Featured

wtf (Page 27)

We sample curry, octopus, kimchi, chili pepper, salted watermelon, and corn flavored Ramune sodas

Ramune was one of the first carbonated beverages in Japan and can still be found today in various supermarkets or at festivals and public baths around the country. Over a century after its first appearance, Japanese customers have tended to go for the big name colas, which has in turn caused Ramune producers, such as Osaka’s Hata, to come up with some novel flavors in an effort to stir up interest.

Most recently, a corn flavored Ramune was developed and has celebrated 100,000 bottles sold since its release in March. In honor of this, I picked up some of Hata’s more unique flavors for a whirlwind review of these often overlooked Japanese sodas.

Read More

The Sayama Incident: Kazuo Ishikawa’s half-century struggle against a wrongful murder conviction and Japan’s backward legal system

In 1963, Kazuo Ishikawa was convicted of the murder of a high school girl in Sayama City, Saitama Prefecture. A member of the Buraku, Japan’s historical untouchable caste, Ishikawa grew up poor and uneducated, and the police built the case against him by taking advantage of his naivety, by capitalizing on social prejudices, and by manipulating an already unfair legal system to their advantage. Now 74, he is still fighting to clear his name and to make sure others have access to a fair trial.

Read More

The spider crab is the largest living crab on the planet and, as its name suggests, looks like the terrifying offspring of the unholy mating of a coconut crab and a Goliath tarantula. So it’s no wonder that watching one of these monstrosities shed its entire exoskeleton is nightmare-inducing, as this video shows.

Read More

The Google Street View car, once something that people would have simply watched roll by while scratching their heads in confusion, has become so ingrained in popular culture that should we ever spot it trundling down our own street many of us would immediately bound in its direction like excited golden retriever in an attempt to get our ugly mugs plastered on the internet for all eternity.

It’s rare, though, to see the the famous car running into trouble with the law.

Read More

Enjoy the delectable taste of chocolately Edible Anus

Excuses are like anuses; everyone’s got one. That’s the reasoning behind the Edible Anus line of chocolates created in England. These handcrafted chocolates represent something that transcends cultural boundaries to offer creamy sphincter shaped goodness to the whole world, even reaching Japan where netizens have been left open-mouthed at the idea of munching on a chocolatey orifice.

Read More

This bizarre room listing gives a whole new meaning to “open-air layout.” A Tokyo real estate agency is advertising this room with a 160-square-meter (524 ft) balcony attached. It all seems like a fantastic deal until you realize that, while the balcony is indeed enormous, it dwarfs the room itself – which is a mere 25 square meters and somehow manages to cram a bathtub, toilet and kitchen inside.

Read More

Any photographer will tell you that you always have to be aware of your light sources. Especially with people, the wrong kind of lighting can someone look completely different, usually in a bad way.

This young photo bug took that advice to heart when he attended a cosplay event in China. Realizing that work outside of a studio pits a photographer in a battle with sometimes unpredictable lighting, this man fitted several brackets to his back, each supporting an external flash.

Read More

Taiwan introduces the future of cartography: nationwide school uniform maps

Despite being a made famous by thousands of Japanese TV shows and comics, cute “sailor suit” uniforms and their ilk are not limited to schools in Japan alone. As we’ve seen before, high schools all across Asia kit their female students out with a variety of stylish getups, with the girls themselves often making their own modifications, usually quite aware that they are wearing outfits that millions of people across the world think are cute or just plain sexy.

But it appears that Japan’s reign as the school uniform capital of the world may soon be over. Bringing fashion and cartography together at last, a specially designed map of Taiwan which provides photos of the school uniforms the girls in each particular area are rocking has become a big hit online this week.

Read More

00

No typo here – Amazon Japan offers vicuña wool quilt for just US$674,000!

The vicuña, for those of you had never heard of it before (guilty!), is, according to humanity’s savior Wikipedia, one of two wild South American camelids (you know, llama-like animals) living in the high alpine areas of the Andes. Its coat is said to produce the finest wool in the world. It also happens to be the most expensive for a variety of reasons, including that the animals will starve themselves to death if held in captivity, meaning they cannot be farmed, and shearing wild ones can only be done once every three years, and even then only about three pounds of the animal’s hair can be harvested.

So, I guess that explains why a seller on Amazon Japan was trying to offload what I am sure is a very nice futon quilt for 67,200,000 yen (about US$674K).

But is it worth the price? Well, there’s only one way to find out: time to call accounting for some cash and place an order.

Read More

Hope you didn’t plan on eating this week: we try duck fetus eggs in the Philippines

So it’s come to this, has it? Rocketnews24, after eating pretty much everything under the sun, has reached the last bastion of disgusting culinary curios.

Of course, we’re talking about Philippine balut, or duck fetus eggs. We’ve been here before, but somehow we felt this needed revisiting.

Read More

Tokyo Disneyland momentarily restricts park patrons from posting their pictures online

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the creation of Tokyo Disney Resort. The affiliated hotels and theme parks are putting on an almost year-long celebration, complete with a special happiness themed parade and nightly fireworks spectacular, not to mention the reopening of the hit attraction, Star Tours. In light of all the extra excitement, management felt it necessary to add some extra rules and requests on the official Tokyo Disney site. While some of these new items were quite reasonable and occasionally intuitive, one line in particular set off warning bells for those wishing to visit the park.

Read More

Death by stereo: Japanese electronics chain found boasting deals on death through Yahoo! search

Upon hearing rumors swirling around the internet that a search on Yahoo! Japan’s struggling search engine does something strange when you enter the words “death” and “die” in Japanese, our reporter went to check it out. Could Japan’s most popular online search tool have revealed the sinister truth about a household name?

Read More

One of the Mushroom Kingdom’s most iconic characters has a dark, dark secret

Toad, the mushroom-headed character from the Super Mario series of video games that dates back almost 30 years now, is a character known to millions around the globe. Clear a castle in the original game and he’s there to break the news that the princess isn’t actually there. Slip on a banana peel while burning rubber in Super Mario Kart and it’s often his shrill voice you’ll hear echoing through the enormous green pipe tunnels. Need a man to pick and throw vegetables super fast in Super Mario Bros 2? Toad’s your guy.

Little did we know, though, that Toad has been harbouring a terrible secret the entire time we’ve known him. One that shocked Japanese fans and Twitter users to the core when the following photo came to light.

Read More

Hyper Cool Biz 2013 Line Announced: Fundoshi and Parasols Hot This Year for the Trendy Businessman

With the few days of comfortable weather known as spring in Japan slipping away it’s time to brace ourselves for the muggy scorching heat of summer. This of course means it’s Hyper-Gentleman’s Cool Biz time again!

While 2012 was the year of the electric-lime mankini, this year’s fashions are going retro with a boldly traditional Japanese loincloth, the fundoshi, balanced by an elegant yet sporty parasol.

So join us, as we examine this year’s choice in summer formal attire along with our model, the devilishly handsome Mr. Sato.

Read More

Japanese Man Takes Lexus for Test Drive to Grandmother’s House, Arrested 180 km Away

A 25-year-old man was arrested for theft in Iwakuni City on 14 May after taking a new Lexus for a test drive from a dealership in Kurashiki City, two prefectures and 180 km (112 mi) away.

According to the police investigation, the suspect Shota Ishibashi wanted to visit his grandmother in Fukuoka, 422 km (262 mi) away. However, being unemployed he was unable to afford the trip. Then he got a brilliant idea and headed down to his local Toyota dealer.

Read More

Inquiry Regarding Doctor Fish Results in Bizarre Yahoo! Answers

Generally, when looking for information, I avoid Q&A websites such as Yahoo! Answers at all costs. But recently I’ve been rethinking that policy. There are a lot of freaky people floating around these places that I’m missing out on.

One such freak gave the “best answer” to a simple request on buying doctor fish, a popular name for those fish in spas that remove the dead skin from your feet. It’s surprising though since while this response does give some fascinating insight into how a doctor fish eroticism addiction can affect the family unit, it seemed to lack any hard facts like a price or specific location.

Read More

In April 24, Kanagawa prefectural police sent papers to prosecutors concerning a pub operator in Yokohama city on suspicion that two of its female staff members violated the Entertainment Business Act by serving beer and other alcoholic drinks to a group of young girls, including a 6th grade elementary school student.
Read More

14 Year-Old Girl’s Crime Spree Thwarted by Suzuka Police, Motive: To Laugh at Daikon Getting Run Over by Cars

The noble daikon is a beloved vegetable of Japan with a wide range of culinary uses along with other uses like carving huge phalluses, making cute calendars, or avant-garde musical instruments.

However, during two days in December of last year 100 daikon were mercilessly snatched from their homes and brutally crushed in Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture.

After a tireless investigation the police announced on 22 April that the culprits have been apprehended. The ringleader was an unnamed 14 year-old junior high school girl with a very strange motive indeed…

Read More

Food Rage: Korean Deported Over In-Flight Ramen Brawl

Over the weekend, a Korean businessman got into hot water when he complained about his in-flight meal on a trip to the United States. Apparently, he wasn’t satisfied with the taste of his ramen or with the service, and expressed his displeasure by assaulting one of the cabin crew. As a result, he was turned over to the FBI and prevented from entering the country.

Here’s what we know about this bizarre incident. Read More

Is That Sushi in Your Ear or are You Just Wearing “Crazy Headphones”?

Gadgets purveyor Apparestore is hoping that pretending your ears are so unclean that fungus has actually started to grow out of them will become the new fashion trend with these “crazy headphones” featuring weird objects that jut out from the earbuds. Samurai swords and sushi are just some of the things you could have seemingly growing out of your ears with a pair of these cheeky earphones.

Read More

  2. 1
  3. ...
  4. 21
  5. 22
  6. 23
  7. 24
  8. 25
  9. 26
  10. 27
  11. 28