TOKYOMANGO

The Prehistoric Shark

The ocean is so awesome. There's so much going on in there that we have no clue about--like this ancient shark subspecies that mankind discovered captured alive for the first time last week. 

Eneloopy Doggie Battery Checker

This super-cute new gadget from Sanyo, called ENELOOPY (rhymes with Snoopy), checks how much battery life you have left. It's made to fit AA and AAA (with a adapter piece) inside its long torso. All you do is put the battery inside it, and then push a button by its neck. If there's battery life left, the blue LED nose lights up.

Comes with two plastic mini-bones as accessories, just because.

Link (Japanese)

Chilean Geisha Returns To Japan

 

Anita Alvarado, former street prostitute and one-time porn star, made a fuckload of money back in 2001 when her Japanese husband embezzled a total of 1.46 million billion yen from his then-employer, the Aomori Prefectural Housing Supply Corporation. Hubby's in prison, but Anita is 800 million yen richer and shamelessly flaunts her ill-earned wealth with a lavish lifestyle back home.

She prefers to go by the handle "Chilean Geisha," and even has a wine named after her in Chile. Geisha wine, it's called.

Anyway, Alvarado says she'll be visiting her husband in Japan this week. Can't wait to see what kind of warm welcome she'll get by the fan girls at Narita!

Test Pattern Stuffed Ultraman Toys

It's been four decades since Ultraman hit TV screens all over Japan. To commemorate the anniversary of one of the first popular superhero series to be broadcast in color, toymaker Megahouse has created these stuffed Ultramen characters. They're designed based on the NTSC test patterns that were used to adapt them to the tube back in the day. Aweeeesome.

Bilk, The New Japanese Milk-Beer Hybrid Drink

Do you love beer...and milk? Well here's the perfect drink for you.

It's called BILK.

Befuddled by the amount of excess milk that is produced--and wasted--every month, Hokkaido dairy companies decided to materialize an idea proposed by a local liquor store manager--turn it into a hybrid drink mixed with beer from the neighborhood brewery, Abashiri Beer.

The Mainichi Daily News explains the process here:

Since milk has a low boiling point, the brewery took care to control the temperature during the boiling process so the milk wouldn't boil over. After they put beer yeast and hops into the drink and began the fermentation process, the beverage looked and smelled like tea with milk. However, when fermentation was complete and the drink cooled down, it had the same color as beer.

The result? A sweet, fruity, starchy, weird drink. Let's see if it catches on.