TOKYOMANGO

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)