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!

Pico Iyer: Japan is at once an old lady in a miniskirt and a wise old man

Most of the things I buy at Best Buy are really bad. Like the DVI-to-MiniDVI adapter that the guy in the laptop aisle pointed me to—it didn't work on my new MacBook. Or the DLO IntelliTune iPod dock for my car. I almost crashed twice listening to Obama reading me Dreams from My Father (yes, he voices his own Audiobook. Awesome!) because other radio frequencies kept butting in. I returned both. But there is one good thing I bought at Best Buy, and that was this super cute Nintendo DS carrying purse. I love it. It fits all my cartridges, the charger, some lipstick, a credit card, keys, cell phone, and my DS, of course. And it was only $10.

The hottest new item for sale on Rakuten? Man-bras. The company featured in this video perfected the best-selling man-bra, and found a surprising customer base among the ordinarily quiet cross-dresser community. I think it's great, even though the reporter looks a little silly.

Also, this has nothing to do with Japan, but a little girl in India married a cute dog because her village believed it would rid their family of evil spirits. Video after the jump.

This is a great/horrible clock depending on how you look at it. The Countdown Clock, made by Sega Toys, caters to the freelance writer/designer/whateverer and tells time in relation to an ominous deadline. Instead of setting a conventional alarm, you set a deadline (date and time), and the clock starts ticking toward the dreadful end. Kinda reminds me of Kevin Kelly's life countdown ticker that counts down to the day he predicts he will die. Except you can buy the Sega Toys version for $10 on Amazon Japan.

via Impress Watch (Japanese)

Remember the survey conducted last year that showed that the Japanese have the least amount of sex in the world? Well, the government decided that 12-hour work days have a lot to do with it—so much, in fact, that companies like Canon are encouraging employees to go home early to procreate. Canon made it company-wide policy for its workers to go home early twice a week to make babies at the encouragement of Keidanren, a corporate group including 1300 companies. The birthrate in Japan is 1.34, way lower than what's needed to sustain population numbers:

The 5:30 p.m. lights-out program is one simple step toward helping address the population problem. It also has an added benefit: Amid the global economic downturn the company can slash overtime across the board twice a week.

Link (Thanks, Jess!)

Boing Boing's guest blogger Charles Platt took this great photo of a pharmacy in Aomori. It sells happy drugs! And by that I don't think they mean that their aisles are lined with weed like at Dave Chappelle's workplace in Half Baked. Platt writes:

It seems to me, the name Happy Drug is quite accurate, because that's the whole point of drugs, whether they are pain relievers, blood thinners, or laxatives. Their ultimate purpose is to make our lives less miserable and, therefore, happier. The interesting question is why we in the west find this so difficult to acknowledge.

Link

The town of Ugo in Akita prefecture is wintry, snowy, and hungry for tourists. That's why local retailers solicited help from manga artists in marketing local produce to youngsters and foreigners—by putting images of cute cartoon character girls on packages of rice, one man transformed his dwindling business into an enormous otaku trend. His bags of high-quality Akitakomachi with the naime girl cover costs nearly $30 each, but the entire batch sold out on the day it was released. Prior to packaging it this way, the company was selling only 18 tons of rice a year—with the new marketing plan, he's selling 32 tons a MONTH. Amazing!

via Japan Probe

Now that Japan is turning into this robot-controlled, anime-obsessed, superflat place, a lot of people are nostalgic for the good old days. We honor that nostalgia via quirky high-tech dioramas of the Showa era, like the Showa era living room with a working TV that I wrote about in 2006, and this brand new speaker system that has a diorama of 1955 Ginza on top of it. It's a Ginza that not only replicates the past perfectly, but lights up with LED lights, emits sound effects, and well, if you play some Japanese 50s music, you'll take yourself right back to the post-war. Pretty neat. The latter is actually a product you can buy, albeit for $2000, come April 10th.

Press release (Japanese) via Gizmodo

A recent study conducted by the government's disaster management council found that a flooding of the Arakawa River could cause an apocalypse of the meticulously interwoven Tokyo subway system. Every 200 years or so, it rains over 550 millimeters a year; if this ever happens again, the heavily dammed river could flood, causing 97 subway stations in the city to be destroyed. It would start with just a few stations, but then the subway tunnels would function as pipes and bring the water damage from one station to the next, destroying close to 100 within days. Needless to say, government officials are now hard at work trying to figure out how to make sure this doesn't happen.

Link (Thanks, Vagrant!)

The smallest bidpedal robot in the world is Takara Tomy's Robo-Q. Its magnetic feet move according to an infrared remote control, and it has sensors that recognize obstacles in its way. Its entire body is smaller than a human thumb, but tiny internal speakers make stamping noises as mighty as Gundam's. It comes in two different models—retro and future—which is super cute because I was starting to think I would never have the option of owning an old school retro bot, but now I know I can.

It goes on sale 2/28.

Takara Tomy via Impress Watch (Japanese)

This alien ship is actually a schmancy "floating bar" in Odaiba that takes you around Tokyo Bay while you sip fancy cocktails that cost $7/each. The cruise itself costs $25. Might be a fun thing to do if you're looking for something different on a night out in Tokyo, especially since the Rainbow Bridge is super pretty at night.

Link (via News on Japan)

Look at this amazing credit card ad from the 70s. It features an alien woman holding the planet in one hand and a JCB card in the other. The tag line on the right reads: "Cash disappeared from earth?" And on the left, it claims that by the year 2xxx, all humans own a JCB card. Interestingly, while we are in year 2xxx now, Japan is still very much a cash culture.

via Pink Tentacle

Impress Watch, a Japanese tech journalism site that I frequently link back to in my gadget coverage, is publishing a weekly series about people's desktops. This week's desktop is mine! The title of my piece, roughly translated, is: "A desktop that is much cleaner than my scattered brain looking for story ideas." (記事ネタ探し中の頭の中よりも遥かにすっきりしたデスクトップ)

Read it.

I love this Barack Obama action figure—not just because I love the new president, which I do, but because here he is lounging Japanese winter-style in a kotatsu. A kotatsu, in case you have the misfortune of never having sat in one, is an amazing table-heated blanket hybrid piece of furniture that, until recently, was the centerpiece of almost every Japanese living room. We used to have one when I was a kid. Sometimes there's even a hole in the floor that you can dangle your legs in. Here, Obama is hanging out with his legs in the kotatsu, and he's about to eat a mikan (tangerine) and play Super Famicom.

Link (Thanks, David!)

On February 26, I'll be moderating a panel at the Japan Society of Northern California on music and Japanese youth culture. The featured speakers are Jennifer Milioto Matsue and Marvin D. Sterling, both anthropologists and authors of books about the underground music scene in Japan. So very interesting! I am not an expert on the subject, but am honored to be sharing the stage with those who are. Come watch!

More info and registration here

Woohoo! I mean, Hulu! Japanese TV is coming to the US. NTV (Nippon Television) is partnering with Hulu to bring cool Japanese game shows, the real kind, not the fake kind, to the US. Check out episodes of Gaki, in which comedy team Downtown do things like get stuck in a gym for 24 hours, or compete in Golf Club Assault Battle, Chili Bean Paste Smearing Battle, and Mini Champagne Ass Catch Battle. You can also watch the entire Nasubi series from Denpa Shonen, a classic. It's great for getting your daily dose of Japanese humor, if you're one of those people that needs that. No more digging around YouTube for something worth watching.

Related posts:
Nasubi, the naked guy who lived on freebies for a year
Ken Shimura's Thriller parody (and tips on upping your Japanese joke cred)
I survived "I Survived a Japanese Game Show"
My below-the-belt prank tutorial

Renowned British chocolatier Gerard Coleman of L'Artisan du Chocolat made this gorgeous metallic chocolate shoe for a department store show in Tokyo. I wanna wear it! And then eat it!

Image by AP Link

ETech is an awesome annual conference held by O'Reilly Media. This year, it's in San Jose, the theme is Living, Reinvented: The technology of Abundance and Constraints, and speakers include Mary Lou Jepsen of One Laptop per Child, Nick Bilton of the NY Times, Alex Steffen of Worldchanging.org, and me. Yep. I'm going to be giving a talk titled Japanese Tech Culture: Demystifying "Weird" Japanese Toys and Tools.The details of my talk are still a big mystery, even to me, but it will come together, I think, by the time March rolls around. Any suggestions on what I should talk about? Email me. I'm all ears.

Exciting, right?
Here's the full schedule for ETech 2009.

TokyoMango readers get a special 10% off discount on already discounted early registration rates until next Monday. Just put promo code et09toma in the box for promo codes when you register.

Did you see the inauguration?? So awesome. Here are a couple of additions to all the Obamamania paraphernalia out there. One says "Yo! President! Yes you did!" and the other says "Obama and Ozawa are the new leaders"—Ichiro Ozawa, of course, being the leader of Japan's own Democratic Party.

Product page (Japanese) (Thanks, George!)

Who said dogs aren't as special as kids? Researchers at Tokyo's Azabu University found out that humans generate high oxytocin levels after playing with dogs. Oxytocin is a "bonding" hormone associated with romantic love, friendship, and childcare; it does wonderful things like lower stress levels, fight depression, and breed trust. People always tell me that loving a dog is nothing like loving your own child; I have yet to find out if this is true to me, but I know for a fact that my oxytocin levels are healthily high because of Ruby and Malcolm (above).

Link (Thanks, Ann!)

It's amazing how creatively people can reenact Mario Land. This skit won second place in a costume performance contest. (Thanks, Ann!)

Pop quiz: what do the Japanese do when they're super excited about something? They make toys! Ogawa Studios, a toymaker in Saitama Prefecture, is making Obama face masks for avid fans of the president-to-be-circa-tomorrow. They've already sold over 2,500 masks, and are making about 300 a day to meet the demand. Each is meticulously handmade using plaster mold and paint. Before Obamamania, the company was making prime ministerial masks. Koizumi was a big hit; Aso, not so much.

Link

This might be the geekiest competition in the world, but damn those calculating hands are fast! The 12th quick calculator calculation contest welcomed 263 participants young and old, male and female. Not sure what the merits of winning such a competition are. Guaranteed job as a cashier? Number-cruncher for life?

via Japan Probe

Screw the microwave. This radiation-free USB-powered lunchbox warmer from Thanko will keep your meal at a constant 60 degrees Celsius until you're ready to eat it.

Product page (Japanese)

A 54-year old Tokyo father was caught taking a pharmaceutical licensing exam while pretending to be his son. He put glasses on and straightened his hair, but he wasn't fooling nobody—the exam administrators quickly realized that he was too old to be the guy on the ID card and called the cops.

The guy confessed—apparently, he himself had this license already, ran a company that distributes meds, and wanted his son to be eligible to work alongside him. I guess he didn't have the balls to tell him that, though, because the son claimed he knew nothing about this plan.

I love the audacity of people who think they can get away with stuff like this.

Link (Thanks, Jess!)

Instant noodle maker Nissin is having a promotional campaign in which they're giving away a free Cup Noodle vending machine. It's small enough to fit on a counter top, and includes a hot water thermos and storage for up to four Cup Noodle bowls with a dispenser. It even has an automatic timer that'll beep when three minutes is up and your food is ready to eat.

If you want a shot at winning this, there's a button on the bottom left corner of the campaign main page that tells you how to download a sweepstakes postcard.

via dannychoo.com

Ever feel like The Game of Life was too cookie-cutter for your much more morbid lifestyle? Toymaker Takara Tomy is coming out with a new "super spicy" version of The Game of Life, which includes stops like shotgun weddings, gambling sprees, and the sudden and unexplained disappearance of family members. The economy sucks, people are stressed, things never go as planned. By the time you're done playing a round, you might be thankful for what you have. The game is based on a Japanese idiom called 人生は波瀾万丈 (jinsei wa haran banjo)—life's a roller coaster ride. It comes out in April, and will retail for about $40.

via Impress Watch

Once a month, my friend and superstar journalist Charlie Jane Anders hosts a spoken word variety show called Writers With Drinks at a bar called The Makeout Room in the Mission district of San Francisco. She invited me to read last weekend, so I did. I read excerpts from my profile of the Dalai Lama's brother, and I also read the Wired.com article about the Tokyo pick-up school for geeks. I might post my audio clips here later, but for now, I wanted to share the lovely introduction that Charlie Jane wrote before she brought me on stage. Enjoy!

When it comes to daily planning, I'm totally analog. I've tried tinkering with iCal, but I don't like it. It doesn't make sense to me. What makes sense to me is writing what I have to do each day in boxes designated for those days, and to write To Do Lists on blank sheets, ideally interspersed between the day boxes so you can plan week by week.

For the last couple of years, I've been using these very simple, good-looking, practical planners from MUJI. I bought a white B5 sized one this year. But what do you know—my awesome little brother in Tokyo bought me the same thing as part of my birthday present! Anyhow, now I have two, so I'm going to be giving one away here.

Contest rules are simple: Send an email to: tokyomango[at]gmail[dot]com with the subject line "MUJI calendar contest" before Obama's inauguration next Tuesday. Include your name, address, and one great Japan story link you found in the news over MLK weekend. I'll post my favorite story on Tuesday and send my tipster the calendar that day, too, so you can start using it ASAP. Sorry, US only.

UPDATE: Since you guys are such amazing tipsters (and should tip me more often!), I may post more than one link from you guys on the blog. Ultimately, I'll pick my favorite one on Tuesday and send the planner to that person. If I used your tip but you didn't win, I'll still send you something anyway.

This charming, dysfunctional robot won Maywa Denki's Baca Robo contest in 2007, and it's probably because he reminds us of ourselves in more than one way—it looks like it's in excruciating pain as it does push-ups, and after a while, it literally falls ot pieces.

The Baca Robo contest is an annual competition in which fun-loving geeks make robots that don't serve any utilitarian function except to amuse, amaze, and entertain. The push-up robot's sensibility is very Japanese, I think—it's funny because his sole function as a robot is to do push-ups, yet he gets tired and falls to pieces if he does too many.

via Pink Tentacle

Cycling in San Francisco is kinda scary. In Tokyo, you can ride your bike on the streets, on the sideways, in your pajamas with groceries hanging from both arms, with no helmet, nobody cares. Here in SF, it's like this big scene—you have to have nice gear, shoes that click into the foot pedals, helmets, biking shorts, biking shirts, a water bottle that clicks into the frame...it's SERIOUS. To make it a little less serious, you could get this Super Mario 1UP bike helmet cover. That way, if you get run over by 10 cars while speeding down a crazy SF hill, you can just hit yourself in the head and get another life. In theory.

Link via Boing Boing

Maybe it's the giant moon making us all crazy, but there's a plethora of violent crime in the Japanese newspapers today. A professor at Chuo University was found stabbed to death this morning in a campus bathroom. A disgruntled Tochigi truck driver shot his ex-girlfriend and her dad on Monday as they were getting out of their car, injuring both. He was arrested for illegal possession of a handgun and attempted murder. On the stranger front, a 34-year old man who blamed his low self esteem on visible burn marks on his legs admitted to slicing up a 23-year old abductee and boiling her bones before flushing them down the toilet. He claims he wanted to make her a sex slave; he was pretty sure nobody would ever sleep with him because of his outward appearance, so he kidnapped her and tried to rape her, but failed—so he killed her instead. The police think the murder part was not premeditated. Like I said, he just wanted a sex slave.

TV Asahi, one of Japan's major television news networks, was caught red-handed making fake online sources for one of a quiz show. Th quiz show was about superstitions—the anchor brought up clues from the Internet based on fake blogs that the TV Asahi crew made up and then cited as proof of whatever they were proving. Of course, they got caught, and now they're bowing deeply for what brings many many shame points to a media organization that once had Rupert Murdoch pining for its ownership. Actually, TV Asahi has one other faking scandal in its past—nearly two decades ago, it was caught using actors to portray crime victims in a news video. For shame, TV Asahi. This is definitely not how one should take advantage of the Internet revolution.

via Asiajin

Lonely? Why not rent some love! Pet rental companies are a growing business in Japan, but if you don't care much for a furry friend, you could choose to rent humans instead. A BBC article shines a light on the wide array of rental businesses in Japan, and brings up the topic of family leasing services. For a fee, you can hire anyone from rentable husbands to mother figures that would sooth your worries:

The website says the "dad" will help the children with their homework. He will sort out problems with the neighbors. He will take the kids to a barbeque or to a park. He could also appear at the daunting interview with a nursery school head teacher which parents are required to endure in order to persuade the principal to give their child a good start in life.

Link (Thanks, V.S.!)
(By Emily Co)

Jenga meets animated LOLcats in this funny and likely-to-be-addictive iPhone app called Mew Mew Tower. The object of the game is simple: you have to stack an array of kitties on top of each other on-screen without letting them fall. As the cats come down one by one, you have to use the tilt function to keep them balanced; a counter tells you how high your tower is and how many cats have come down. The kitties are all hand-drawn by Japanese cat freaks and interestingly, creator B3 United's latest research shows that this game is most popular among men in their 30s. This probably has more to do with the demographic of iPhone users in Japan, but hey, this kind of cuteness can be appreciated by anyone.

Related story: Patient doggy balances 300 cookies on his body
TeruMemo, an iPhone app that makes taking notes fun

Several months ago, I blogged about the Tosa dog, a breed kept almost exclusively for fighting. A man had been mauled to death by his own dog. Another Tosa-related incident occurred yesterday, this one included a dramatic cop attack. A 3-year old male Tosa escaped from his 58-year old construction worker owner's house, jumped into a police car, and tried to attack a 25-year old cop. Another cop pulled the dog out of the car, at which point the dog went at a 39-year old farmer. Eventually, the cops shot the dog to death. All the humans were safe. The cops had actually been called to the scene by a neighbor who reported the dog's escape. Maybe they knew he was exclusively owned for dog fighting.

Have you ever seen Amores Perros? It's a really famous movie about love and dog fighting. I had trouble watching it, but Gael Garcia Bernal was almost hot enough to diffuse the violence.

Link

Related story: Man mauled to death by his own dog

On the car yesterday, I was listening to a great radio show by Soundprint, about a Japanese-American woman who got stuck in Japan during World War 2—her ship was headed home to America when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, so it turned back, and she ended up staying in Japan, getting married there, and finally—finally!—being able to go back to America years later. It was a great show that blended real commentary by the woman, now-elderly Mary Kimoto Tomita—with a younger voice reading her the letters she wrote to her best friend, Miye, from Japan circal 1939-1946. The letters are showcased in a book called Dear Miye: Letters Home From Japan 1939-1946 (Asian America); but if you're interested, I highly recommend you listen to the radio show, which you can get here.

What an adorable picture. This highly talented sea lion at a Yokohama sea life park is giving a calligraphy demonstration to an awestruck crowd. He's drawing the kanji for "ox."

Link Image by Kyodo Photo

I'm so sad to hear that Ryosuke Yoshioka, the wonderful owner of a Japanese restaurant in downtown San Francisco called Sushi Man, was murdered in cold blood on Wednesday while on his way to buy paper at OfficeMax.

Sushi Man was my friend. He was everyone's friend. I ate at his restaurant a few times, and was planning to go back many more times. He always remembered me, and he made kick-ass sushi, and at night his restaurant would turn into an intimate izakaya-style party. Apparently, it was a freak accident that he was the one killed—the killer, a 45-year old San Francisco man named Peter Fong, could have killed anyone. An Anglican minister and his grandson caught Fong shortly after. Apparently, he was speaking in tongues and said: "Boom! Ha-ha. You're dead!" to the minister when they ran into each other near the elevator.

My deepest condolences to his family and to everyone who ate here.

Link

53-year old Takuo Shigehisa made headlines today when he discovered how to turn Indonesian brown coal into a viable source of electricity by using "tempura technology." He discovered the technique back in 1993 when he was trying to reduce water content from brown coal; when he deep-fried it in kerosene (in his kitchen at home, much to the dismay of his wife and kids), the coal turned crispy and reusable. He brought the idea to Kobe Steel, and the company then built a pilot project in Indonesia. Today, a real coal plant is being built in Satui, a village in southern Indonesia, founded on the principles of Shigehisa's love for tempura.

Link

Last night, I went to a MacWorld side event in which about a dozen iPhone app developers from Japan showed us their stuff. There were a few that I thought were pretty cool, so I'm going to introduce them here over the course of the next week or so.

TeruMemo is a cute and useful alternative to the boring yellow notepad app. These eight little guys each serve as a separate notepad—click on one, type in your notes, and then re-click on him later to recall that note as a speech bubble. Super cute! The white guy, FYI, is not a ghost but a teru teru bozu—kinda like a nice version of a voodoo doll, made of tissue paper, that you hang outside your house when you want it to stop raining. It's made by a company called Royal Gadget, and you can get it at the App store for less than $2.

Random side note: The event happened to be held at Six Apart HQ, home of Typepad, the blog app I use for TokyoMango. And I ended up harassing this poor guy that works there about how my blog crashes on Firefox. He was lovely about it, and has fixed the commenting bug and is working on the crashing thing. So thanks to everyone who sent me emails notifying me of the bug—it should be fixed soon!

This Saturday, I'm going to be reading from my book and/or some of my recent magazine articles at Writers With Drinks, an event hosted by my friend Charlie Jane Anders. Come by if you want!

Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009:

Ann Packer (The Dive From Clausen's Pier, Songs Without Words)
Yosefa Raz (ZYZZYVA, Glimmer Train)
Lan Tran (How To Unravel Your Family)
Lisa Katayama (Urazawa)
Scott Sigler (Contagious)
Steven Schwartz (69, Best Bisexual Erotica 2)

All proceeds benefit the Center for Sex and Culture.
At The Make-Out Room 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco CA, from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open at 7 PM.

More event info

IEEE Spectrum has a fun and informative chart showing the world's robot population by country. Robots are fast on their way to taking over the human race—there are about a million roaming the streets now, and many millions more in the making. Just a decade or two ago, they were practically non-existent. Think about it...

(Thanks, Mike!)

A great, simple trailer for a movie aptly named High Kick Girl. I wish I was like her in high school.

via Jean Snow

Great news for meat lovers—researchers in Osaka successfully cloned the progenitor ox of the delicious Hidagyu beef. The cloned ox, Yasufuku-go, died in 1993, but he was considered "the father of Hidagyu"—think of it as taking the cream of the crop of a fine specimen of human, say, Jake Gyllenhaal, and replicating him using technology. As a result, there are currently three Yasufuku clones alive and ready to be slaughtered for someone's delicious dinner.

And yes, Yasufuku's descendants were all seriously delicious. He is known to have been the source of more than 30% of all Japanese black cattle. This is like Kobe beef, but softer.

Link

You know the economy's shot when Japan's department giants Isetan and Mitsukoshi are closing it's doors to the public once a week. Department stores generally run seven days a week in Japan, but with sales down ten percent in the earlier half of December 2008 as compared to the same period in 2007, the Isetan Mitsukoshi Holding Ltd.decided to run their stores only six days out of the week. They are also going to shorten hours of operation, and kick some of their staff to the curb. They calculated that this drastic move will save them two billion yen a year.This is scary because Japan's a consumer nation. They even have this credit-pay system in department stores where customers can buy pricey items and make payments every month until everything is paid off. This system also applies to luxury brands such as Chanel and the like. According to some estimates, Japanese consumers buy up 40% of the luxury goods sold throughout the world. Who knew the day would come where branded labels worry about gyarus, OLs, and other Japanese fashionistas forgoing their products. Hell seriously has frozen over. (by Emily Co)

Update (via Jean Snow): It isn’t once a week, but rather once a month, and is restricted to regional stores.

Link

I just learned that TokyoMango is up for a 2008 Weblog Award. The Weblog Awards = the Oscars of the blogging industry. Except you, not a panel of old geezers, gets to vote for the winners. Oh yeah, and you get to vote once a day until the deadline of January 13th.

As of right now, TokyoMango—up for the Best Asian Blog title—has only has 32 votes. (Voting was open from December 1, but even I didn't know about the nomination until now. Yikes.) But if you, me, and every other TokyoMango reader voted for TokyoMango every day, that means we could probably win. And if we win, I'll throw a big party!

So...VOTE HERE. And then vote again at the same time tomorrow, and again the day after... Let's see if we can at least finish with a bronze.

Just a quick post showing you what the traditional Japanese osechi breakfast can look like. It's pretty freaking beautiful. It's mostly for show and symbolism, though—I enjoy eating this thoroughly, but I don't wait for it all year like I do turkey and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving.

Japanese snacks give a whole new meaning to the English language. Carl is just an ordinary name in America, but in Japan, it connotes the most delicious cheese snack ever (better than Cheetos or Cheez-its, by far). Apollo is not a spaceship, but a delicious nipple-shaped strawberry chocolate. Black is not a color, but a flavor (chocolate again).

The snacks in this photo are actually not real; their jigsaw puzzles packaged and shaped like their edible counterparts. They remind me of the Jenga game made of gum wrappers.

The now-defunct PingMag has a great interview with a 97-year old guy from Yokohama who pioneered what we now call botanical art. His name is Chikabo Kumada; he was on track to become a graphic designer when, at age 26, he decided he'd rather work on children's books. "I love children," he says. "That’s why I started doing it. That was where my years of impoverishment began."

via Boing Boing

Super cute Nintendo DS purse

Most of the things I buy at Best Buy are really bad. Like the DVI-to-MiniDVI adapter that the guy in the laptop aisle pointed me to—it didn't work on my new MacBook. Or the DLO IntelliTune iPod dock for my car. I almost crashed twice listening to Obama reading me Dreams from My Father (yes, he voices his own Audiobook. Awesome!) because other radio frequencies kept butting in. I returned both. But there is one good thing I bought at Best Buy, and that was this super cute Nintendo DS carrying purse. I love it. It fits all my cartridges, the charger, some lipstick, a credit card, keys, cell phone, and my DS, of course. And it was only $10.

Man-bras a big hit; and the girl who married a dog

The hottest new item for sale on Rakuten? Man-bras. The company featured in this video perfected the best-selling man-bra, and found a surprising customer base among the ordinarily quiet cross-dresser community. I think it's great, even though the reporter looks a little silly.

Also, this has nothing to do with Japan, but a little girl in India married a cute dog because her village believed it would rid their family of evil spirits. Video after the jump.

Sega Toys' clock counts down to your final moment

This is a great/horrible clock depending on how you look at it. The Countdown Clock, made by Sega Toys, caters to the freelance writer/designer/whateverer and tells time in relation to an ominous deadline. Instead of setting a conventional alarm, you set a deadline (date and time), and the clock starts ticking toward the dreadful end. Kinda reminds me of Kevin Kelly's life countdown ticker that counts down to the day he predicts he will die. Except you can buy the Sega Toys version for $10 on Amazon Japan.

via Impress Watch (Japanese)

Canon offers employees time off to make babies

Remember the survey conducted last year that showed that the Japanese have the least amount of sex in the world? Well, the government decided that 12-hour work days have a lot to do with it—so much, in fact, that companies like Canon are encouraging employees to go home early to procreate. Canon made it company-wide policy for its workers to go home early twice a week to make babies at the encouragement of Keidanren, a corporate group including 1300 companies. The birthrate in Japan is 1.34, way lower than what's needed to sustain population numbers:

The 5:30 p.m. lights-out program is one simple step toward helping address the population problem. It also has an added benefit: Amid the global economic downturn the company can slash overtime across the board twice a week.

Link (Thanks, Jess!)

Pharmacy in Aomori sells happy drugs

Boing Boing's guest blogger Charles Platt took this great photo of a pharmacy in Aomori. It sells happy drugs! And by that I don't think they mean that their aisles are lined with weed like at Dave Chappelle's workplace in Half Baked. Platt writes:

It seems to me, the name Happy Drug is quite accurate, because that's the whole point of drugs, whether they are pain relievers, blood thinners, or laxatives. Their ultimate purpose is to make our lives less miserable and, therefore, happier. The interesting question is why we in the west find this so difficult to acknowledge.

Link

Rural town gets help from manga artists to sustain local economy

The town of Ugo in Akita prefecture is wintry, snowy, and hungry for tourists. That's why local retailers solicited help from manga artists in marketing local produce to youngsters and foreigners—by putting images of cute cartoon character girls on packages of rice, one man transformed his dwindling business into an enormous otaku trend. His bags of high-quality Akitakomachi with the naime girl cover costs nearly $30 each, but the entire batch sold out on the day it was released. Prior to packaging it this way, the company was selling only 18 tons of rice a year—with the new marketing plan, he's selling 32 tons a MONTH. Amazing!

via Japan Probe

Showa era automated diorama takes you back to Ginza in the 50s

Now that Japan is turning into this robot-controlled, anime-obsessed, superflat place, a lot of people are nostalgic for the good old days. We honor that nostalgia via quirky high-tech dioramas of the Showa era, like the Showa era living room with a working TV that I wrote about in 2006, and this brand new speaker system that has a diorama of 1955 Ginza on top of it. It's a Ginza that not only replicates the past perfectly, but lights up with LED lights, emits sound effects, and well, if you play some Japanese 50s music, you'll take yourself right back to the post-war. Pretty neat. The latter is actually a product you can buy, albeit for $2000, come April 10th.

Press release (Japanese) via Gizmodo

River flooding could cause Tokyo subway system apocalypse

A recent study conducted by the government's disaster management council found that a flooding of the Arakawa River could cause an apocalypse of the meticulously interwoven Tokyo subway system. Every 200 years or so, it rains over 550 millimeters a year; if this ever happens again, the heavily dammed river could flood, causing 97 subway stations in the city to be destroyed. It would start with just a few stations, but then the subway tunnels would function as pipes and bring the water damage from one station to the next, destroying close to 100 within days. Needless to say, government officials are now hard at work trying to figure out how to make sure this doesn't happen.

Link (Thanks, Vagrant!)

World's smallest robot makes Gundam noises

The smallest bidpedal robot in the world is Takara Tomy's Robo-Q. Its magnetic feet move according to an infrared remote control, and it has sensors that recognize obstacles in its way. Its entire body is smaller than a human thumb, but tiny internal speakers make stamping noises as mighty as Gundam's. It comes in two different models—retro and future—which is super cute because I was starting to think I would never have the option of owning an old school retro bot, but now I know I can.

It goes on sale 2/28.

Takara Tomy via Impress Watch (Japanese)

Cruise through Tokyo Bay on a floating alien ship

This alien ship is actually a schmancy "floating bar" in Odaiba that takes you around Tokyo Bay while you sip fancy cocktails that cost $7/each. The cruise itself costs $25. Might be a fun thing to do if you're looking for something different on a night out in Tokyo, especially since the Rainbow Bridge is super pretty at night.

Link (via News on Japan)

70s advertisements predict a cashless future with alien women

Look at this amazing credit card ad from the 70s. It features an alien woman holding the planet in one hand and a JCB card in the other. The tag line on the right reads: "Cash disappeared from earth?" And on the left, it claims that by the year 2xxx, all humans own a JCB card. Interestingly, while we are in year 2xxx now, Japan is still very much a cash culture.

via Pink Tentacle

Impress Watch article about my desktop

Impress Watch, a Japanese tech journalism site that I frequently link back to in my gadget coverage, is publishing a weekly series about people's desktops. This week's desktop is mine! The title of my piece, roughly translated, is: "A desktop that is much cleaner than my scattered brain looking for story ideas." (記事ネタ探し中の頭の中よりも遥かにすっきりしたデスクトップ)

Read it.

Obama action figure lounging in a kotatsu

I love this Barack Obama action figure—not just because I love the new president, which I do, but because here he is lounging Japanese winter-style in a kotatsu. A kotatsu, in case you have the misfortune of never having sat in one, is an amazing table-heated blanket hybrid piece of furniture that, until recently, was the centerpiece of almost every Japanese living room. We used to have one when I was a kid. Sometimes there's even a hole in the floor that you can dangle your legs in. Here, Obama is hanging out with his legs in the kotatsu, and he's about to eat a mikan (tangerine) and play Super Famicom.

Link (Thanks, David!)

Panel at Japan Society on underground music and youth, Feb 26

On February 26, I'll be moderating a panel at the Japan Society of Northern California on music and Japanese youth culture. The featured speakers are Jennifer Milioto Matsue and Marvin D. Sterling, both anthropologists and authors of books about the underground music scene in Japan. So very interesting! I am not an expert on the subject, but am honored to be sharing the stage with those who are. Come watch!

More info and registration here

Watch Japanese comedy show Gaki on Hulu

Woohoo! I mean, Hulu! Japanese TV is coming to the US. NTV (Nippon Television) is partnering with Hulu to bring cool Japanese game shows, the real kind, not the fake kind, to the US. Check out episodes of Gaki, in which comedy team Downtown do things like get stuck in a gym for 24 hours, or compete in Golf Club Assault Battle, Chili Bean Paste Smearing Battle, and Mini Champagne Ass Catch Battle. You can also watch the entire Nasubi series from Denpa Shonen, a classic. It's great for getting your daily dose of Japanese humor, if you're one of those people that needs that. No more digging around YouTube for something worth watching.

Related posts:
Nasubi, the naked guy who lived on freebies for a year
Ken Shimura's Thriller parody (and tips on upping your Japanese joke cred)
I survived "I Survived a Japanese Game Show"
My below-the-belt prank tutorial

High-fashion shoe made of chocolate

Renowned British chocolatier Gerard Coleman of L'Artisan du Chocolat made this gorgeous metallic chocolate shoe for a department store show in Tokyo. I wanna wear it! And then eat it!

Image by AP Link

ETech 2009: What will I talk about? Sign up and find out

ETech is an awesome annual conference held by O'Reilly Media. This year, it's in San Jose, the theme is Living, Reinvented: The technology of Abundance and Constraints, and speakers include Mary Lou Jepsen of One Laptop per Child, Nick Bilton of the NY Times, Alex Steffen of Worldchanging.org, and me. Yep. I'm going to be giving a talk titled Japanese Tech Culture: Demystifying "Weird" Japanese Toys and Tools.The details of my talk are still a big mystery, even to me, but it will come together, I think, by the time March rolls around. Any suggestions on what I should talk about? Email me. I'm all ears.

Exciting, right?
Here's the full schedule for ETech 2009.

TokyoMango readers get a special 10% off discount on already discounted early registration rates until next Monday. Just put promo code et09toma in the box for promo codes when you register.

Japanese Obama t-shirts

Did you see the inauguration?? So awesome. Here are a couple of additions to all the Obamamania paraphernalia out there. One says "Yo! President! Yes you did!" and the other says "Obama and Ozawa are the new leaders"—Ichiro Ozawa, of course, being the leader of Japan's own Democratic Party.

Product page (Japanese) (Thanks, George!)

Dog ownership is just as therapeutic as child rearing

Who said dogs aren't as special as kids? Researchers at Tokyo's Azabu University found out that humans generate high oxytocin levels after playing with dogs. Oxytocin is a "bonding" hormone associated with romantic love, friendship, and childcare; it does wonderful things like lower stress levels, fight depression, and breed trust. People always tell me that loving a dog is nothing like loving your own child; I have yet to find out if this is true to me, but I know for a fact that my oxytocin levels are healthily high because of Ruby and Malcolm (above).

Link (Thanks, Ann!)

Marioland reenacted on stage

It's amazing how creatively people can reenact Mario Land. This skit won second place in a costume performance contest. (Thanks, Ann!)

Handmade Obama masks celebrate inauguration

Pop quiz: what do the Japanese do when they're super excited about something? They make toys! Ogawa Studios, a toymaker in Saitama Prefecture, is making Obama face masks for avid fans of the president-to-be-circa-tomorrow. They've already sold over 2,500 masks, and are making about 300 a day to meet the demand. Each is meticulously handmade using plaster mold and paint. Before Obamamania, the company was making prime ministerial masks. Koizumi was a big hit; Aso, not so much.

Link

Calculator contest to see who can calculate the fastest

This might be the geekiest competition in the world, but damn those calculating hands are fast! The 12th quick calculator calculation contest welcomed 263 participants young and old, male and female. Not sure what the merits of winning such a competition are. Guaranteed job as a cashier? Number-cruncher for life?

via Japan Probe

USB Lunchbox keeps your meal piping hot

Screw the microwave. This radiation-free USB-powered lunchbox warmer from Thanko will keep your meal at a constant 60 degrees Celsius until you're ready to eat it.

Product page (Japanese)

Man takes drug exam while pretending to be his son

A 54-year old Tokyo father was caught taking a pharmaceutical licensing exam while pretending to be his son. He put glasses on and straightened his hair, but he wasn't fooling nobody—the exam administrators quickly realized that he was too old to be the guy on the ID card and called the cops.

The guy confessed—apparently, he himself had this license already, ran a company that distributes meds, and wanted his son to be eligible to work alongside him. I guess he didn't have the balls to tell him that, though, because the son claimed he knew nothing about this plan.

I love the audacity of people who think they can get away with stuff like this.

Link (Thanks, Jess!)

Nissin offers introverts compact cup noodle vending machines

Instant noodle maker Nissin is having a promotional campaign in which they're giving away a free Cup Noodle vending machine. It's small enough to fit on a counter top, and includes a hot water thermos and storage for up to four Cup Noodle bowls with a dispenser. It even has an automatic timer that'll beep when three minutes is up and your food is ready to eat.

If you want a shot at winning this, there's a button on the bottom left corner of the campaign main page that tells you how to download a sweepstakes postcard.

via dannychoo.com

New version of Game of Life caters to the hellish economy

Ever feel like The Game of Life was too cookie-cutter for your much more morbid lifestyle? Toymaker Takara Tomy is coming out with a new "super spicy" version of The Game of Life, which includes stops like shotgun weddings, gambling sprees, and the sudden and unexplained disappearance of family members. The economy sucks, people are stressed, things never go as planned. By the time you're done playing a round, you might be thankful for what you have. The game is based on a Japanese idiom called 人生は波瀾万丈 (jinsei wa haran banjo)—life's a roller coaster ride. It comes out in April, and will retail for about $40.

via Impress Watch

Little giant robots and talking toothbrushes at WWD

Once a month, my friend and superstar journalist Charlie Jane Anders hosts a spoken word variety show called Writers With Drinks at a bar called The Makeout Room in the Mission district of San Francisco. She invited me to read last weekend, so I did. I read excerpts from my profile of the Dalai Lama's brother, and I also read the Wired.com article about the Tokyo pick-up school for geeks. I might post my audio clips here later, but for now, I wanted to share the lovely introduction that Charlie Jane wrote before she brought me on stage. Enjoy!

Contest: Win a beautiful 2009 MUJI planner

When it comes to daily planning, I'm totally analog. I've tried tinkering with iCal, but I don't like it. It doesn't make sense to me. What makes sense to me is writing what I have to do each day in boxes designated for those days, and to write To Do Lists on blank sheets, ideally interspersed between the day boxes so you can plan week by week.

For the last couple of years, I've been using these very simple, good-looking, practical planners from MUJI. I bought a white B5 sized one this year. But what do you know—my awesome little brother in Tokyo bought me the same thing as part of my birthday present! Anyhow, now I have two, so I'm going to be giving one away here.

Contest rules are simple: Send an email to: tokyomango[at]gmail[dot]com with the subject line "MUJI calendar contest" before Obama's inauguration next Tuesday. Include your name, address, and one great Japan story link you found in the news over MLK weekend. I'll post my favorite story on Tuesday and send my tipster the calendar that day, too, so you can start using it ASAP. Sorry, US only.

UPDATE: Since you guys are such amazing tipsters (and should tip me more often!), I may post more than one link from you guys on the blog. Ultimately, I'll pick my favorite one on Tuesday and send the planner to that person. If I used your tip but you didn't win, I'll still send you something anyway.

The out-of-shape push-up robot

This charming, dysfunctional robot won Maywa Denki's Baca Robo contest in 2007, and it's probably because he reminds us of ourselves in more than one way—it looks like it's in excruciating pain as it does push-ups, and after a while, it literally falls ot pieces.

The Baca Robo contest is an annual competition in which fun-loving geeks make robots that don't serve any utilitarian function except to amuse, amaze, and entertain. The push-up robot's sensibility is very Japanese, I think—it's funny because his sole function as a robot is to do push-ups, yet he gets tired and falls to pieces if he does too many.

via Pink Tentacle

1UP helmet for bikers needing extra luck

Cycling in San Francisco is kinda scary. In Tokyo, you can ride your bike on the streets, on the sideways, in your pajamas with groceries hanging from both arms, with no helmet, nobody cares. Here in SF, it's like this big scene—you have to have nice gear, shoes that click into the foot pedals, helmets, biking shorts, biking shirts, a water bottle that clicks into the frame...it's SERIOUS. To make it a little less serious, you could get this Super Mario 1UP bike helmet cover. That way, if you get run over by 10 cars while speeding down a crazy SF hill, you can just hit yourself in the head and get another life. In theory.

Link via Boing Boing

Stabbings, shootings, and chopped up sex slaves

Maybe it's the giant moon making us all crazy, but there's a plethora of violent crime in the Japanese newspapers today. A professor at Chuo University was found stabbed to death this morning in a campus bathroom. A disgruntled Tochigi truck driver shot his ex-girlfriend and her dad on Monday as they were getting out of their car, injuring both. He was arrested for illegal possession of a handgun and attempted murder. On the stranger front, a 34-year old man who blamed his low self esteem on visible burn marks on his legs admitted to slicing up a 23-year old abductee and boiling her bones before flushing them down the toilet. He claims he wanted to make her a sex slave; he was pretty sure nobody would ever sleep with him because of his outward appearance, so he kidnapped her and tried to rape her, but failed—so he killed her instead. The police think the murder part was not premeditated. Like I said, he just wanted a sex slave.

TV Asahi caught making up fake blogs for source material

TV Asahi, one of Japan's major television news networks, was caught red-handed making fake online sources for one of a quiz show. Th quiz show was about superstitions—the anchor brought up clues from the Internet based on fake blogs that the TV Asahi crew made up and then cited as proof of whatever they were proving. Of course, they got caught, and now they're bowing deeply for what brings many many shame points to a media organization that once had Rupert Murdoch pining for its ownership. Actually, TV Asahi has one other faking scandal in its past—nearly two decades ago, it was caught using actors to portray crime victims in a news video. For shame, TV Asahi. This is definitely not how one should take advantage of the Internet revolution.

via Asiajin

Companies rent husbands and mothers by the hour

Lonely? Why not rent some love! Pet rental companies are a growing business in Japan, but if you don't care much for a furry friend, you could choose to rent humans instead. A BBC article shines a light on the wide array of rental businesses in Japan, and brings up the topic of family leasing services. For a fee, you can hire anyone from rentable husbands to mother figures that would sooth your worries:

The website says the "dad" will help the children with their homework. He will sort out problems with the neighbors. He will take the kids to a barbeque or to a park. He could also appear at the daunting interview with a nursery school head teacher which parents are required to endure in order to persuade the principal to give their child a good start in life.

Link (Thanks, V.S.!)
(By Emily Co)

Mew Mew Tower, an iPhone app for cat stackers

Jenga meets animated LOLcats in this funny and likely-to-be-addictive iPhone app called Mew Mew Tower. The object of the game is simple: you have to stack an array of kitties on top of each other on-screen without letting them fall. As the cats come down one by one, you have to use the tilt function to keep them balanced; a counter tells you how high your tower is and how many cats have come down. The kitties are all hand-drawn by Japanese cat freaks and interestingly, creator B3 United's latest research shows that this game is most popular among men in their 30s. This probably has more to do with the demographic of iPhone users in Japan, but hey, this kind of cuteness can be appreciated by anyone.

Related story: Patient doggy balances 300 cookies on his body
TeruMemo, an iPhone app that makes taking notes fun

Dog attacks cop, farmer before being gunned down

Several months ago, I blogged about the Tosa dog, a breed kept almost exclusively for fighting. A man had been mauled to death by his own dog. Another Tosa-related incident occurred yesterday, this one included a dramatic cop attack. A 3-year old male Tosa escaped from his 58-year old construction worker owner's house, jumped into a police car, and tried to attack a 25-year old cop. Another cop pulled the dog out of the car, at which point the dog went at a 39-year old farmer. Eventually, the cops shot the dog to death. All the humans were safe. The cops had actually been called to the scene by a neighbor who reported the dog's escape. Maybe they knew he was exclusively owned for dog fighting.

Have you ever seen Amores Perros? It's a really famous movie about love and dog fighting. I had trouble watching it, but Gael Garcia Bernal was almost hot enough to diffuse the violence.

Link

Related story: Man mauled to death by his own dog

Dear Miye: radio show about a Nisei woman during WW2

On the car yesterday, I was listening to a great radio show by Soundprint, about a Japanese-American woman who got stuck in Japan during World War 2—her ship was headed home to America when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, so it turned back, and she ended up staying in Japan, getting married there, and finally—finally!—being able to go back to America years later. It was a great show that blended real commentary by the woman, now-elderly Mary Kimoto Tomita—with a younger voice reading her the letters she wrote to her best friend, Miye, from Japan circal 1939-1946. The letters are showcased in a book called Dear Miye: Letters Home From Japan 1939-1946 (Asian America); but if you're interested, I highly recommend you listen to the radio show, which you can get here.

Sea lion is a calligraphy master

What an adorable picture. This highly talented sea lion at a Yokohama sea life park is giving a calligraphy demonstration to an awestruck crowd. He's drawing the kanji for "ox."

Link Image by Kyodo Photo

RIP Ryosuke Yoshioka, owner of Sushi Man

I'm so sad to hear that Ryosuke Yoshioka, the wonderful owner of a Japanese restaurant in downtown San Francisco called Sushi Man, was murdered in cold blood on Wednesday while on his way to buy paper at OfficeMax.

Sushi Man was my friend. He was everyone's friend. I ate at his restaurant a few times, and was planning to go back many more times. He always remembered me, and he made kick-ass sushi, and at night his restaurant would turn into an intimate izakaya-style party. Apparently, it was a freak accident that he was the one killed—the killer, a 45-year old San Francisco man named Peter Fong, could have killed anyone. An Anglican minister and his grandson caught Fong shortly after. Apparently, he was speaking in tongues and said: "Boom! Ha-ha. You're dead!" to the minister when they ran into each other near the elevator.

My deepest condolences to his family and to everyone who ate here.

Link

Man generates electricity from low-grade coal using principles of tempura

53-year old Takuo Shigehisa made headlines today when he discovered how to turn Indonesian brown coal into a viable source of electricity by using "tempura technology." He discovered the technique back in 1993 when he was trying to reduce water content from brown coal; when he deep-fried it in kerosene (in his kitchen at home, much to the dismay of his wife and kids), the coal turned crispy and reusable. He brought the idea to Kobe Steel, and the company then built a pilot project in Indonesia. Today, a real coal plant is being built in Satui, a village in southern Indonesia, founded on the principles of Shigehisa's love for tempura.

Link

TeruMemo, an iPhone app that makes taking notes fun (and a note about TokyoMango crashing in Firefox)

Last night, I went to a MacWorld side event in which about a dozen iPhone app developers from Japan showed us their stuff. There were a few that I thought were pretty cool, so I'm going to introduce them here over the course of the next week or so.

TeruMemo is a cute and useful alternative to the boring yellow notepad app. These eight little guys each serve as a separate notepad—click on one, type in your notes, and then re-click on him later to recall that note as a speech bubble. Super cute! The white guy, FYI, is not a ghost but a teru teru bozu—kinda like a nice version of a voodoo doll, made of tissue paper, that you hang outside your house when you want it to stop raining. It's made by a company called Royal Gadget, and you can get it at the App store for less than $2.

Random side note: The event happened to be held at Six Apart HQ, home of Typepad, the blog app I use for TokyoMango. And I ended up harassing this poor guy that works there about how my blog crashes on Firefox. He was lovely about it, and has fixed the commenting bug and is working on the crashing thing. So thanks to everyone who sent me emails notifying me of the bug—it should be fixed soon!

I'm reading at Writers With Drinks on Saturday

This Saturday, I'm going to be reading from my book and/or some of my recent magazine articles at Writers With Drinks, an event hosted by my friend Charlie Jane Anders. Come by if you want!

Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009:

Ann Packer (The Dive From Clausen's Pier, Songs Without Words)
Yosefa Raz (ZYZZYVA, Glimmer Train)
Lan Tran (How To Unravel Your Family)
Lisa Katayama (Urazawa)
Scott Sigler (Contagious)
Steven Schwartz (69, Best Bisexual Erotica 2)

All proceeds benefit the Center for Sex and Culture.
At The Make-Out Room 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco CA, from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open at 7 PM.

More event info

Chart shows world robot takeover

IEEE Spectrum has a fun and informative chart showing the world's robot population by country. Robots are fast on their way to taking over the human race—there are about a million roaming the streets now, and many millions more in the making. Just a decade or two ago, they were practically non-existent. Think about it...

(Thanks, Mike!)

Movie trailer features schoolgirl who can kick you in the face

A great, simple trailer for a movie aptly named High Kick Girl. I wish I was like her in high school.

via Jean Snow

Delicious Japanese beef cloned for delicious future steak

Great news for meat lovers—researchers in Osaka successfully cloned the progenitor ox of the delicious Hidagyu beef. The cloned ox, Yasufuku-go, died in 1993, but he was considered "the father of Hidagyu"—think of it as taking the cream of the crop of a fine specimen of human, say, Jake Gyllenhaal, and replicating him using technology. As a result, there are currently three Yasufuku clones alive and ready to be slaughtered for someone's delicious dinner.

And yes, Yasufuku's descendants were all seriously delicious. He is known to have been the source of more than 30% of all Japanese black cattle. This is like Kobe beef, but softer.

Link

Reduced department store hours are a sign of a flagging Japanese economy

You know the economy's shot when Japan's department giants Isetan and Mitsukoshi are closing it's doors to the public once a week. Department stores generally run seven days a week in Japan, but with sales down ten percent in the earlier half of December 2008 as compared to the same period in 2007, the Isetan Mitsukoshi Holding Ltd.decided to run their stores only six days out of the week. They are also going to shorten hours of operation, and kick some of their staff to the curb. They calculated that this drastic move will save them two billion yen a year.This is scary because Japan's a consumer nation. They even have this credit-pay system in department stores where customers can buy pricey items and make payments every month until everything is paid off. This system also applies to luxury brands such as Chanel and the like. According to some estimates, Japanese consumers buy up 40% of the luxury goods sold throughout the world. Who knew the day would come where branded labels worry about gyarus, OLs, and other Japanese fashionistas forgoing their products. Hell seriously has frozen over. (by Emily Co)

Update (via Jean Snow): It isn’t once a week, but rather once a month, and is restricted to regional stores.

Link

Vote for TokyoMango in the 2008 Weblog Awards

I just learned that TokyoMango is up for a 2008 Weblog Award. The Weblog Awards = the Oscars of the blogging industry. Except you, not a panel of old geezers, gets to vote for the winners. Oh yeah, and you get to vote once a day until the deadline of January 13th.

As of right now, TokyoMango—up for the Best Asian Blog title—has only has 32 votes. (Voting was open from December 1, but even I didn't know about the nomination until now. Yikes.) But if you, me, and every other TokyoMango reader voted for TokyoMango every day, that means we could probably win. And if we win, I'll throw a big party!

So...VOTE HERE. And then vote again at the same time tomorrow, and again the day after... Let's see if we can at least finish with a bronze.

What New Years "osechi" breakfast looks like

Just a quick post showing you what the traditional Japanese osechi breakfast can look like. It's pretty freaking beautiful. It's mostly for show and symbolism, though—I enjoy eating this thoroughly, but I don't wait for it all year like I do turkey and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving.

Jigsaw puzzles shaped like Japanese snacks

Japanese snacks give a whole new meaning to the English language. Carl is just an ordinary name in America, but in Japan, it connotes the most delicious cheese snack ever (better than Cheetos or Cheez-its, by far). Apollo is not a spaceship, but a delicious nipple-shaped strawberry chocolate. Black is not a color, but a flavor (chocolate again).

The snacks in this photo are actually not real; their jigsaw puzzles packaged and shaped like their edible counterparts. They remind me of the Jenga game made of gum wrappers.

Chikabo Kumada, pioneer of botanical art

The now-defunct PingMag has a great interview with a 97-year old guy from Yokohama who pioneered what we now call botanical art. His name is Chikabo Kumada; he was on track to become a graphic designer when, at age 26, he decided he'd rather work on children's books. "I love children," he says. "That’s why I started doing it. That was where my years of impoverishment began."

via Boing Boing