Grab your Virtual Boy and ready your quarters, it’s time to knock back a shot of gaming nostalgia!
nostalgia
Now that we’re two decades on from the ’90s, what shows would you like to see receive a modern day make-over?
Fans of fat Pikachu rejoice! The classic designs from the original Pokémon games star in this reprint of an old line. Gotta catch ’em all!
Celebrate 20 years of catching ’em all with Pokémon Center Japan’s new line of throwback goods.
Baby King Kitchen is a restaurant that wants to make adults feel like kids again. Is it just a happy meal pipe dream, or a trip down memory lane?
It’s weird being in your thirties (or thereabouts) in 2015. Kids today have no idea what a struggle it was for us growing up in the days before smartphone selfies, dumb internet trends, and myriad modern technological conveniences. Wait, what are we saying, it was absolutely awesome! For ours was a more innocent childhood, full of VHS tapes, talking on phones connected to the wall by a wire, and clunky dial-up internet that still felt like the greatest thing ever invented.
Japan’s 30s club is no different; they too are nostalgic for the relics of a simpler past. And in this article, we round up 22 nostalgic items that Japanese Twitter users say sum up their idyllic childhoods. But how many of them (if any) are the same as those we in the west enjoyed?
Alright gamers, how many of you remember playing one of those brick-like Nintendo Game Boys – the one with the tiny black-and-green screen on top that was nigh-on impossible to see without a 100-watt lamp or the sun directly overhead? Mobile technology may have come an awfully long way since Nintendo first released its classic handheld into the wild, there’s nothing that beats the fondness of revisiting moments from our childhood, and that little hunk of plastic was definitely one of them.
You may not be able to get your hands on one of those old systems now, but lo, nostalgia is nigh! For now, with some simple magnetic power, you can transform one of your everyday home appliances, like your fridge or washing machine, into a blast from the past with these giant Game Boy magnets!
Recently, our Japanese reporter Yoshio visited his parents’ house and decided to finally take a stab at tidying up his childhood room, which had been left untouched ever since he moved out. In the process, he was surprised to find many lost relics and treasures from his childhood, and became caught up in a wave of nostalgia for several hours. Needless to say, he didn’t get much cleaning done in the end…
If you’re the nostalgic type, perhaps you’d like to take a peek at the treasures that Yoshio dug up, some from over 20 years ago!
The Showa period (1926-1989) was a time of immense change for Japan when the country went from being an imperial power to a poverty-stricken post-war nation and then becoming an economic powerhouse that dominated automotive and electronic industries around the world. Twenty-seven years since that era ended and the current Heisei era began, fond memories of “Showa Japan” still flood many Japanese minds.
But a recent online poll asked netizens to take off their rose-tinted glasses and consider the aspects of daily Showa-period life that, while seeming completely normal back then, would be unthinkable now. Join us after the jump for a look at the slightly grim feedback.
We’re constantly amazed by the creative ways people come up with to reuse defunct technology, and here’s another one to blow your mind. One YouTuber has used his programming and music skills to reproduce popular tunes and game music using… floppy disk drives!
The French actress Emmanuelle Riva is best known for her role in Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour, an innovative 1959 drama that explores memory and loss against a background of the after-effects of the Hiroshima bombing. While filming on location in Hiroshima, Riva also took these striking photographs of the city and its people, which provide a fascinating peek into everyday life in Japan back then.
The names of the toys – Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard; Fun-To-Drive Dashboard – might not ring any bells. But the boxy red plastic exterior, the click of the gear stick and the repetitive roar of the engine that drove parents to distraction? Yep, you know this game.
One Redditor recently pulled his Dashboard out of storage and was delighted to discover that it “still runs like a dream”. Cue reams of nostalgic commenters flung back into their playground days, when kids could be kids and sit alone all summer playing 100-mile-an-hour driving simulator without prompting any hand-wringing or moralistic wailing. It’s time to raid your stash of enormous dry cell batteries – we’re going for the drive of your life.
In the wake of the exciting new video game systems hitting stores this season, our reliable Japanese friend Nintendo is taking us onboard the nostalgia express train with a Wii U game that puts a new spin on 16 well-known NES (or Famicom in Japan) games, like Super Mario Bros. and Excitebike. Besides turning these popular games into mini-game levels where players challenge their own high score, NES Remix changes these games up a bit with new challenges, like playing Donkey Kong in the dark or playing tennis against an invisible opponent.
For those of us that find it hard to believe that the NES (called “Famicom” in Japan) turned 30 this year, Nintendo is putting out an album of 26 of the best theme songs from classic games like Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. The two-disc album comes out December 4, making it the perfect holiday gift for that person in your life that loves the simple 8-bit tunes of yesteryear.
Anyone remotely familiar with Japan’s comic culture has likely seen or at least heard of the world-renowned adventure manga, Dragon Ball. Honestly, thanks to the anime, the TV specials, the films, and the Hollywood movie adaption, it’s hard to find anyone without at least some awareness of this awesome title. The impact that Dragon Ball has had on Japan’s comic industry is so great that a world without Super Saiyans is hard to even imagine. But, every series has to have begun somewhere, and before the 51st issue of Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine for the year 1984, there was no such thing as Dragon Ball!
…Actually, that’s a lie. Issue number 51 certainly contained the first chapter of the Dragon Ball manga, but the hype began a short time before that. After all, it’s hard to sell an all-new series without some form of advertising. We found this to be true when the Japanese side of our RocketNews24 staff managed to dig up a copy of 1984’s Weekly Shonen Jump volume 50, one issue prior to the release of Dragon Ball. Inside, we found some awesome illustrated spreads announcing the creation of this comic wonder. It’s fascinating to see just how highly the series was anticipated, though the comic’s branding might have been a little off the mark at first.
At 00:00 a.m. on March 1, 1997, a 14-year-old version of this writer- extremely lanky and awkwardly dressed- was standing outside a videogame store alongside his mother and a few slightly bedraggled-looking young men, clutching the pocket-money he’d saved for nearly 18 months, absolutely desperate to give it away.
This was undoubtedly the nerdiest moment of my life, and I’ve never since gone to a midnight launch of a videogame console, despite owning about a dozen since. But when I’d waited more than a year for the UK launch of the Nintendo 64, and, having convinced my infinitely-patient mother to drive me into town in the middle of the night, I was excited. Incredibly excited. Perhaps more excited than a night before Christmas with Santa, Willy Wonka and a dozen sugar-rushing puppies, even.
Back at home, opening my new console on my bedroom floor (it’s called “unboxing” now, and people post painfully long videos of it online…), I was hit by that curious smell of new electronics. But not just any old electronics smell; this was the smell of a new Nintendo 64. Clean, new, professional, yet somehow extremely welcoming…
Up until now, I had thought I was the only one who noticed these things- that videogame consoles, new mobile phones, whatever- had a distinct smell of their own, not just ‘electronics’.
But over at our Japanese site, Mamiya-san has written a great little article about his own experiences with much-loved games console the PC Engine (perhaps known to some as TurboGrafix-16), and, in particular, its own very special smell. Since the machine remains relatively unknown outside of its native Japan, I can’t help but share his experiences with our English-speaking readers. Read More
Sony is releasing a new product, their HF Series cassette tapes. There will be 10, 60, and 90-minute versions and prices are expected to range from around 100 to 230 yen for individual tapes, though they’ll also be available in 10-packs. Possibly in consideration for its target clientele (hint: not the young), Sony has made the printed font big, as well as made the labels and index sheets easy to write in big letters. As could be expected, the netizen response to this unveiling has been colorful … Read More
MOST POPULAR
Now
That time we got imprisoned in a Tokyo hostess bar
This is Akihabara’s best hidden food vending machine: The Mansei meat sandwich machine!
Should a man in his 40s pursue a 19-year-old Japanese convenience store clerk?
Japan’s cheapest hotel charges just 130 yen (US$1.20) for a room, with a huge, no-privacy catch
We visit the new all-you-can-eat KFC buffet restaurant in Tokyo
Japanese makeup tutorial shows how a middle-aged man can turn into a beautiful young woman
Japanese kitty singalong is the purr-fect pick-me-up【Video】
Japan’s pre-sliced cat-shaped bread: The greatest thing since non-kitty sliced bread
First-grader’s math test accidentally turns into treatise on confusing Japanese linguistics
Is it OK to bite through your ramen noodles while slurping them in Japan? Internet debates
Weekly
- Japan’s cheapest hotel charges just 130 yen (US$1.20) for a room, with a huge, no-privacy catch
- Japan’s pre-sliced cat-shaped bread: The greatest thing since non-kitty sliced bread
- We visit the new all-you-can-eat KFC buffet restaurant in Tokyo
Crazy-cheap Japanese apartment for less than 140 bucks a month comes with headaches every day- Japanese makeup tutorial shows how a middle-aged man can turn into a beautiful young woman
- That time we got imprisoned in a Tokyo hostess bar
Tokyo’s amazing 2D Cafe looks like an illustration, but it’s an actual restaurant you can eat in!
Is 150,000 yen (US$1,389) a month enough to live on in Tokyo? Depends what kind of life you want
One last visit to Japan’s craziest, scariest video game arcade: Warehouse Kawasaki【Photos】
There’s a permanent all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink KFC restaurant opening in Tokyo
Monthly
Microsoft Japan’s experiment with 3-day weekend boosts worker productivity by 40 percent- Japan’s cheapest hotel charges just 130 yen (US$1.20) for a room, with a huge, no-privacy catch
Five reasons not to live in Japan (as chosen by Switzerland’s perviest otaku)
Why do Japanese toilets have double hooks on their doors?
Post-meal waste at Japanese sushi restaurant sparks controversy online
Uniqlo’s shockingly sexy new clothing item inspires selfies and anime-style fan art
Shinkansen announcer shares moment her mother hears her voice on bullet train for the first time
Kyoto’s popular tourist spot Gion to forbid photos on private roads, 10,000 yen fine to violators
“Otaku” YouTuber confronts Tokyo tough-guy litterers, who’ve got no idea who they’re dealing with- Japan’s pre-sliced cat-shaped bread: The greatest thing since non-kitty sliced bread
Yearly
- Microsoft Japan’s experiment with 3-day weekend boosts worker productivity by 40 percent
- Japan’s cheapest hotel charges just 130 yen (US$1.20) for a room, with a huge, no-privacy catch
- Five reasons not to live in Japan (as chosen by Switzerland’s perviest otaku)
PewDiePie buys house in Japan, calls it “a dream come true”
Naruto’s author Kishimoto reveals what characters’ names would’ve been if editor didn’t intervene
We asked a Niantic insider 30 questions about Pokémon Go, learned a lot of useful information
Why do Japanese recycle bins have two openings but dump everything into the same compartment?
Japanese Mame Shiba Inu banknote design pays homage to nation’s beloved dog- Why do Japanese toilets have double hooks on their doors?
Japanese Phantom Cheesecake: A sweet so popular 2,000 sold in ten minutes
RECOMMENDED STORIES
Japanese makeup tutorial shows how a middle-aged man can turn into a beautiful young woman
Japanese kitty singalong is the purr-fect pick-me-up【Video】
Japan’s pre-sliced cat-shaped bread: The greatest thing since non-kitty sliced bread
First-grader’s math test accidentally turns into treatise on confusing Japanese linguistics
Is it OK to bite through your ramen noodles while slurping them in Japan? Internet debates
Could you marry an otaku? Japanese people rank the geek hobbies they’d let slide for love
Japan’s new Pikachu Pokémon donuts are super popular, crazy cute, and totally tasty
Better living through gambling at Japan’s “Day Service Las Vegas”
One last visit to Japan’s craziest, scariest video game arcade: Warehouse Kawasaki【Photos】
Blood-red Evangelion hot spring bath to open in Japan for fun, relaxing terror
Real-world Pokémon arena battle park found in Japan【Photos】
Why going to a hostess bar in Japan can be a huge waste of money for otaku
Tokyo lifehack: How to get rid of the “customer pullers” who’ll pester you in the bar district
-
