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Our reporter illustrates their first experience attending a fan photo event with an oshi

Taking a photo with a big celebrity crush results in high anxiety but also boosts something else unexpectedly for our writer. 

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Fujifilm removes promotional video after it causes outrage【Video】

One commenter even said “How did this get approved?”

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“Eyes are closed”: Asian man’s passport photo denied

A Taiwanese-born New Zealander has had his passport photo rejected by his own government due to “closed eyes”.

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Photographer travelled world for four years, takes the perfect shot after returning home to Japan

This viral photograph proves that sometimes the best things in life are closest to home.

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“I was talking to my sister when…” Who did this manga artist mistake for her own sister?

In general, we expect people to be able to identify their family on sight, even if it’s just from the backs of their heads. After all, for better or worse, these are the people we grew up with, right? Who couldn’t pick their little sister out of a crowd based on nothing more than their profile or haircut?

Well, probably not many people, if we’re being honest. Hey, we may love our families, but we’re not spies. But it’s completely different when you mistake someone else for your sister when they’re not even the same species! Just ask this embarrassed manga artist, who had the sense of humor to post about her error on Twitter so we could all have a good laugh.

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How to take a photo looking like someone important, it’s all in the “mokkore”

In these days of social networks many of us have come up on the problem of which profile picture to use. Scrolling through all the photos you’ve reluctantly let people take of you, it’s hard to find one that relates your true inner beauty. It would be nice if we all had one of those mid-interview shots where people look really interesting.

Sadly though, chances are you haven’t been professionally interviewed and so don’t have one. Don’t worry though, because our crack team of photogenic writers and editors has found a way to easily simulate a photograph that can make anyone look like a truly interesting person. All you need is the magic word: Mokkore! Let’s try.

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Cats trapped in circles! Japanese blogger shows the best way to outsmart your kitty【Photos】

In a documentary about the making of Spirited Away, director Hayao Miyazaki is shown in his studio explaining how he wants a certain scene to look. When the dragon’s jaws are wrenched open, he says, it should look like a dog clenching its teeth, gums bared. Faced with blank stares at this analogy, he asks the animators if any of them have a dog. “I had a cat once”, offers up one young man. “A cat!” exclaims Miyazaki in despair, before whisking the entire team off to a vet’s surgery to have a closer look at some canine mouths.

Cats and dogs, as we know, are quite different, and one thing that sets them apart is cats’ contrariness. A dog’s reward is pleasing you, while a cat’s reward is pleasing itself. Getting a cat to do what you want, therefore, can be extraordinarily difficult. Unless, that is, you can manage to convince your cat that it made the decision all by itself.

From Japanese cat blog guremike, we bring you: the power of the magical cat-attracting circle. 

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Funny old-timey Japanese photo is a blast (of silly faces) from the past

It’s natural to think of people in the old-timey days as having no time for joviality, what with being tied up in battling polio, Kaisers, and other threats most of the developed world doesn’t run into so much anymore. Likewise, in a lot of ways Japan is a no-nonsense kind of place, where work, school, and family responsibilities generally take precedent over everything else.

So you’d think a picture taken in Japan around a century ago would be a double-exercise in dourness, but as this photograph shows, while fashion and technology may change with the times, silliness has always been a part of life.

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Miniature photographer enlists 100 tiny friends to try to bend his new iPhone 6 Plus

Just days after their launch, a handful of somewhat worrying images appeared online showing iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones which had bent, apparently after having been kept in their owners’ pockets while sitting. Both Apple and independent reports have suggested that cases of bending are extremely rare, but even so, “bendgate” continues to play on consumers’ minds, no doubt in part due to Apple’s competitors playing it to their advantage and a few overly zealous Android fanboys sharing images of bent iPhones with such frequency that you’d swear they were on Samsung or HTC’s payroll.

Japanese designer and photographer Tatsuya Tanaka, however, is so confident that his iPhone 6 won’t bend that he enlisted the help of 100 tiny friends to put it to the test. As it happens, Apple’s newest smartphone can even take the weight of a zebra, giraffe, polar bear and elephant before it comes anywhere near to getting a case of the bends…

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Blue-eyed cat has the best reaction after spotting something strange in the backyard

Sometimes a single glance says it all, and in this particular case, the startled face of this cute cat screams, “Hurry, mom!!! Something’s not right!” But what exactly has this little kitty all in a tizzy?

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Pic of the Week: Hey you, it’s time to vote! 【Update: Poll now closed】

As mentioned at the end of last week’s Pic of the Week, we’ve decided to open the contest up and make it as fair as possible by asking you, the good-looking, intelligent, art-appreciating people that you are, to decide this week’s overall winner.

So join us after the jump to see this week’s photos and vote on which you think deserves to win the right to be called Pic of the Week.

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Explosions in the kitchen: This is why you don’t heat canned coffee directly on the stove…

One of our favorite things about Japan is the convenience of just about everything, especially the vending machines. Wherever you are, there’s at least one machine just waiting to quench your thirst–and all of them have any tired writer’s favorite drink: Coffee!

Even more conveniently, though, most machines offer a choice of hot or cold cans–but, of course, the cans will cool down if you don’t drink them right away. In which case you might be tempted to try heating your can up on the stove, like this Japanese Twitter user. That would be a bad idea.

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Pic of the Week, Round 1: WINNER!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you have done us proud. Last week we asked you for your funny, cute, beautiful and inspiring photos from Japan and Asia, and by the beard of Mr. Sato did you provide!

Join us after the jump for our pic of the week, plus three honorable mentions!

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Chinese Air Force chasing UFO believed to have been caught on Google Maps

Back in September 2011, there were widespread flight cancellations across China that were blamed on inclement weather. It was an unusually large disruption to the air traffic across a large country, so some took to the net to ask “What was really going on?” One theory that arose was that the nation’s airspace had been shut down because the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force was engaging UFOs.

Over time, however, the rumors subsided and became the stuff that urban legends are made of. Until now, that is, as a discovery on Google Map’s satellite images has turned up what appears to be two planes following a rapidly moving, blurry white object. It’s an image that many are theorizing to be that legendary close encounter.

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“Umm… a little help?” Japanese Twitter user’s cat misjudges the size of potential new hangout

Cats are odd creatures. On the one hand, they exert their power over their owners humans on a near daily basis, ignoring us when we call them despite their ears clearly twitching in our direction, pestering us with such skill that it’s almost like they get a kick out of it, and making us fall for that “come, tickle my belly, human… Now, feel my CLAWS!!!” ruse every single time. And yet they occasionally do things that are so incredibly stupid that we wonder how they survived this long as a species.

Case in point, this Twitter user’s cat, who, being fond of tight spaces, climbed into a shrink-wrapped case of mineral water bottles and proceeded to get itself well and truly stuck, looking mightily uncomfortable with its little face pressed up against the plastic and wearing an expression of “this is really not going as I had planned…”

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Forgetting to turn off flash on his phone camera got this Peeping Tom arrested【TomoNews Video】

A voyeur was arrested by police in China’s southern Fujian province earlier this week after a neighbor caught him taking naked photos of her while she was in the shower.

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Delicious fried chicken or adorable puppies? You decide

Take a quick look at the picture above. Does it make you hungry? Or did you uncontrollably scream out “cuuute!”? One Twitter user has been gaining a lot of attention for getting a bit of a grumble in his stomach at the sight of this image. But we really can’t blame him…they look so delicious!

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Computer equipment: the new way to keep your pet birds warm and happy?

When you think about all the power our modern devices burn through each day, particularly when some of us leave our gear switched on when it really needn’t be, it seems like a tremendous waste. So why not put some of that lost heat energy to good use and keep your pets warm?*

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Perfectly timed photo reminds us that life’s not all bad

Yes, it’s still only Wednesday, and that means we’re only half way through the week. But if you’re a glass-half-full kind of person like the little guy pictured above, that means we’re now half way through the week, and the weekend is in sight!

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Perfectly timed photo at sumo match captures moment of surprising beauty, sumo super powers

Its popularity may be dwindling in today’s world of ultra-rich football and baseball teams and their players, but there’s something wonderfully dignified, almost majestic, about sumo. And as one photograph shared last weekend by the Japan Sumo Association shows, there is perhaps even more magic to be seen if only we could all just slow down and open our eyes a little more often.

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