TOKYOMANGO

Design Contest Update: Which One Do YOU Like So Far?

The Tokyomango.com design contest's still rolling (keep the entries coming! I'm loving your ideas), but I wanted to show you guys some of the entries I've gotten so far. Which one do YOU like, and why? Please leave a comment or email me your thoughts—feel free to ramble, I want to hear what you think—on these entries.

Entry 1                                                                     Entry 2

Two more after the jump.

Tezuka and Astro Boy: Article on Wired

San Francisco's Asian Art Museum is kicking off their most contemporary Japan-themed show ever this weekend with Marvel of Manga, a special exhibit curated by Australian manga fanatic Philip Brophy. It features some of Tezuka's greatest works, from original drafts of Mighty Atom (Astro Boy) to the prophetic, towering cityscape in Metropolis.

Read more about it in my article—published today—on Wired.com.
And check out the supplemental photo gallery!

Singer Dies, Record Sales Soar

Izumi Sakai, the lead singer of pop group Zard died on Sunday. The 40-year old singer/songwriter was an in-patient at the Keio University Hospital in Tokyo. She had been in and out of treatment for cancer since about a year ago. Police are investigating whether it was a suicide, but for now the story is that it was a freak accident. Freak accident indeed. Sakai was taking her daily walk on hospital grounds when she slipped and fell on an emergency staircase, slamming the back of her head and suffering terminal brain injuries.

In the 3 days since the tragedy, record sales for Zard's new compilation album skyrocketed, jumping to #6 on the Oricon music chart from nowhere (=not even top 100).

To pay homage, here's a clip of Sakai performing the band's inspirational 1993 hit, Makenaide ("Don't Give Up.") I think every Japanese person has a memory of using this song to keep his or her spirit up in sad times. I think I remember listening to it when boys didn't like me back in middle school.

Million-Dollar Bath Tub Stolen From Hotel

Someone broke into the Kominato Hotel near Tokyo yesterday and stole this blinged-out golden bathtub between 2 and 9am. Made of pure gold, the bathtub is 71x121x65 cm, weighs 80 kilos, and is worth 120 million yen. That's just under a million dollars.

I think I know who did it. It was Kim Jong Il. He's mad that the Japanese took away his caviar, so he sent some of his peeps in to steal this unique luxury item, which has not been banned from North Korea by sanctions.

Link

The Cell Phone Camera Diet Plan

Japanese businessmen don't have time to be reading about the Atkins diet, nor do they have space in their briefcases for cans of SlimFast. Instead, for $20-30 a month, Osaka-dwellers are taking advantage of an awesome new diet plan devised by a collaboration of 150 local governments and medical facilities whereby people can take a picture of their meal with their cell phone cameras and then e-mail it to a nutritionist on stand-by for detailed caloric facts and sage advice.

Obesity, high cholesterol, and metabolic syndrome have been on the rise among the aging Japanese. The cell phone picture diet works for multiple reasons:

1. Everyone has a cell phone.
2. The Japanese like customized, hands-on advice from a trustworthy human much more than the read-the-directions-on-the-box approach that is commonly used in the US.
3. This way, they can still eat whatever the hell they want in the meantime, plus or minus a few things that might be too salty or fatty.

Link (Thanks, Rog!)