Every time I walk past one of those weird infomercial stores in suburban shopping malls, my hand automatically goes to those brain massager things that you can stroke your head with. I don't really believe it improves circulation and makes you smarter (or whatever they claim it does), but it feels great. Well, in Japan, we have the same thing, except it vibrates and is powered by USB.
Also runs with two AA batteries.
Product page (Japanese)
You know you always wanted to cuddle up with your diarrhea medicine. This is a big cuddly pillow modeled after Seirogan, a classic gastrointestinal drug with a really pungent smell. Not only does the pillow look like seirogan, but it also smells like it. Gross, and slightly nostalgic.
Product page (Japanese)
From my bimonthly futurism column on io9:
Way before Speed Racer became fodder for one of the season's most highly anticipated blockbusters, it was a simple 60s-style Japanese cartoon. The original Speed Racer was a TV anime series called Mach GoGoGo, aired on Fuji TV—one of Japan's major television networks—in 1967 and 1968. Like many other sources of entertainment in Japan at the time, Go's determination and the superior technology of Mach 5 were symbolic of the country's rapid post-war recovery and the determination that drove it. While you're waiting to head to your multiplex to watch the Hollywood version tonight, let me take you back in time and show you a glimpse of the original.
I'm in New York City and the hotel I'm staying in doesn't have free Internet, so here's a quick post about the restaurant I had dinner at last night. It's called Basta Pasta NYC, and it's a Japanese-owned Italian restaurant with awesomely Japanese pasta dishes like tobiko-shiso spaghetti and onsen tamago. It's off of Union Square, and I was craving fish egg spaghetti so I went there with five of my college girl friends. They all live in the city but some of them hadn't seen each other since we graduated. Too bad I was too full for the purin (Japanese-style flan) they serve for dessert.
Anyway, strongly recommended for anyone who likes any kind of food with a Japanese touch. Not to be mistaken with fusion, which is often just western food infused with Asian.
Restaurant main page
I just finished reading a book called Dog Man by journalist Martha Sherrill. It's a simple biography of a man named Morie who spends his life in the mountains breeding Akitas. It was one of the best stories about Japan that I've read in a long, long time.
Sherrill follows the lives of Morie and Kitako Sawataishi from the moment they met in wartime Tokyo to their present day life as elderly mountain dwellers. While it has a seemingly simple plot on surface level, it's one of those books where, when you're done reading, you think, wow. This book works on so many levels. There isn't a single fluffy adjective or expression of emotion anywhere, and it's written with the snappiness of good magazine journalism—yet you'll find yourself close to tears at the end of several chapters. Morie, the husband, is a super Asian patriarch who makes decisions without consulting his wife and hardly shows any emotions. But he has one gigantic soft spot that he dedicates his life too, and that's the Akitas.
Continue reading "Must Read: Dog Man, a Story About Akitas" »
This is an old NY Times article, but I just had to shed light on this blue Chihuahua issue. To get smaller, cuter, and rarer dogs, backyard breeders in Japan are doing screwed up things like mating dogs repeatedly with their own offspring to make rare recessive traits show up more often. Pictured here is one of these blue-tinged chihuahuas that were so very trendy a couple years ago. People paid up to $10,000 for these. And of course, horror stories that come with excessive in-breeding abound: some of these pups have brain disorders that make them just run in circles all day, and others had "bones so frail they dissolved in their bodies." Apparently, genetic defects in dogs are 4x more common in Japan in the US or Europe.
Good thing Ruby's a red minpin, not a blue chihuahua.
A couple in Fukui prefecture committed suicide together in a car today. They mixed some chemicals to make hydrogen sulfide, and then released it in the car. The suicide pact was successful--they both died. The interesting thing was that they left a little note on the car window, facing out, that read: Caution! Toxic Gas.
Apparently, there were a few other instances of suicide by toxic gas recently, and in some, people nearby got sick from the fumes. This was a respectful way of making sure that nobody else but themselves got hurt.
Strap-ya has these cute cell phone strap capsules that have little trees from different countries in them. Pictured here is the hose tree from Argentina. Also available are trees from South Africa, Mexico, and the US. The trees are actually alive, and if you water them properly (once or twice a month), they can live for up to six months in their little capsules. They could even grow to be real trees if you replant them in soil.
In Japan, a lot of the older generation has been reluctant to adopt Internet use. Not anymore. Recently, more people in their fifties and sixties are going on Match.com to find love. The guy in the picture is a 65-year old cab driver named Yoichi Kawamura. He has been divorced for twenty-some years, but now, he's dating three different women. "My horizons are wider and my life is richer," he told Reuters.
The latest episode of BoingBoing TV is about a Japanese pop culture documentary called Tokyology. There's an interesting segment about a new law that could put all the electronics parts stores in Akihabara out of business. Before there were maid cafes and cosplay stores and megastores like Don Quixote, Akiba was a treasure trove of vintage electronics. It still is, they've just been pushed into the back streets, behind all the flashiness. It would be a real shame if they went out of business—so a group of young artists featured in the documentary pay homage to them in their "exhibition of vanishing products."
A porn film crew was arrested at a McDonalds in Saitama Prefecture recently. Apparently, the director and three actors strolled in and just started filming in the restaurant. A suspicious customer followed them to their corner and then called the cops. The cops arrested the foursome for indecent exposure and obstruction of business.
I know it sounds strange, but I actually believe this story. When I was 18, I was walking home from driving school and I passed by a film crew shooting dirty school girl photos by the train tracks. I was like, hmmm. Interesting. But not surprised.
80 years ago, someone made this giant Buddha-like humanoid robot that can change its expression and move its head with surprising ease in order to commemorate the new Showa emperor. Some consider it the oldest robot in history—at the time, people called it a "manmade human." The robot was refurbished in Osaka last week after years of collecting dust.
Link (Japanese)
This new iPod cover from Solid Alliance not only looks like a slice of high-grade kalbi meat, but it is even packaged like one. If I had this, it would constantly make me crave Korean BBQ.
Rakuten via The Raw Feed
A member of J-League soccer team Kashiwa Reysol was arrested this week for sneaking into a 21-year old woman's home and stealing her panties seven years ago. Why now? DNA results just came in.
On September 11, 2001, he snuck into the woman's house in Kobe and stole her panties and cell phone. He was 19 at the time—a minor in Japan—so his name hasn't been disclosed to the press.
I wrote about Fred Schodt, Tezuka's long-time interpreter and predictor of Japan's humanoid robot craze, on io9 last week:
In the spring of 1988, Japanese publisher Kodansha released a revealing English-language book titled Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia. The book predicted a new era when humanoid robots would dominate Japanese society in the same way that industrial robots were then dominating behind-the-scenes manufacturing in the country. It was a topic that nobody in the Western world knew much about at all.
When hundreds of tulips in flower beds along the street were found headless in Gunma prefecture earlier this month, police looked back at surveillance tapes from the crime scenes. Today, they released these images of a middle-aged salaryman hacking at the flowers with his umbrella in front of a government building.
We don't know who he is yet, but I can make two immediate predictions about his motive: he was angry, or he hates tulips. Or both. At least he wasn't beheading dogs or little children.
If Doraemon was a real cat and not a robot, he'd look like this. What happened to this cat's ears?
This rare snapshot of Godzilla circa 1955 shows the not-so-giant monster getting ready for a shoot.
This funny-looking chrome machine is an automatic egg boiler with easy settings and attachments for breakfast made to order. It's easy to set up—on/off, 10 minutes for soft boiled, 15 for hard-boiled—and a special tray for making three perfect poached eggs. (Continue reading for a picture.)
Continue reading "Electric Boiler Makes Eggs to Order, 7 at a Time" »
