Kawaii (Page 7)
Well, that’s one way to bring all the boys to your well-raked yard…
Want to wear Hello Kitty accessories and still be taken seriously? In Japan you can. Here’s why.
Japanese often say that a good view makes a meal taste better, so it goes without saying that a cute-looking lunchbox would also enhance the contents inside. From meals served in Shinkansen-shaped containers or rabbit-faced boxes that can be reused as coin banks, to lunch boxes that play music or have collector’s items hidden inside, Japan’s ekiben take Japanese food to a whole new level.
Today we’d like to tell you about “Ekiben”, a little book by Aki Tomura which introduces the best and most unique train station lunch boxes in Japan. We’ve chosen just a few to highlight from this gorgeously photographed, pocket-size book. The word Ekiben is a combination of two Japanese words: eki (station) and bento (lunchbox), so make your next train trip a gourmet ride with these bento available at various JR stations—just waiting for you to buy, smile, and devour.
Let the fun begin!
There’s nothing cuter than cute animal goods, is there? Whether it’s hamster cheek coin purses or panda earmuffs, we just can’t resist wasting our hard-earned cash on adorable things to make us feel all fuzzy inside. Especially if they’re a little unusual or quirky in ways that make us feel like we’ve got something really original on our hands.
Take, for example, these new three-dimensional animal head cushions by Hot Seal JP. The full range features Akita ken, husky, poodle, pug and boxer breed dogs, as well as a variety of cutesome kitties, all with massive bulging eyes and protruding snouts that somehow manage to be creepy and cute at the same time!
There are shoes, and then there are SHOES; dainty little works of art that adorn your feet, turning heads as you walk by and acting as conversation starters with complete strangers. In Japan, of course, fashion gets taken to the next level of cuteness and never more so than with the new range of My Melody showstoppers from Sanrio.
Sometimes waking up is hard, especially when the seasons change and bed starts to feel snugglier than ever before. But wake up we must, and many of us have invented little tricks to make the process easier, such as blaring out our favourite songs, sucking down industrial-sized cups of coffee, and cooing over cute animals on the internet.
For your consideration today, we’d like to present a menagerie of of baby bunny rabbits twitching their little pink noses at you over the rim of a couple of coffee and tea cups. Pick your choice of bun “to go” and go get ’em, tiger. After you’ve watched the cute videos, of course…
Many of the world’s oldest living people are Japanese. Whether it’s down to a healthy diet, good healthcare, or simply the support of friends and family, we can’t say for sure, but all those things certainly help. And now it turns out that even Japan’s kitties are living long lives—Japan’s oldest cat, Ai-chan, has recently celebrated her 27th birthday, and she did it in style!
Everyone knows that cats love boxes. It’s pretty much a universal trait amongst members of the feline persuasion. But it turns out that cats love playing with bags, too! Plastic, paper, whatever, these kitties don’t care, they just want to grab themselves a piece of the action, either by lounging around in bags or by sitting in them as they hang from hooks and doorhandles!
Enjoy this gallery of playful pussycats all bagged up!
In the west, there’s a wide range of stores selling affordable and cute fashion marketed towards teens, such as H&M, TopShop, Zara and Forever 21. But in Japan, one of the most popular places for picking up cute clothes is the interestingly named chain store Cecil McBee. With a name seemingly pilfered for some bizarre reason from Tulsa-born jazz musician Cecil McBee (he even tried to sue, but was unsuccessful), the chain has stores across Japan, with a main store located inside the trendy 109 shopping centre in Shibuya.
Now, however, the chain is branching out from fashion to release a range of educational books aimed at junior high school girls with adorably kawaii covers and illustrations. After all, you still want to look cute while you’re studying, don’t you?
Few could have imagined that a bearded man dressed in a girl’s school uniform would prove to be big a hit. Even fewer perhaps would have guessed that putting said individual in a J-pop group alongside a couple of Japanese teens would be something people would actually want to watch, but watch they do, and LADYBABY is currently taking Japan by storm.
In the music video for their first upcoming single release, “Tokyo Manju”, Japan’s most curious trio takes to the streets of Tokyo to show you all the wonderful things we love about Japanese culture.
When Gackt said the Cool Japan campaign needed a revamp, I don’t think this is quite what he had in mind…
I don’t know about you, but eating fruit as a kid was kind of a chore. Sure, fruit tasted good, but candy tasted so much better. Now that I’m a fully-functioning adult, though, I eat fruit for fun and candy isn’t all that appealing any more.
But this handy device might help to make a lot of people’s childhoods much sweeter since it enables you to combine fruit and sweet, sweet candy into one treat. Behold: the banana-stuffer, aka “Sonna Choco Banana!”
Here at RocketNews24 we like to think of ourselves as experts in taste and style (hey, stop laughing!). We like to add little personal touches to our cutlery drawers and drinks cabinets (gotta love those panty glasses!). So you can imagine how excited we were when we found out about these little hamsters you can clip onto the edge of your glass or mug to up the cuteness factor of everything you drink by 150%.
Onigiri are the perfect Japanese snack food. Portable and (generally speaking) healthy, they consist of a small ball or triangle of rice containing one of a huge variety of fillings, wrapped in seaweed or coated with some kind of seasoning. While most of the onigiri you can buy at convenience stores here in Japan are probably filled and shaped by machine, it’s traditional to roll ’em yourselves by making a squeezing motion with your hands. And now you can combine your love of onigiri with your love of cute idol girls by heading down to “Galmusu”, a new cafe where, for a small fee, a cutie will squeeze your rice balls for you right in front of your eyes!
We sent one of our Japanese reporters to investigate this new form of edible performance art!
Oh, but before you read on, we should probably mention one thing: our reporter usually can’t stand anyone handling his food…
You know what everyone in Japan loves these days? Smartphone games. They keep you busy on the daily commute without requiring too much in-depth concentration, and Japanese smartphone game makers are seriously smart – they know how to keep players hooked. By combining the human need for constant “reward” feedback with our penchant for adorable cartoon kitties, they’ve come up with a winner of an app that everyone who likes fun can’t stop playing – Neko Atsume!
Now available for both Android and iOS and with a whole slew of new features, there’s never been a better time to get into this incredibly addictive yet simple cat-collecting time-waster…
Recently we’ve been going crazy over kitty kitchen cookware, like the adorable kitty knife we featured a little while back. But our quest for kittycat-themed culinary goods is still ongoing, and this amazing kitty rolling-pin by Etsy seller Mood For Wood has got us seriously craving some freshly baked cookies, pronto!
There’s never been a better time to be a Sailor Moon fan than right now. With the release of Sailor Moon Crystal, there’s just so many cute and adorable Sailor Moon tie-in goodies up for grabs. And most of it’s really good stuff, too!
But with good stuff comes a hefty price tag, as we discovered when we got all excited about these Sailor Moon sweet dessert-inspired necklaces, rings and trinkets, only to discover that all that cuteness doesn’t come cheap…
Cherry blossom time in Japan is all about appreciating nature and the transitive beauty of life, right? Wrong. It’s totally an excuse to stuff your face with delicious food during “cherry blossom viewing parties”, aka Japan’s über-picnics! Onigiri are usually a popular food to consume under those canopies of candy-pink petals, but cherry blossom-flavoured food and drinks are also unsurprisingly popular around this time of year.
Luckily, mega-popular chain Magnolia Bakery has a store in Japan, and they’re rolling out special cherry blossom cupcakes for spring!
Earlier in the week, we reported that the phenomenon of putting weird stuff on your pet and taking a photo of it was having a revival on Twitter in Japan. Today, we’re delighted to bring you even more pictures of a range of fuzzy animals with stuff precariously balanced on them!
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