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Tokyo apologizes for accidentally promoting child abuse

Mascot’s assigned task of “Child Abuse Promotion” went unnoticed for months.

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“Death day” quiz trending on Japanese Twitter uses data to predict the exact date you will die

Do you want to know the precise minute of your own death?

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Weird new Japanese website lets you flick a cute girl’s forehead to your heart’s content

Well, this is probably the weirdest snippet of news from Japan that you’ll read about all week.

On Friday, a new Japanese website was unveiled which has the sole purpose of allowing net users to forcefully flick their fingers into the forehead of a cute girl (an admonishing action known as a dekopin in Japanese) and watch her exasperated reaction, all done virtually through the screen, of course. After all, hasn’t that always been on your bucket list?

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Famous websites like you’ve never seen them before… as fashionable dresses!

Creators can be inspired by anything and everything around them. It could be a sight, a sound, a person, or even a website. Italy-based artist and design student Victor Faretina created a series of dresses inspired by some famous websites, titled Web in Vogue.

As people working on and for the Internet, we spend an awful lot of time surfing websites, but the idea of wearing a website certainly hasn’t crossed our minds. However, these amazing gowns designed by Victor are definitely making us look at the websites we visit daily in a different light!

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Hacker group “Anonymous” takes down Japanese prefecture’s website to protest dolphin killing

International hacking group “Anonymous” has stated that it breached and shut down the official Wakayama Prefecture website earlier today as a taste of what may come should local fishermen continue to hunt dolphins. The prefecture is home to Taiji, the coastal town that shot to infamy in 2010 following an exposé in the film The Cove, which documented the mass slaughter of thousands of dolphins that takes place in the area each year.

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New website lets artists post drawings that self-destruct in 24 hours

There are lots of websites out there that invite artists to post their works for all to see. However, there are a great many artists out there, and over time a build-up of paintings, drawings, CGIs and photos can become too much for the average person to know where to begin, let alone anyone scouting for new talent.

On 6 January, a new website called Slash Temp (stylized “/temp”) was opened that lets illustrators freely post whatever creation they like on one condition: a ticking timer will be attached that deletes the image in 24 hours. This isn’t just some random image dump though. There is a way to preserve drawings that get a rise out of viewers for better or worse…

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Lady Gaga gets her own Yahoo! Japan page complete with clickable pantsuit

Lady Gaga is the queen of unique when it comes to music and fashion. Now she has a Yahoo! Japan page that’s every bit as bizarre as she is (in a good way, of course!). The Gaga-ed version has a background filled with praise for and facts about Mother Monster in Japanese. It also features a picture of Lady Gaga herself in a white pantsuit filled with clickable links to articles and other pages usually found on Yahoo! Japan. How’s that for a homepage?

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Japanese Guy Follows Dream of Travelling World and Taking Pictures of Beautiful Women (But Needs Our Help)

Kei Akatsu is a man with a dream – a dream to travel the world, meet women, and take their pictures. Having spent half a year in Vancouver introducing himself girls and holding impromptu photo shoots, he honed the necessary skills to fulfill his ambition.

The Tokyo University of Science student then spent the rest of the time setting up his website, Beauties World Map. The website came together very well but he needed more content and for that he needed more capital. So he turned to crowd funding.

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Help Pikachu and Pals Fight for Their Freedom! PETA’s Pokémon Parody Sends a Powerful Message

Hot on the heels of its highly successful Super Mario spoof animal fur campaign, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has launched a brand new flash game that centres on kids’ videogame favourite Pokémon, exposing the cruel truth behind the trainer / pocket monster relationship and prompting us all to think a little harder about how we treat animals.

The game, which mimics the style of the hugely popular videogame, has seen thousands of visits since its launch, and asks players to take on the role of captive pokémon as they battle with their abusive trainer for freedom. Read More

When Goombas Just Won’t Die: East Indian Trade Expo Borrows Super Mario Bros.

You know when you have one of those dreams in which everything seems perfectly normal at first, but then you notice that something isn’t quite right? A tiny little hole in your otherwise immaculately woven subconscious tapestry opens up, and within seconds you realise that none of it is real. The image unravels like a fake Burberry cardigan thrown to a litter of kittens, and before you know it you’re wondering how you ever fell for it in the first place.

Techno-management festival Concetto’s Super Mario Bros. themed website had exactly the same effect on me the first time I saw it. As a man who, since the age of 7, has probably finished the original game about a hundred times, the effect of seeing much-loved videogame imagery used as a third party website is at once captivating and unsettling. Read More