TOKYOMANGO

Get your hand-printed limited edition TokyoMango t-shirt now (2 weeks only)

My friend Ben and I made a test run of TokyoMango t-shirts on Saturday. They're really nice, do you want one? If so, you can buy one here. Below are the details:

- All shirts are 100% cotton.
- Each t-shirt will be hand-silk screened by me and Ben on his Yudu machine. The shirt logo was custom-designed by Ben. Mango design courtesy of my web designer James.
- The Women's tees come in a t-shirt style (pistacio and white) and a spaghetti strap ribbed tank (yellow).
- The Men's tees come in orange and white. In the pic above, Ben is actually accidentally wearing a girl's tee, but you get the idea... the sleeves will be more manly on the one you get.
- You can choose a custom colored tee for $25. Just shoot me an email with your preference after you place the order.
- The sizes tend to run a little big (except for the tanktops). They might shrink in the wash.
- Some of you will receive a free surprise Japanese toy or gadget with your t-shirt! I'm just gonna randomly stick them into bags, so keep an eye out.
- We're taking orders over the next two weeks only, at least for this first printing. They'll ship at the end of those two weeks, when Ben & I will silkscreen them by hand.
- Last day to order is Monday, October 5th.

UPDATE: T-shirts are no longer for sale. Maybe we'll do another round sometime!

UFO catcher jeopardizes lives of prize blowfish

Why pay a 1000 yen for a baby blowfish when you can win one with your UFO catching skills? Blogger sosonko found this fugu UFO catcher in a Shimokitazawa game center. I agree with his sentiment that the existence of this UFO catcher is very wrong. For starters, blowfish are very sensitive creatures and need careful handling. They are easily agitated and even minor changes in the environment, such as switching off lights in the room can cause stress. When they are stressed, they may react extremely by blowing up or attempting to jump out of water. Even though it's cute, blowing up is not a good thing because it takes an extreme toll on their bodies and shortens their lifespan. (by Emily Co)

Link

Related stories:
Ice cream UFO catcher
Another ridiculous UFO catcher scenario

Blue Men with a uniquely Japanese twist

A couple months ago, TokyoMango reader Craig invited me to check out the Blue Man Group show in Tokyo. 

Blue Man Group was started in NYC 20 years ago by three guys. One of the guys had had a vision of painting his entire face blue and doing funny mute tricks since he was a kid, so he teamed up with a creative guy and a business guy to create an off-Broadway show. (The original blue men, Phil Stanton, Chris Wink, and Matt Goldman, are still involved in the organization—which makes it kinda cool, like a little family.)

The Tokyo production kicked off about a year ago—they built an IKEA-like blue warehouse-like building at the tail end of Roppongi Hills, re-engineered the program to fit a Japanese audience, brought over some blue men, and set up an elaborate stage that made cleaning up all the water and paint after each show relatively easy.

DVD helps geeks fight shyness by forcing eye contact with blonds

The Underwire has a funny article today about a Japanese DVD that helps geeks combat shyness. An excerpt: 

Nordic-looking blondes can be particularly terrifying to look in the eye. Take a deep breath, then hit Play. If you can get through the first 30 seconds without curling up in the fetal position under your desk, you're home free.

Link

YouTube manga girl Magibon explains fame, and parody videos

In a live interview on a Japanese TV show, Magibon explains how she became one of Japan's favorite YouTube stars. Also, some slightly disturbing Magibon parody videos after the jump.

Gallery of pimped out "dekochari" bicycles

Apparently, there is a subculture in Japan where young boys dress up their bicycles with steel boxes and horns and motors and bling so they look like delivery trucks in India. It's called dekochari, and Tony McNichol has a great photo gallery of them on his web site. I think this is the boy version of purikura—a way to show comraderie, creativity, and personal taste.

Japanese USB gadgets at Gizmodo Gallery NYC

I'm gonna be in NY next week finishing up my Studio360 piece and checking out the Wired Store and Gizmodo Gallery.

Gizmodo Gallery is going to have crazy Japanese USB gadgets and maybe even some cool cell phones. You should stop by!

16-year old wins Japanese chess championship

This is Kana Satomi. She's a 16-year old high school student who just won the national title for best female shogi player in the world. She beat out 39-year old defending champ Ichiyo Shimizu in the Okayama tournament on Sunday. The youngest girl ever to win this title was Naoko Hayashiba, who was 14 when she kicked everyone's butt in 1982.

Previously, I blogged about Beni Takeyama, an expert shogi player who is only eight years old! She is probably still making her way up the ranks of Japanese chess. Or maybe she's way too young to compete.

Link

American YouTube manga girl making waves in Japan

Magibon is an American You Tube idol taking her obsession with Japan to the extreme. The Florida-born 22-year old who used to be a supermarket cashier now spends a bulk of her time making YouTube videos of herself staring blankly into the camera, babbling elementary Japanese, and striking cutesy poses. Her popularity in Japan catapulted when Japanese online publication JCast wrote an article about her in January of this year. In April, a Japanese broadcasting company called Gyao invited her to be a guest on one of their shows. Here's one of her famous stare-down videos. What do you think? Cute? (by Emily Co)

Hand-warming omelet-shaped cell phone strap

It's not easy to always be on your cell phone when it's freezing cold outside. Fingers get frostbitten, sometimes your entire arm gets chills. This cute little omelet-shaped cell phone strap has small hand-warmers inside that keep your bare parts warm while you chat away. Also comes in a baked potato and a taiyaki.

Buy it here.

Japanese man lives in Mexico's airport for no reason

Hiroshi Nohara is a mini-celebrity in Mexico City. Why? The Japanese traveler visited Mexico City, and then, on September 2, headed to the airport to fly home but never flew home. He's been living in Terminal 1 of Benito Juarez airport ever since, surviving off of fast-food donations. Apparently, neither Mexican nor Japanese authorities can make him leave until his visa expires in March. He's been there for nearly three months now—the media caught on, and now he's regularly asked for autographs and has even been on Mexican TV. When asked why he's doing this, he said:

"I don't understand why I'm here. I don't have a reason."

Apparently, airport vendors have been giving him clothes and mugs to carry when he's on TV to promote their brands. An interesting twist on the concept of free promo swag!

Link (Thanks, Mark!)

 

Dog's squeaky toy looks like lingerie

Does your furry friend like to steal your bra and panties from your hamper and chew on them in front of guests? I spotted this toy bra and underwear set in a LaLaport pet store. It looks exactly like a real lingerie set, but it squeaks. My dog Peanut is having a ball trying to rip out the lace and ribbons. (by Emily Co)

Body shampoo simulates celebratory beer bath

If you're looking for a little fun in the shower, Bandai's new Beer Shampoo may be just the thing. The bottle is designed so that the citrus-scented soap inside sprays out as foam. It's part of a series of products titled "I've always wanted to try this." As in, you always wanted to spray yourself all over with beer, but you never did it because you didn't want to get your clothes dirty. Other novelty products in this series include the 10,000 yen bill bath salts and the 10,000 yen bill oil blotting paper.

Press release via Impress Watch (Japanese)

Maywa Denki's "nonsense toy" workshop this weekend in Tokyo

Last month in Tokyo, I hung out with Novmichi Tosa, the quirky, highly talented man behind Maywa Denki. We did a quick interview for an upcoming issue of Make, and he even gave me a private demo of his many awesome musical gadgets. He has things like an accordion that simulates a human tongue, and flower-shaped xylophones that open and close and play awesome beats on their own.

Anyhow, Novmichi is having a "nonsense toy" workshop this weekend at his studio in Tokyo. It's free, and open to the public, and promises to be highly entertaining. I would totally go, but I just left Tokyo to come back to SF on Sunday.

For those of you who are in Tokyo this weekend and are interested in making quirky, creative Japanese toys under the tutelage of one of the most talented product makers in the country, it's Nov 21 and 22 from 10am-5pm at the Maywa Denki studio in Shinagawa ward. There's more info here (in Japanese),or for a quick English briefing you can email them.

Gallery of new cell phone designs from au

Mainichi has a gorgeous gallery of the new KDDI au handsets that came out this fall. So much better looking than my dinky Nokia 5300 from two years ago.

Hand lotion so cute it makes you want to become friends

Japanese drug stores have more beauty products than any Walgreens, Longs, or CVS, but one thing that always baffles me is the complete absence of locally made body lotion. Yes, there are a gazillion types of face cream and hand cream. But body lotion is always imported—it's so strange! I had to special order my favorite Japanese one, which is made out of rice. Speaking of lotion, I found these super cute "We are friends" Hand Cream. The idea behind it is that the containers are so frigging cute that you can't help but become friends with the creepy guy in the cube next to yours if he has one too.

Former FCCJ cook caught in Australian ice cream poop scandal

Adam Wood, formerly the head chef at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan, is in deep doodoo. He is among several accused of contaminating the Whyte family's chocolate gelato with poop late last October at Australia's Congee Bay Hotel.

The "Gelatogate" scandal all started when the Whytes complaining about the hotel's pub; to compensate, the hotel gave them free gelato. Mrs. Whyte took one bite out of her ice cream and immediately suspected poop. She saved it in a napkin for testing, and the results came out positive for fecal matter. Wood is a suspect because of the coincidental timing of his resignation and the fact that he's only been at the job for a few weeks. Mrs. Whyte has apparently been afflicted with PTSD symptoms and finds cleaning her baby's butt and eating out traumatizing. (by Emily Co)

Link

High school girl inspired by the Red Sox makes draft

An Osaka teenager just took the first step towards becoming the first female baseball player to play in an all-male league. Eri Yoshida is a pitcher known for her knuckleball. Apparently, she was inspired by a Boston Red Sox player, Tim Wakefield. At tryouts, she pitched to eight male players and didn't give up a single hit. If she passes the draft, she'll be starting on the Kobe 9 Cruise team next year.

I really hope she makes it! And if she doesn't, hopefully it's because she just wasn't good enough, and not because she was a girl.

Link

Masks that make your face smaller

These bank robber masks are actually made to have special sauna-like effects that tighten pores and make your face appear smaller. The pink one is made especially for women, the gray one for men. I might try this on super blizzard-y days during ski season this year to see if it makes a difference.

Taro "I-can't-read-kanji" Aso publicly proves incompetency in Japanese language

He might have encyclopedic knowledge of manga, but our new prime minister proved at a recent press conference that he can't really read kanji. He mispronounced at least four words written in high school-to-college level kanji by his speech writer. "The guy needs furigana (captions deciphering kanji) on all his speeches," one politician mocked. "What an embarrassment that the guy who represents Japan to the world can't read Japanese!" another rightfully declared. When approached by a team of reporters on this subject, Aso deflected. "I just misread, that's all," he said hastily, and then shuffled away from the podium.

Geeks had previously given our manga-loving prime minister the affectionate nickname Taro "Rozen" Aso after his favorite manga, Rozen Maiden. He now has a new nickname, Taro "KY" Aso—Taro "Kanji Yomenai" Aso, or Taro "I-can't-read-kanji" Aso. (KY is a popular geek term for someone who isn't in on the joke, like Michael Scott from The Office. You can read more about the concept and take a KY Quiz here.)

Related stories:
Aso is a local hero in Akihabara
Aso to star in an erotic video game

Boys' Shibuya fashion makes US debut at ETech

Yesterday, my friend Fumi and I went to Shibuya to interview some young guys and gals about their cell phone using habits. Here are two teenagers who will be making a video appearance at my ETech talk in March. They were really tall and slightly intimidating from afar, but once we started talking to them, super-friendly and excited that they were gonna end up on YouTube.

Man visits suicide forest, returns unharmed

If you ever spent summers in Tokyo watching those freaky psychic ghost shows, you know about Jukai, or the suicide-inducing forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

Pejk, one of the Studio360 producers I've been working with this week, went there a couple days ago by himself. Brave guy! If you talk about going to Jukai to any Japanese person, their first instinct will be to think, Is he ever coming back? Apparently it's the second most popular suicide spot in the world (Golden Gate Bridge is #1)!

Pejk came back safely, and he wrote a really eloquent blog post about his experience there.

Link

Runway show flaunts sex appeal of adult diapers

Adult diapers can be sexy. This runway show held in Tokyo in September is proof that an aging population yields an entirely new sense of fashion. A quote from a 26-year old spectator:

It was great to see so many different types of diapers all in one showing. I learned a lot. This is the first time that diapers are being considered as fashion.

What they need is Adriana Lima pouting in those nappies, then I can guarantee you they'll be flying off the shelves. (by Emily Co)

Link 

Internet cafe doubles as a karaoke joint

You may not think that the urges to sing karaoke and surf the web come hand in hand, but in Tokyo, they often do. That's why there's KaraNet, the karaoke & Internet cafe that's open 24 hours. The karaoke rooms and Internet booths are actually separate, but you could still spend all day in this bright red building. Price list after the jump.

Piggy bank plays Yamanote train platform music

Taking the train everywhere in Tokyo can be pretty tasking if you're not used to being in a commuter mosh pit, but the Yamanote Line's soothing platform music definitely takes the edge off. Each stop has its own signature tune so you know what station you're at even if you're blind, lost, or just confused. This Yamanote Line piggy bank that I found at Tokyu Hands plays a medley of platform music—each time you drop in a coin, the headlights go on, the music starts playing and all of a sudden you feel like you're on your way somewhere in Tokyo. And once the piggy bank is full, maybe you'll have enough cash saved up to take a real vacation.

Now, whenever I get nostalgic for the Yamanote Line, I can just play this YouTube video.

The longest hot dog in the word, and Japan's hot dog obsession

If you ever need to scratch that hot dog itch, the 55 cm hot dog sold at a Saitama specialty shop is your answer. American processed meats have a huge fan base in Japan. Hot dogs and spam were introduced to Okinawa by American soldiers during the US Occupation. The manager of the super-long hot dog store in Saitama used to work at a US army base, which I'm guessing served as inspiration for his current endeavor. Japan has serious hot dog fever—convenience stores sell at least two different kinds of hot dogs carefully wrapped in plastic, and they even have yakisoba in hot dog buns. Pizza Hut also has a pie with mini hot dogs embedded in the crust. Not only that, but Japan is the proud holder of a couple of hot dog records—world's longest hot dog and Takeru Kobayashi's amazing Coney Island victories. (by Emily Co)

Update: The restaurant is called Submarine Hot Dogs. Here's a map.

Found in Shibuya: USB Whac-a-Mole

Need a little more desktop entertainment than stupid solitaire? For less than $20, you can get USB Whack It, a miniature version of Whac-a-Mole powered by USB. I'd get it, except I have this highly addictive bubble wrap-popping game on my iPod Touch that satisfies all my arbitrary poking urges.

Booger girl and box-headed men at Design Festa

More fun stuff that Emily found at Design Festa:

I saw a guy carrying a giant pole that had a girl with a giant swinging booger attached to it. It was a performance art exhibit that used the entire convention hall as its booth—he just walked around saying sumimasen, sumimasen the entire time. 

I'm speaking about Japanese tech culture at ETech

I was invited to speak at ETech, O'Reilly's annual flagship emerging technology conference. It will be held in March in San Jose, CA. My thingy will be on Wednesday, March 11 at 2:55PM, and I'll be talking about seemingly strange web apps and gadgets that actually give us great insight into the foundations of Japanese popular culture. The conference is kinda expensive, but there are some great speakers on the lineup—Joi Ito, Gary Wolf, Mary Lou Jepsen—well worth it if you want to hear some of the best idea people talk about what's up and coming. Details on my talk are here.

Kenzo Saeki and Toast Girl's tributes to Claude Francois

I had the great pleasure of hanging out with and interviewing Toast Girl on Tuesday night in Golden Gai. She works in a tiny Chanson-themed bar on the corner. The whole evening was pretty rad, and around 11PM, the dude in this video walked in with MatsuYou, one of the celebrity bloggers I interviewed for Wired a few months ago. (I thought I'd posted this video on Mango before, but I was wrong—I wrote about it on Boing Boing while I was guest-blogging there.)

Clo Clo Made in Japan is this neat collaborative CD that celebrates the French sixties pop star Claude François, most famous for the song My Way, later popularized by Frank Sinatra. They're having a concert in Tokyo on 11/27 if anyone's interested. I'd love to go, but I'm heading back to SF on Sunday.

Toast Girl's Chanson Populaire video and a pic I snapped of her behind the bar at Soiree after the jump.

Purikura makes radio host crave boy band concerts

Kurt Andersen wrote something funny about our outing to a Purikura booth yesterday on the Studio360 blog. An excerpt: 

Once inside, you’re cued to pose in particular ways — to “vogue” according to prescribed super-cute situations. And then, in a second both, one adds stars and hearts and unicorns and flowers and mushrooms and and letters and numbers to one’s portrait at will. And the final product is a postcard-sized, adhesive-backed montage of 24 photos, which is supposed to be cut into 24 individual stickers and shared with one’s BFFs. I now have an uncanny desire to attend a boy-band concert with Lisa.

We will most definitely be attending the next New Kids on the Block show when we get back to the US. (Can you believe they got back together for a new album this year? WTF?)

Link

Lubricant parodied after popular tea brands

This looks like it could be on the drink rack at any convenience store, but it's actually bottles of lube that parody popular bottled tea brands in Japan. The green is parodied after Ooi Ocha, but instead of Ocha it says Lotion. Ooi Lotion = Lots of Lotion. The red one, instead of Afternoon Tea, is called Afternoon Lotion. I did not actually buy any lube that day so I can't tell you whether they smell or taste like the original tea product.

Fast food udon joint has buffet-style condiments

When you're hungry in Tokyo in the middle of the afternoon, your options on where to eat are limited. We tried getting sushi or yakitori, but it was 4PM and most places didn't open until 5PM. We finally stumbled upon this fast food buffet-style udon joint on Dogenzaka. We walked in, and a guy took our order for the style of udon we wanted. I got hot onsen tamago. After that, we went down this cafeteria-style row filled with fried stuff—kakiage, squid legs, fish, chicken, eggplant, konbu, etc. I topped off my custom-made meal with a mentaiko-mayonnaise onigiri, and that was it. Was it yummy? I was so hungry at the time that I thought so, but in retrospect, I give it a 6/10.

Update: I forgot to write about the price. Pretty cheap. The basic noodle bowl was something like 250 yen for a Medium bowl (which was huge). Each condiment was between 30-150 yen (30 for a slice of lotus root, 150 for jumbo shrimp.) There were three of us, and we got three bowls of noodles stacked with fried stuff plus two beers. Total was 3000 yen, or about $30, so $10 each with a beer, and we couldn't even finish all our food. 

Man avoids bunny rabbit, spends three days in a valley

Satoru Takeda, a 58-year old unemployed Gifu man, spend three days without food in a valley off of a mountain road after swerving to avoid running over a bunny rabbit. He was injured, and it was cold, and he couldn't get back up the cliff to seek help, so he just stayed in his car until Day 3. When cops finally discovered him, they found another car in the same valley, with a dead guy inside.

I don't really know why I'm posting this—I guess the idea of a random little bunny rabbit creating such extreme hardship for a well-intended man somehow caught my attention.

Link

Shibuya with Studio360 crew on three hours of sleep

Day 2 of Tokyo with the Studio360 crew = breakfast meeting with the fixer, a quick guided tour of the Tokujin Yoshioka exhibit at Midtown, and a walk-through of Shibuya with producers Leital & Pejk & the show's host, Kurt Andersen. We took purikura, which should be showing up on the Studio360 blog soon enough. I only had three hours of sleep so I don't remember what I talked about or whether it made any sense. Parts of what we recorded today will be used to intro my segment on contemporary women artists, which will air in January.

It was rainy and cold, and I'm happy to report that I'm back in my room, in sweatpants, ready for my early evening nap that prohibits me from ever getting over jet lag but is nonetheless entirely irresistible.

Late-breaking news: I was a Power Ranger for Halloween

Brian and I were Power Rangers for Halloween, and a bunch of Japanese people walking around the Castro were really impressed, even though we were just wearing plain clothes.

Richard Gere's new movie about Hachiko

Ever wonder what Richard Gere has been up to? I don't, but I am looking forward to seeing his newest film. It's about Hachiko, the famous Akita dog whose spirit resides in Shibuya Station since the 1930s. He was a smart, loyal doggie who lost his owner at the age of 2. The owner died of a heart attack while he was at work, so the dog never knew of his death. So every day for the rest of his life, he sat in front of Shibuya Station in the late afternoon to early evening, waiting for the owner's return. Other commuters soon caught on to what was happening and started feeding the dog and paying him lots of attention.

Hachiko died of heartworm at the age 11 and the ward erected a statue in his honor. Now it's the most popular meeting spot in Tokyo.

After Hachiko died, they found a whole bunch of yakitori sticks inside his tummy. His stuffed body is now on display at a museum in Ueno.

Video: Japanese cat obsessed with diet drink

This video of a Japanese cat diving into a cardboard box has over 1.4 million views on YouTube. I love that it's a fat cat obsessed with something labeled DIET. Super cute!

Spy-themed McDonalds campaign kicks off in Shibuya, Omotesando

McDonalds Japan is engaged in a cool new viral-ish campaign for the launch of the Quarter Pounder here. First, they painted the signature red-and-yellow facade completely red&black and veiled it with a black curtain. Then they parked a couple of hot blonds in black skintight suits and a bodyguard out front. The top secret facility was unveiled on November 1 to be a Quarter Pounder store. The inside of the store is also black and only sells Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal sets.

People lined up around the block for the opening. A pretty genius way to sell an ordinary McDonalds hamburger, I'd say. It also would probably only work in Japan where novelty often supersedes true value.

Quarter Pounder main page

Report from Design Festa, Asia's biggest art festival

Design Festa, the biannual two-day international freestyle art event, was held in Odaiba this weekend. It began in 1994 and is an outlet of expression for all kinds of artists ranging from amateurs to long time veterans. This year's event had a show of 2600 booths with over 7000 artists from more than 30 different countries. When I first walked in, I was bombarded with sensory overload -- french maids peddling knick knicks, middle-aged people dancing with cardboard boxes on their head, artists wearing gas masks and painting on giant murals, multicolored animation on theater-sized screens, and more. It was like I left reality and stepped into a trippy, artsy wonderland. Here are some snapshots of my little expedition. (by Emily Co)

The picture above proves the power of makeup—guys beware!

Boys Over Flowers, the movie made from my favorite manga

One of my favorite manga growing up was Hana Yori Dango, or Boys Over Flowers. It's an unconventional shojo series by Yoko Kamio. The heroine is a girl named Tsukushi Makino—she's neither rich nor pretty, but her parents decide to dig into their savings and send her to a snobby private school. There, Tsukushi has multiple run-ins with the Flower 4—four handsome, wealthy, extremely cocky guys who dominate the school's social life. My girl friends and I loved the story so much that four of us called ourselves the Flower 4 all throughout high school. Stupid, I know.

In the movie—which came out in theaters last month—Tsukushi and the leader of the F4, Tsukasa Domyoji, are about to get married but get sent on a transnational adventure in search of a missing tiara. I watched it on the airplane over to Tokyo (like JAL, ANA has great food and a highly maneuvrable entertainment system). I missed the entire TV series so was super curious to see how they portrayed my favorite manga with real humans. The verdict? It was okay. I was slightly disappointed by the random plot and the nonsensical turns it took (if they're in a rush to get to Vegas, why are they driving idly through the desert and not flying into Las Vegas airport??), but still, I was entertained and I didn't fall asleep. That says a lot, because I usually fall asleep during movies.

Plier store display in Akihabara

I took this picture at a covered tool market in Akihabara. This store specializes in pliers.

Crazy gyaru nails, and how to spot a gyaru in the wild

How do you keep your nails trim if you're a gyaru with inches-long gemstone-encrusted fingertips?? I found this scary nail clipper in the beauty section of donki. It looks bigger than my dog Peanut's nail clipper.

Tokyo again, and what I like to do on planes

I'm heading back to Tokyo tomorrow to work on a radio show with the crew from PRI's Studio360, so I probably won't be blogging until I get there.

When are we going to have wi-fi on trans-Pacific flights? But then again, would I want that? I kinda cherish the offline time—nap, read a book, listen to podcasts, nap, watch a movie, eat, brush teeth, pee. Airplanes make me want to do not much more than all that.

Boys carrying hairdryers and Gucci handbags

I managed to snap a great shot of these guys in Harajuku carrying huge Gucci bags. Two of the other guys they were with also had matching handbags. Note the pink bear keychain of the guy on the left. I know a lot of foreigners are perplexed by the abundance of handbag-toting boys in Japan. They aren't metrosexual per se, it's just the norm here. Japanese men were metro even before the term was invented. To carry a brand name handbag is just icing on the cake. You must be wondering why these bags are so huge. I did too, until my metro friend Fernando pointed out that they probably carry their hairdryers in there. It takes one to know one. (Emily Co)

Hi-Kara: The karaoke machine that fits in the palm of your hand

Don't go to karaoke, bring karaoke to you—or rather, with you. This miniature karaoke cube by Takara Tomy measures only 5.5 inches on each side and even displays lyrics on it's LCD monitor. You can download the songs from their website onto mini catridges that you insert into Hi-Kara. You can also listen with two headphones at the same time or plug it into your speakers or television. Now your friends can't make any of those lame excuses when you try and drag them to karaoke. "Man, it's so far away." No worries, Hi-Kara's in my pocket! "Dude, I don't wanna pay." It's okay, Hi-Kara's free! "Isn't it closed?" It's a 24/7 party with Hi-Kara! (by Emily Co)

Takara Tomy main page

Short film: Tokyo seen through a kaleidescope

This neat video by Kosai Sekine, the guy behind that wonderful obsessive-compulsive combini man short that I posted last February, looks at the Tokyo cityscape through a giant kaleidescope. Quite mesmerizing.

via Pink Tentacle

Hello Kitty alarm clock compact wakes you up with annoying Kitty-speak

I am so sick of Hello Kitty stuff, but this one actually promises to be useful—it's a folding mirror-meets-portable clock shaped like the cat's head. It's almost as small as a business card, so it'll easily fit your purse and doubles as a portable mirror and clock. And for those of you who want to use it as an alarm clock, you can choose from three different Kitty-ish phrases.

"Hi! I'm Kitty. You still sleeping? If you're a sleepyhead Kitty will get mad!"
"Good morning! It's Kitty's wake up call! Wake up wake up!"
"Yawn, good morning. Kitty is sleepy too, but let's try to wake up! Yoisho! Yoisho!"

All equally annoying enough that you will no doubt wake up and smash her face to bits.

Link (Japanese)

This week on MangoBot: Black Jack by Tezuka

This week on MangoBot, I wrote about Black Jack, the awesome sci-fi manga series about a ruthless mercenary doctor:

Mad scientists. Beautiful women who specialize in amputations. Supercomputers that threaten to starve an entire hospital full of patients. Tumors that take on human form. Sounds like a freakish B-list horror movie, right? Actually, these are all seminal elements of a classic cult favorite manga by Tezuka Osamu. Black Jack is one of his darkest yet most appreciated works, but it hasn't had much exposure in the US market until now.

Continue reading Black Jack, the Greatest Gory-Cute Scifi Manga Ever

Obama town's crazy dance moves

Obama's going to be the new president of the United States, and whole world is super psyched! One little seaside town in Fukui, Japan, is particularly ecstatic because their town name, which means Little Beach, is pronounced "OBAMA" in Japanese. Emily did some research for us and found this awesome video of the Obama dance. She also dug up the following deets:

Their "Obama for Obama" support group are ingenious in a typical Japanese fashion; creating Obama manju, Obama chopsticks, Obama kimonos, and even Obama fish burgers. Some of their committee members are hoping to fly to Washington to attend his inauguration. They're hoping that the Obama hula girls will be asked on stage to perform—unlikely, but hey, anything can happen.

Related stories:
People in Japan love Obama
Obama wins Japanese primaries

Museum features animal poop and books made out of feces

I've written about poop a lot on this blog, but I didn't know about the Himeji Poop Museum until today. The poop museum has a collection of different animal poops on display, that apparently you can poke and play with, in addition to an entire collection of books about poop—including one made out of repurposed elephant poop! Above, you are looking at zebra poop on the left and elephant poop on the right.

via Babelhut (Thanks, Walter!)