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This brand new toy from Takara Tomy is actually a petite, super cute air filter. It's just under $150 but only available in Japan for concerned parents who don't want their babies breathing in dust and pollution while they sleep.
Link (Japanese)
Check out this Storm Trooper dancing in the middle of Shibuya crossing. This is actually blogger Danny Choo.
(via Gizmodo Japan)
Defense trading company Yamada Corporation's in big trouble for operating a multi-million yen slush fund with which they wined and dined JDA (Japan Defense Agency) officials. At the hub of this scandal is Motonobu Miyazaki, a 69-year old former manager of the company who branched off to start his own gig but allegedly played 200 rounds of golf with Former Administrative Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya.
I know Mr. Miyazaki. He once uninvitedly poured beer down my shirt in Vegas and made me cry. Maybe I'll tell that story later...
Link
The Beauto is a new house-cleaning robot that you can build yourself using a software and kit created by Japanese robot maker VStone. When completed, it runs on 4 AAA batteries. You can also add parts and hack them easily to become battle-bots or moving display cases for your favorite stuffed animal.
Product page (Japanese)
Your toilet seat should match your shower curtains, too. Starting in November, for just two months, furniture and interior design company INAX is selling these awesome toilet lids in 11 different colors. Of course, no Japanese toilet seat is marketable without a bidet system installed, so it is fully capable of shooting warm water up your ass. It even has a fully automated toilet seat that automatically shuts after use so you don't have to get yelled at for leaving the seat up. Oh! And also, it has a self-cleaning nozzle.
It retails for 156,000 yen, a little under $1,400.
Press release (Japanese, via Impress Watch)
I went back to Boston this weekend for the first time in years, and ate at my favorite Japanese restaurant in the country, Cafe Mami. I was surprised to read a bunch of mediocre reviews on Yelp, because I really think this is the best Japanese food outside of Japan. Maybe I'm biased because back in my college days, this was where I went when I was homesick. (It's also where I got my inspiration on how to make karaage—fried chicken.)
But, whatever, Yelpers! I have my own blog where I get to profess whatever opinions I want and give it as many stars as I want, and I'm giving Cafe Mami 10 stars! I love it! The hamburger steak, the ginger lemon chicken, the green tea milkshake...it's all perfecto.
Plus, I heard a rumor that it might be closing soon due to the owner's personal reasons. So I'm really really glad I went to Boston this weekend, if only to get my last fix.
This beautiful ceramic pot is actually a halogen heater. The technology's similar to that used to heat kotatsu. From Metro, a neat little electronics company that predates WW1.
Product page (Japanese, via Impress Watch)
Dogs get hungry on long road trips, too. Now, highway stops on Tokyo expressways are going to be selling the "Dora Bento," a lunch box prepared specifically for traveling canines.
Mainichi reports:
Included in the dog's boxed meal will be prime chicken breast, unpolished-rice based bread, vegetable soups, seasoning and a rice cracker for dessert. The meal has no artificial preservatives or additives. The healthy dish comes packed in a box whose lid can be turned over and used to serve water to the dog.
Genius!
One of Japan's most downloaded cell phone apps is "Anti-Groping Appli," a program that subtly sends messages telling off train perverts via the cell phone screen. Since CHIKAN (gropers) are still prevalent—despite the recent crackdown and institution of women-only trains—more and more women are turning to their own defenses. By the push of the "anger" button on the screen, women can send messages like "Are you groping me?" and "Shall we go to the police?" to offenders, who are no doubt breathing down their neck while their hands wander under their skirts.
Japan's greatest sex doll company, Orient Doll, is holding its second annual CandyGirl Photography contest right now. Entries are due by November 15—everyone who has a blow up doll from this company and knows how to angle her beautifully has a fair shot at winning the grand prize of 200,000 yen ($1700) or one of 8 1st prizes of 100,000 yen.
Last year's winner was an image of a young pink-skinned silicone princess that looks like she just got wet in the rain. Sexy.
Contest flyer (Thanks, Rog!)
After a successful run on SpikeTV and Adult Swim earlier this year, GONZO Animations' Afro Samurai is finally going to show in theaters across Japan this month. It's an anime series based on a dojinshi by Takashi Okazaki, with music by RZA and voice overs by Samuel L. Jackson.
I used to have a body pillow in college, but it didn't have a hot anime girl in a bikini painted onto it. Apparently, it's a new trend. I wonder what kind of people buy it, and what they do with it. This particular one pictured here comes as a special gift to the first 5000 people who buy Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball in Japan. Since Xbox isn't doing so hot there, this is just one way in which they're motivating anime lovers and pillow-huggers to convert.
If you're a geeky gadget head that never wears jewelry, this bracelet might actually change your mind.It's actually a portable battery that can charge up almost any portable device—your cell phone, your DS Lite, your PDA. Just plug it into your computer when you get home to charge it up again.
Product page (Japanese, via Gizmodo Japan)
Pop Quiz: Who do you think won this janken (rock-paper-scissors) match?
A. The human, because scissors can't cut rock
B. The robot, because robot hands can cut anything
C. Neither
Photo courtesy of Yahoo! News
Starting in December, electronics company Plus-Minus Zero is going to start selling these awesome colorful space heaters. They come in bright red, forest green, baby blue, and gray. These heaters—which will retail for about $120—were actually designed by Naoto Fukuzawa, who won the Good Design Award for it this year and also created some of au's most popular handsets, like the neon and the INFOBAR2.
Product page (via Impress Watch)
A recent NY Times article discusses a new clothing line by a 29-year old Japanese fashion designer who created skirts-that-disguise-themselves-as-vending-machines for paranoid pedestrians. WTF? Does she really think this will fly? I mean what if the stalker/flasher wants a drink and pushes the "BUY" button, which happens to be conveniently situated right on her left nipple? That would be SO much worse. But actually, I don't think it's so much the designer that thinks this is a real crime deterrent than it is the reporter who wrote the story.
Besides, this isn't a new concept at all. Vending Machine Red has been tearing shit up in Tokyo for months!
The designer hand-sews these things and sells them for about $800 each.
Link (Thanks, Katherine!)
I just finished watching Last Life in the Universe, a 2003 film directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and starring Tadanobu Asano (of Ichi the Killer fame). OK, I admit. It was late at night, and I fell asleep for a few minutes in the middle. But I actually really liked the film. Here are a few reasons why:
- It's a neat collaborative effort by Ratanaruang, Asano, Christopher Doyle, and Takashi Miike (who directed Ichi the Killer). The four often ran into each other in the film festival circuit, and talked about doing a movie together frequently. Finally, they dug up an old script that Ratanaruang had written years ago, modified it, and the end result is Last Life. It wasn't meant to be a blockbuster—it was just four super-talented friends who wanted to work together.
- There are some phenomenal scenes of the most mundane objects. Stacks of Japanese dictionaries. A clutter of bottles. Shoes. Keys. Two dead bodies amidst a tatami mat floor. They're shot so beautifully that you're like, wow. Cool. It's artsy without being too pretentious.
- The sound F/X. Music or silence or suicide attempts are always interrupted by the ringing of a bell—either the door, or the phone, or the door, or the phone.
- The girl is pretty.
- You learn a lot of Thai and Japanese phrases.
- It plays non-offensively on some cultural stereotypes, like the Japanese man who wants to commit suicide and the Thai girl who works in the sex and entertainment industry.
It's been a while since I first saw this video, but it's funny every time. A wooden hut sits atop a snow-covered mountain during ski season. It has a couple massage chairs in it for skiiers whose muscles need a little break. But things take an unexpected turn 10 seconds after they sit down in them....
I know I've lived in America too long because I watch this and the word "lawsuit" pops into my head every time the chair does its thing.
Wow! Street Fighter IV is coming out—Capcom just announced it. Look how cool it is! Apparently it isn't going to hit stores til late 2008 (at the earliest!) but still... the trailer was enough to get me excited.
I used to play a lot of Street Fighter II back in the day. I even named our family dog Ryu (he passed away this year).
(Thanks, Ken!)
For the first time ever in world history, a video game will be sold at drug stores. Starting November 15th, Drug Segami, a drug store chain, will be carrying a Nintendo DS Lite game in stores all over the country. It's called "Kenko Kentei" and it letts players log their health info and recommends exercises and dietary regimes. The software was developed by Yudo, a company started by the guys who created Beatmania and DDR.
Link (Japanese)
A couple of Mainichi reporters recently conducted interviews with A-bomb survivors in Hiroshima, which culminated into an award-winning series of articles that grapple with the quesion: Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
It's a well debated and sensitive topic that I'm not going to get into now (shh! I'm not supposed to be blogging right now). Some think it was the worst thing that happened ever on the planet; others think the world spends too much time remembering the tragedy that plagued the Japanese and not enough time remembering the tragedies the Japanese imposed on others.
BTW, if you haven't already, check out HBO's White Light Black Rain. It's a great documentary about a-bomb survivors.
What was Shinzo Abe's catch phrase? Where's the newest, coolest airport in Japan? Test your knowledge of the Japanese news online on this virtual Nintendo DS Lite game created by Mainichi and Sega.
It's in Japanese, but if you're up for the challenge, click here.
(Thanks, Rog!)
Wow. This bare-breasted, mouth-wide-open, ceramic woman is actually a compact cigarette extinguisher. Awesome, right? Just stick the butt in her mouth when you're done smoking.
Product page (Japanese)
Check out this clip of Riyo Mori on a reality TV show. The girl might be hot enough to have won Miss Universe, but she's also dumb enough to show up at an airport without valid ID. Wait, scratch that. She didn't have a passport, drivers license, or other form of government-issued ID, but she DID have her Miss Universe sash. Homeboy at the US Airways counter actually let her through, probably because he was pressured by half a dozen hot girls and a camera crew.
While Riyo won the global pageant, back home she wasn't everyone's favorite. She's not really "cute" in the way Japanese people want girls to be cute, I guess. Want to decide for yourself which woman should have been Miss Universe Japan? Check out this next video (after the jump) from the selection ceremony.
Continue reading "Miss Universe Uses Her Sash as ID at an Airport" »
Need to feel rich? This giant, 90-cm wide fan is made of fake million-yen bills. It's tacky and huge but it'll keep you cool and it only costs 1500 yen ($12).
BTW, million yen bills don't really exist.
Product page (Japanese)
Reuters reports that seven government officials in Ise started a group called the "Seven Metabolic Samurai"—a play-on-words on the famous Kurosawa film that refers to a dietary regime of hardcore exercise and health food.
Older men dieting is not uncommon in Japan. In fact, it's become trendy, and very high tech (remember the cell phone camera diet plan, instituted this past spring). Talk of metabolic syndrome—excess fat, high blood pressure, high cholestrol—is all over dinner tables and news talk shows. So it's only natural that a bunch of politicians would champion the cause by doing this. Right?
And so the diet samurai continue to train despite the death of one of their colleagues in August—he died of heart failure while jogging. Sad, and scary, but not quite enough to make a samurai terminate his mission.
Check out these very cool, very white stress relief balls with faces on them. The facial expressions range from grumpy (bottom left), sleepy (bottom right), to on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown (top left), so it can pretty much reflect your state of mind at any stressful moment at the workplace.
If the faces creep you out, of course, there's always the stress relief boobies. Photo after the jump.
Remember our reigning Air Guitar champ, Mr. Yosuke Ochi? (Check out his award-winning performance here.) Well, now you can aspire to be just like him with Takara Tomy's Air Guitar game. It has 10 popular American and Japanese songs—Aerosmith, Deep Purple, The Blue Hearts, Southern All Stars—and tracks your performance using infrared rays coming out of the bottom of the controller.
And the great news is, you can now buy it in the US.
If anyone does end up buying it, send me some videos of you playing so I can put them up on the site!
Coming in February: A Tachikoma robot (you know, from the popular anime Ghost in the Shell) that actually does things like initiate games, dodge bullets, record voice messages, and play music. Uh huh, that's right, it'll be like your very own robot friend straight out of the anime, for those of you who can't handle real pets but don't think robotic dogs are all that interesting. The Tachikoma takes its commands directly from your laptop, which it connects to via USB. "Tachikoma agent" software included. It'll retail for 13,440 yen.
Press release (Japanese, via Impress Watch)
The Asian Art Museum in SF is featuring two exhibits curated by renowned photographer and art collector Hiroshi Sugimoto, starting tomorrow. Sugimoto is a modern man who moved to NYC in the 70s and kicked off his photography career with an exhibit at the MoMa. Since then, he's turned his attention to colecting rare antiques from Japan, museum curation, and most recently, fashion photography.
Pictured above is a 13th century Buddhist reliquary with a photograph of a seascape in the Caribbean inside. It's part of the History of History exhibit. Also included in this collection is a series of 9 giant indigo blue and green hanging scrolls with a Buddhist sutra that got burnt in a fire; a giant phallic symbol from the Jomon era placed atop a CIA stretcher from the 1950s; and a 17th century Rembrandt etching juxtaposed onto a Japanese scroll. Pretty rad stuff. The second exhibit, Stylized Sculpture, is a fashion exhibit (a rare feat for the ordinarily conservative museum) featuring iconic works by Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo.
It's a really elegant experience, highly recommended if you're in the area between now and January 6.
Asian Art Museum home page
The Tokyo Auto Show is coming up, and the big three Japanese automakers are slated to unveil a bunch of cutesy space-agey cars like the Nissan Pivo 2, a concept car that was introduced at a preview event this past weekend. I don't know if I'd be caught dead driving this thing. But the girl pretending to drive it is cute!
More cute car photos on Mainichi.
The October 15 issue of Fortune Magazine features 100 of the most powerful women in the world, 50 in the US and 50 in the rest of the world. Pretty surprisingly diverse group of ladies—the #1 in the US is Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. She's Indian-American. Andrea Jung of Avon is Asian, and Oprah is black, and they're both in the Top 10. The international list has plenty of representation from France, Britain, China, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa. So guess how many of the 100 are Japanese?
Two! Surprising, considering that Japan is so first world. But then again, not surprising at all if you know a thing or two about what it's like to be a woman in the Japanese work force. Anyway, Yoshiko Shinohara, president of Tempstaff, comes in at #39 on the Global List, and Sawako Noma, Pres and CEO of publishing giant Kodansha (she's the founder's granddaughter), comes in at #45. Interesting to note also that both Shinohara and Noma are much older than the average woman on these lists—they're in their sixties and seventies, compared to the American top dogs who are mostly in their early 50s (some are even in their thirties!).
These colorful, 512MB USB drives from Solid Alliance are shaped like doggie bones and also have that chewy, silicone-y texture that dogs love to chew on. This thing wouldn't last a minute in Ruby's presence. Anyway, it can also double as a cute little dog tag—you can store all your dog's information on the drive in case she ever gets lost.
Yayoi Kusama is one of Japan's greatest avant-garde artists. Born in the 1920s in Nagano, Kusama spent nearly two decades from her twenties to forties living in NYC and spearheading crazy art events in Central Park and Brooklyn. She's shared exhibits with Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenberg and represented Japan at the Venice Bienniale several times in throughout the 90s. The lady has a long history of mental illness, though, having suffered from hallucinations and obsessive thoughts as a child, and now chooses to live in a mental hospital in Tokyo, right near her art studio where she continues to produce masterpieces epitomized by repetitive dots and spots (allegedly inspired by aforementioned childhood hallucinations) to this day.
Her latest exhibits open in Hong Kong and Korea this month. More pics after the jump.
You know you always wanted a swimming Hello Kitty fish tank next to your desk. A new series of Hello Kitty USB gear includes this tacky pink thing, as well as a cuddly pink USB-heated blanket with the beloved cat's giant face on it, USB-heated slippers with the beloved cat's giant face on it, and a USB desk cleaner with, yep, you guessed it.
Not my cup of tea, but I thought I'd put it here just in case you've always wanted a Hello Kitty office space. This blog post is bringing you several steps closer to fulfilling your dreams. Don't forget to get the palm tree, too.
Those of you who always doubted whether porn is really sold in vending machines in Japan can stop wondering now. In the news this weekend is a story of a cop who was shot in the butt while attempting to thwart a porn vending machine robbery in Fukuoka. Two guys were trying to break into the thing when the cop rolled by. In the midst of the struggle, one of the guys grabbed the cop's gun from his holster and shot him in the butt. I don't know if they got away. I don't think they got away with the porn they wanted. It must have been really expensive porn to be worth stealing from a frigging machine.
Ever wonder what your government bureaucrats do on their down time? An internal investigation at the agriculture ministry recently revealed that six of their staffers had been spending hours and hours editing Wikipedia entries about Gundam on their work computers. Apparently they know a lot more about mobile suits than farming, cuz they edited at total of 260 entries related to the popular anime series.
As a consequence, Wikipedia was banned from all ministry computers. When interviewed by CNN, a ministry official had this to say about the situation:
"The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam."
Sorry guys!
There's a new social networking site in Japan called "Nani Kiru," which is aimed specifically towards mahjongg fanatics hoping to bond across the fuzzy green table and online. You register, log in, and then you answer a series of questions related to the game (i.e. what moves you would make when faced with specific situations). You can even make your own questions for others to answer, and then see how people respond on message boards. It sounds simple and very niche, but apparently tons of people have been anticipating the launch of such a site. More features and apps to come as the site ages.
Link (Japanese)
NEC recently revealed its new FieldAnalyst camera, which basically analyzes passers-by based on their looks. By homing in on their appearance, it determines your gender and approximate age. The creators are working on an app that will let it guess your social class, too, based on how you dress. It does this by comparing your looks to samples in a static database.
The $19,000 tool is being marketed to big retailers for market research purposes.
CNET via The Raw Feed
Look! Somebody found a Super Mario-like mushroom in the wild. Deep inside, I always knew that Mario World was real...I just needed this piece of evidence to prove it. There is no information revealed on where this mushroom was found, which is unfortunate, because I'd leave my day job in a second to go find Princess Peach.
If anybody has eaten one of these and experienced unusual growth in a matter of seconds, please let me know.
Link (Japanese)
This is Mayu Yamamoto. She is a Japanese woman who recently won an international award for extracting a flavor eerily similar to vanilla from cow poo.
The Japanese are no strangers to the Ig Nobel Prize. Dr. NakaMats, our favorite inventor, won it in 2005 for documenting 35 years worth of meals, and 10 others have also won the silly science award, which is handed out by categories every year by the Harvard-based Annals of Improbable Research.
What an exciting week for Japan! Not only did we land a probe on the moon, but we figured out how to make poo taste good! Very, very important stuff.
Check out this 2006 Adidas billboard featuring two real humans hanging from rope and playing soccer above everyone's heads.
Link (Japanese)
Exciting day for JAXA! Japanese robots arrived on the moon for the first time today. Like most vehicles that make great voyages, the lunar probe has a woman's name—Selene—short for Selenological Engineering Explorer. It was launched on September 14, four years behind schedule, but safely arrived at its destination, where it will hang out for a year investigating the evolution of the moon. It's the largest lunar mission since Apollo.
Let me introduce you to the world of Carnimals. This is a new line of toys from Megahouse, and—like most great products created for pure entertainment—has a fun backstory. Carnimals are actually alien life forms from a planet called Sua. On Sua, Carnimals coexist happily and peacefully with spacemen. They're actually living vehicles, not animals, and they're fueled by the mysterious Anima spirit that lives in the Sua Forest. They have a lifespan of 100 light years.
Product page (Japanese)
Are you one of those people that sweats at your desk? Wish you were on a beach with palm trees, sailboats, and Hello Kitty in a bikini? This USB-powered fan features a palm tree-shaped plastic fan and Hello Kitty in a teeny weeny red polka dot bikini.
Product page (Japanese)
Nine years ago, I lived with a host family in Paris right by the Bois de Boulogne, in the southwest corner of the city. When most French people think of the Bois de Boulogne and Japanese people, they think of Issei Sagawa.
Back in 1981, Sagawa was an exchange student at the Sorbonne. He invited a Dutch classmate named Renee Hartevelt over for dinner. But instead of eating the sukiyaki he was cooking, he shot her in the head, had sex with her dead body, and then ate her. When he'd had enough for the night he cut up the remains, put them in the fridge, and cooked them with salt and pepper. He discarded the inedible remains in the Bois de Boulogne. He's one of the most shameless, unremorseful cannibals ever. And he never had to pay for his crimes because he got off on an insanity plea, and was extradited to Japan soon after.
Instead of laying low, Sagawa brags about his cannibalism and even wrote an illustrated book about himself. He even starred in a porno and has made guest appearances on talk shows. People were fascinated with him because he had eaten a human before, and isn't afraid to talk about it in public.
Apparently, this sick mother fucker still lives happily in Japan, writing and appearing in tabloids.
Whatever you do, don't eat what's inside this deceptively delicious-looking styrofoam container. Cup Nude is actually a masturbation tool for men. Inside is not a bowl of noodles but pink jelly with a hole in the middle. More pics and deets on Patrick Macias' blog, here.
Obsessed with cute-ifying your cubicle? This stuffed puppy dog doll is actually a functioning PC webcam. He'll hang out on your screen all day, keeping you company and monitoring your every move.
Product page (via Gizmodo Japan)
This is the antibac2K. It's a compact, lightweight air cleaning system that looks like a spherical alien ship. When you plug it in and switch it on, the blue and green LED lights illuminate and the thing starts spinning, disseminating a proprietary air filtration mist into the atmosphere. The effect is similar to those bulky ionic filters they sell at Sharper Image—it gets rid of bad odors, eliminates allergy-inducing dust particles, and kills of 99.99% of bacteria such as salmonella...but this one's much smaller and cooler-looking.
Product page (Japanese)
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