shock when his caretaker entered their pen to check if they had enough food left in their dish.

What might have caused most animals to simply jump a little, however, caused little Gin to fall over backwards, mouth open and limbs flailing like Sarah Connor when Arnold Schwarzeneggar comes out of the elevator in James Cameron’s Terminator 2…

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Sexy, Sexy, Sexy: Because Real Men Wear Stockings in Winter

Why should girls be the only ones allowed to stay toasty warm in winter?

Fed up with getting the chills and knowing that winter was only just beginning, RocketNews24‘s resident adventurer and male model Mr. Sato was feeling rather down in the dumps this week. But when news arrived that nearby Ikebukuro Tobu department store had begun selling a new range of stockings and ultra-warm underwear just for men, his face lit up with the warmth of a thousand suns and he was out the door in mere seconds.

Barely an hour later, he arrived back at RocketNews Towers ready to try his latest purchases on for us.

As you can see from the photo above, it was quite the show.

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【Fixed】 Collection of Ingenious Short Skits From the Japanese Program That Brought Us “Matrix Ping Pong” Now on YouTube

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgM11RtGjeI?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=640&h=360%5D

Kasou Taisho, or All Japan Kasoh (Costume) Grand Prix, is a semi-annual televised contest in which amateur groups or individuals perform short skits which are rated by a panel of judges.

Many of the skits make extensive use of kurogo: stagehands dressed in all black to imply they are “invisible” to the audience while they move around props or actors on stage. This allows performers to create clever illusions and “fake” special effects, such as in the classic “Matrix Ping Pong” skit, which you can see above.

Having been on the air for more than 30 years, the show no doubt has an extensive library of short, funny video clips—or as we call it these days, internet crack. And finally figuring out that crack sells, Kasou Taisho has posted nearly 100 of their finest skits from over the years for your viewing pleasure on YouTube.

We hope you weren’t planning on doing anything productive over the next half hour…

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Sadistic Super Mario World is Back with New Levels, Made by Friends for Friends…

If you’re anything like me, you spent tens, if not hundreds of hours during the 1990s in front of a TV set playing Super Nintendo games like Super Mario World.

The game is often heralded as the greatest 2-D Mario game ever made, and is still played even 22 years (feel old yet!?) after its original launch.

You’d be wrong, though, if you thought that people were still playing just the levels that Nintendo crafted for its consumers decades ago; throughout the world there are entire groups of people with ROM files and hacked versions of the original game code who are regularly creating new levels, sometimes entire worlds, of their very own.

But why create nice, gentle levels filled with dancing flowers and 1-up mushrooms when you could create the most sadistic, mind-bending stages ever conceived of and force your friends to play through them?

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