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!

RuPaul's new music vid has NND-syle mash-up porn (NSFW, maybe)

In his new music video for the song Jealous of my Boogie, famed drag queen RuPaul takes inspiration from the otaku community's obsession with American porn star Billy Herrington. The video sharing site Nico Nico Douga has tons of mash-ups of Herrington's old porn flicks; RuPaul tapped into this and made his own. I'm sure it will be huge in Japan.

By the way, someone just told me that RuPaul's new America's-Next-Top-Model-for-drag-queens reality show is really good. The first season just ended, so I'm going to splurge on reruns.

Robo-Q, the smallest walking bipedal robots in the world

Takara Tomy released the Robo-Q, which they claim is the smallest walking bipedal robot in the world, in February. They're just 3.4 cm tall, and they're super cute. Also, from the promotional videos and pics it looks like they're geared towards couples and kids, not hard core robokit fans. He can do things like walk around your desktop without crashing into things, or play soccer with his mini-robot friends. Do any of you remember playing with the tiny toy cars called Choro-Q? My brother used to collect them. Anyway, this is the sister brand of that.

Cell phone strap replicates sensation of opening a can of beer

The latest in Bandai Gadget's "do it forever" series is the top of a coke or beer can. Basically, researchers spent hours and hours perfecting the sensation of cracking open a can, and then made it into a cell phone strap. It goes on sale in June for about $8.

Pop-the-edamame cell phone strap
Bubble wrap mania

Robot signals beginning of future-themed weekend in Roppongi

Tonight in Roppongi happened already, but if you happened to have been there you would have seen the debut of this 7-meter tall aluminum fire-breathing robot called Giant Torayan. It's actually the creation of artist Kenji Yanobe, and it's part of an awesome art project that will transform the entire neighborhood into an alien robot-themed wonderland. (Image by AP)

Aiiku hospital no longer offers perinatal care

I just found out that the hospital I was born at, Tokyo's Aiiku Hospital, just delisted itself from the official registry of perinatal clinics because they don't have enough doctors. Sad! The hospital, whose name Aiiku is a combination of the kanji for "love" and "grow," is the first of what could be many to delist because it couldn't solve the problem of understaffed, overworked doctors. (If you're listed, it apparently means you have special equipment for dealing with complicated pregnancies.) The hospital was founded in 1938; it's where Princess Kiko gave birth to her baby prince in 2006.

Link

Gourmet ramen joint has $100 emperor bowl

Fujimaki Gekijo is the fanciest ramen joint in Tokyo. In fact, with it's basic 3000 yen bowl ($30!) I feel like I should really be calling it a ramen restaurant. 40-year old owner Shoichi Fujimaki opened up shop last May when he realized that people were willing to pay a premium for things like rare ingredients and quality service. He had a normal-priced shop before, but he closed it, rented a fancy 2-story space in Kami Meguro, and laid down red carpets and put art on the walls. I have never been here, nor do I know if I'm willing to pay 3000 yen for ramen that he admits is no different ingredients-wise than something a third of the price. But hey, if you're in the mood to splurge, you should go there and try the Emperor Ramen, it's 10,000 yen and you need to reserve it three days in advance. The web site says that this restaurant will be members only from 2010, so now's your chance.

Fujimaki Gekijo via the Japan Times (Thanks, Mary!)

Shokotan in a hazmat suit for Norton ad

Check out this awesome Norton Symantec anti-virus ad featuring otaku celebrity Shokotan in a Hazmat suit. Pret-ty cute!

via Pink Tentacle

Japan beats S. Korea in world baseball classic

Just watched the World Baseball Classic finals on TV. Japan won for the second time in a row, yay! They beat the US in the semis last night, and tonight they had a 10-inning game vs South Korea. If you missed it and didn't TiVo, you can check out the play-by-play on ESPN.

Japanese baseball is so strategic and team-oriented. For more on that, read my post on the Giants vs Tigers. Image by AP

Japanese Teen Who Pilots Giant Robot Fails Driving Test

by Grant Goodman
March 19, 2009

A week after discovering a buried giant robot and piloting it to fight off hideous monsters, Sawara Tomonobu failed the test for his driver's license when he was unable to parallel park his 1999 Honda Civic at the Semboku city Department of Transportation.

His father, Subaru Tomonobu, expressed extreme disappointment and frustration with his son's performance: "The boy jumped into the robot, hit a bunch of random switches, pulled on some levers, and flawlessly dispatched of a great threat to human existence. And now he tells me a steering wheel and two pedals are too complex to operate?"

The day before the test, Tomonobu-san successfully fought off three demons from the Earth's core, saving the entire world from being devoured by the imprisoned sons of ancient gods. According to sources on the scene, Sawara struck them all down with a single, arcing spin-kick, struck a cool pose, and stood still as all three demons exploded. Property damage has yet to be determined by the Japanese government.

Tomonobu plans on re-taking the test in two weeks, unless, he adds, "The ancient prophecy comes true and I must venture beneath the surface to fight the Volcano God. But, really, when did prophecies ever come true?"

(Grant was the winner of my Make T-shirt contest; This is a work of fiction.)

The Make t-shirt contest: we have a winner!

Hey guys! Thanks so much for your awesomely entertaining entries to my I'll Make You a Make T-shirt Contest. It was a tough call, but the winner is Grant Goodman for the headline (and article) Japanese Teen Who Pilots Giant Robot Fails Driving Test.

His post will follow this one. Grant, please email me your address and some other info about yourself so I can make you a custom t-shirt.

By the way, if you didn't win but you still want a Make t-shirt, you can buy one here.

Come see my slideshow at Ignite SF next Wednesday

If you missed my talk on Japanese tech and toys at ETech because it was in San Jose (or because it was like $1500 to attend the conference) come check out the 5-minute, 20-slide version at Ignite SF, the kick-off event for the Web 2.0 Expo next Wednesday, April 1st, at 8:30-ish PM. Especially if you're my friend, you have to come, because I've never given a talk in front of 700 people so I need moral support. It's at the Mezzanine, which is a big nightclub. (Last time I went there was to see a band. I think it was CSS.) Also, I will be joined by several other super cool, good-looking tech-y men and women on stage.

Ignite SF at the Mezzanine + event page on FB

Michel Gondry's Tôkyô! was awesome

I was lucky to see Tôkyô!, Michel Gondry's newest film, last week at SFIAAFF. It's a triptych, a series of three vignettes that take place in my hometown, each part made by a reputed director--Gondry, French tortured-love expert Leos Carax, and Korea's Joon-ho Bong. I posted the preview several months ago, and it's finally coming out in theaters in the US this spring. A quick no-spoiler synopsis:

Gondry's film, titled Interior Design, is about a couple who moves to Tokyo. The lead actress, Ayako Kamitani, is the hapa daughter of Steven Seagal. She's pretty awesome in it, as is her co-star, Ryo Kase. They're trying to find an apartment and a job and their car gets towed and it's just a lovely, lovely story. Kooky, Gondry fun. I could watch it over and over.

Shower cap for men makes hair grow back

This funny-looking shower cap is actually a new hair regrowth tool. It's made of soft composite rubber, and has a giant hole at the top. When you shower, you're supposed to put the cap on and pour warm water into that hole--it's designed to capture the steam in such a way that it opens and cleans out scapt pores and allows repressed hair to come out again. It costs about $90.

Product page via Impress Watch (Japanese)

Terunobu Fujimori's super-tall, super-tiny kooky designer tea house

What a beautiful tea house by architect Terunobu Fujimori. He built it for his own use in Nagano Prefecture. A traditional tea house is supposed to be self-constructed and extremely tiny; Fujimori saw this as an interesting challenge, and created this super-tall, super-small (he can't sit up straight inside the tea room) building, which he dubbed Takasugi-an (takasugi literally means too tall). Fun! More pics here.

Photos by Edmund Sumner via Dezeen

Desperate job-hunting woman arrested for 2ch bomb threat against NTT

A 22-year old slightly crazy woman was arrested for posting a message on 2channel that threatened to blow up an office building belonging to Nippon Telephone and Telgraph's staffing agency if she wasn't hired for a job. Satomi Hachisu had gone there on February 12 to interview and take a test for a part-time position. Later that night, she started a thread on 2ch that read:

"If Satomi Hachi(dot), who came for an interview today isn't hired, then the NTT Solco building will be blown up."

Hachiya has been unemployed for over a year now; she was getting desperate, I guess. Of course, NTT was able to track down where the listing was posted from—hello, lady, this is NTT, the telephone company! She was promptly locked up, and of course, not hired.

Link

Joel Robuchon restaurant in Ebisu

I took this pic of the Joel Robuchon restaurant in Ebisu on my way home from somewhere, I don't remember where, in February. Even schmancy places like this are feeling the pain of the recession, according to a friend in the restaurant industry in Japan, as people are choosing to eat at home instead of splurging on several hundred dollar dinners. The tall building looming behind it is the Westin.

Japan Society NY's Krazy! exhibit on anime, manga, and video games

The Japan Society in New York is having what appears to be a pretty awesome exhibit on manga, anime, and video game culture called Krazy! It just started last Friday and goes through June, so if you're in NY you should definitely check it out.

Cradle automatically rocks baby to sleep

Check out this awesome automated baby cradle. It costs over $4K, but for new parents who are tired of getting up every few hours to rock their baby back to sleep, it could be worth it. The Suima does the rocking for you based on an embedded sound sensor that detects crying noises. It's programmed to start with a quick-paced rocking, then slowly settles into the pace of the mom's heartbeat; and eventually, it rocks slower and slower to a more sleep-inducing pace. If all goes according to plan, the baby should be asleep again within 15 minutes.

You can also rent one for about $100/month, which is smart, because babies grow out of stuff really fast.

Product page via Impress Watch (Japanese)

Iowa senator urgest AIG execs to commit suicide Japanese-style

Charles Grassley is a Republican Iowa senator, and he's angry. Angry at AIG execs for paying themselves $165 million in bonuses even after the federal bailout; something even Prez Obama opposes. Instead of trying to paraphrase, let me just quote him:

...the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology.

Hmmm. Okay. Later, the guy's spokesperson explained that Grassley didn't actually want the AIG peeps to commit suicide; he simply wanted them to take responsibility. But he still maintained that the Japanese have a tendency to commit suicide.

There's a major distinction that Grassley should be aware of here—Japanese execs who fuck up kill themselves when they feel that their shame is too heavy for them to carry on living; in the AIG case, clearly the execs are acting completely shameless even after all the screwing up they did.

Link

Movie about Jack Soo, the first Japanese-American comedian

Yesterday at SFIAAFF, I saw a documentary about Jack Soo, a comedian/singer who was famous in the 60s and 70s. Jack Soo is actually Goro Suzuki, a second-generation Japanese-American who grew up in an internment camp and changed his name to sound Chinese to avoid being sent back to camp after he wiggled his way out. He did stand-up in San Francisco and Chicago, and was in a bunch of TV shows. It was really good—I didn't know anything about the guy before, but I learned that:

- He was the first Asian American actor who refused to play stereotypical, derogatory roles. He also spoke English with no accent. Opened doors for lots of other Asian actors.
- He married an Eastern European model and has three kids, and a granddaughter who lives in San Francisco.
- He was an awesome singer. One of his co-stars of Valentine's Day equated his skillz to Frank Sinatra. In fact, he was recording some super famous songs but ultimately they gave the gigs to people like Stevie Wonder, possibly because that was more marketable.
- He died at the height of his career of cancer.

In the Q&A following the screening, director Jeff Adachi noted that there was very little information about Soo out there--but he managed to find a good number of old friends and family and put together an insightful tribute to the guy.

You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story

TokyoMango's "I'll make you a Make t-shirt" contest

One of the highlights of last week's ETech—besides giving a presentation—was hanging out with the Make Magazine folks while making t-shirts on their portable t-shirt press. I made one with three super-cute characters designed by Mark Frauenfelder that reminded me of me, Ruby, and Malcolm taking a morning walk. It must have been obvious how much I loved it because Mark kindly gave me a bunch of templates that I could iron onto t-shirts myself. Anyway! I decided I'm gonna share the love with a TokyoMango "I'll Make You a Make T-Shirt" contest.

Here are the contest rules:
Make up a fake headline for a TokyoMango story. If you want, you can write the article too. See The Onion for inspiration. Get creative, but not derogatory, please--I'll post the winning entry here after the contest is over. Email: mango [at] tokyomango [dot] com with subject line: Make t-shirt contest. Deadline is Monday, March 23, a week from today.

The winner will get a Make t-shirt custom-made by yours truly! You can see some more designs at the Maker Shed apparel store to get an idea of what the t-shirt might look like. But be warned—the final design will be at my discretion.

Basketball coach forces teenagers to behead two pigeons

Weird news of the day: a middle school basketball coach was fired after it became clear that he forced two kids to behead a pair of pigeons that were getting in the way of practice in December. The dead pigeons were found floating in a pond on campus; when questioned, the coach admitted that it was his doing. He must be a really scary coach. The kids are still traumatized and the pigeons are still headless.

Link

Video: The manner mode pen, and why Japan makes seemingly useless gadgets

I had a virtual guest speaker at my ETech session on Japanese tech and toys. Consultant Morinosuke Kawaguchi joined us via this video, in which he explains why Japan makes seemingly useless gadgets like the "manner mode" pen. It's very insightful!

Related story: The Shibuya cell phone video

Tokyo Sonata, a great, depressing film about Japanese family life

I just came back from a screening of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's new movie, Tokyo Sonata. It's a two-hour drama about a middle-class Japanese family of four. Their stories unravel after the father loses his job and doesn't tell anyone. Kurosawa is most famous as a horror film director (Pulse, Cure) but he said when introducing Tokyo Sonata at the SFIAAFF screening today that this look at some harsh realities of Japanese family life might just be scarier. I have to agree with him. The awkwardness between husband and wife, mother and son; the inability to speak out against an unreasonable, abusive father; the shame that prevents family members from telling each other the truth; these things ARE really frightening. And Kurosawa uses horror film-like cuts and lighting in several scenes that make it feel even scarier. It works. The movie is great, and will be showing in SF area theaters starting later this month. It's also showing tomorrow night @ 6PM at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive.

Toilet makes you want to do a super ski jump

What could possibly feel better than dropping a giant turd while preparing to do a virtual ski jump? Not much, I'd imagine. Japanese coffee company Georgia painted public toilets at several ski resorts to mimic a ski jumper's perspective, wrapping the walls in illustrations of mountains and drawing skis where the feet go, and a giant slope on the front wall. Apparently, the toilet paper holder says:

“Seriously kick-ass intensely sweet for the real coffee super zinging unstoppable Max! Taste-explosion!”

I wish my toilet looked like that. I'd sit on it all day.

Coloribus via Boing Boing

Restaurant features sushi that looks like Obama

President Obama has officially become a sushi menu item. Apparently, you can get this at a Japanese restaurant in Washington, DC called Perry's.

Tokyo Sushi Academy via AltJapan

SF film festival starts today—Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Michel Gondry, etc.

The SF Int'l Asian American Film Festival starts today, and that means we in the Bay area get a full week and a half of awesome Japanese and other Asian movies at the lovely Kabuki theater. This year they're having an entire Kiyoshi Kurosawa weekend—in case you don't know him, he's the man behind some of the first and most famous J-Horror movies. They're also showing Tokyo! by Michel Gondry et al, which I'm super excited about.

Tonight's the opening night party. I'm actually lounging on the couch with my dogs, watching the box set of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. But starting this weekend, I will get off my ass, hit the theaters, and update you guys on what I saw.

27th SF Int'l Asian American Film Fest home page

Mario cookies to commemorate MAR10 day

Some highly talented Boing Boing reader with impeccable taste made these awesome Mario World cookies on March 10th–because MAR10 is Mario Day, she says. How did I miss Mario day?? Crazy.

Tessie's Facebook via Boing Boing

Leather cell phone strap boasts sexy curves

I think the way this cell phone charm is advertised as having "beautiful curving lines" on Strap-ya is very Japanese. The product is just a simple leather strap, but the creators carefully shaped and solidified it to resemble sexy woman curves. I guess that's not so unusual, since if you look at lounge chairs and cars and other products they're often made kinda like this too, but the thought of some cell phone strap maker sitting there wondering how to make it look curvy entertains me.

Colonel Sanders found in Osaka River, will break 24-year old baseball curse

In 1985, a group of excited Hanshin Tigers baseball fans stole a Colonel Sanders statue from a Kentucky Fried Chicken and threw it in Osaka's Dotonbori River. Sanders was wearing star hitter Randy Bass' uniform at the time, and the fans did it to celebrate the Tigers' championship. Bad move. The Tigers haven't won a title since, causing frustrated fans to call this the Curse of the Colonel Sanders.

The awesome news is that, earlier this week, Colonel Sanders miraculously appeared near the riverbank. He was missing his arms and legs, but investigators found those nearby, too, and put him back together again. Randy Bass, who has since returned to the US and is now a Democratic senator from Oklahoma, says:

"Now that they’ve found the Colonel, the curse is over and it’s time to put your money on the Tigers."

(Thanks, Hans!)

Who stole my 5-second stopwatch?

The talk at ETech went well. We had a full audience, and I didn't notice too many people checking their email while Fumi and I did our thing. The talk title was Demystifying "Weird" Japanese Toys and Tools, but a lot of people said they left even more mystified than before. Oh well! The one sucky thing was that some unruly audience member stole my 5-second stopwatch after I passed it around for the audience to play with. So I will make this plea just once on my blog: If you're the person who stole it—and yes, we think we know what you look like because you were sitting behind my friend playing with it obsessively before it went silent—please give it back!

Now-defunct bilingual design-y magazine about strange foods

Garth write in to tell us about a fun bilingual magazine that no longer exists. Lucky for us, some of the articles are online:

Eat Creative is this design house in Tokyo that started out publishing a magazine called Eat. This magazine was similar to Benetton's Colors magazine in that each article was in two languages and each issue had a theme. In the case of Eat, it was Japanese/English and the themes were always food related. They stopped publishing this magazine several years ago when they realized the could be more successful just doing design work for other companies.

I remember there was a two page spread on interesting Japanese gourmet ice cream
flavors; lettuce, sperm whale, etc. There was also an interesting/slightly-disturbing article on people that drink their own pee.

Eat main page

RC Mario Kart with banana and turtle shell accessories

Mario Kart come true in 3D! From Takara Tomy.

via Boing Boing Gadgets

Sneak peek: Shibuya cell phone video at ETech today

I'm down in San Jose today giving a presentation on Japanese gadgets and technology at ETech. For those of you who can't make it, here's a video clip that I'll be showing. My co-speaker Fumi and I interviewed these teenagers to find out how they use their cell phones.

Related posts:
Japanese culture at ETech
Boys' Shibuya fashion makes debut at ETech

Abductee's son prepares to meet North Korean spy

When Koichiro Iizuka was 21, his uncle told him the truth about his mother—that she was abducted by North Korean spies when he was one year old. Now 32, Iizuka is going to have the interesting opportunity to meet anex-North Korean spy, Kim Hyun-Hee, in South Korea tomorrow. The mother, Yaeko Taguchi, was abducted in Tokyo when she was 22, then taken to North Korea where she was forced to teach spies Japanese. Kim was one of her students. She was later arrested for bombing Korean Air Flight 858m from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok and killing over 100 people who were on board.

Iizuka and his uncle, Taguchi's brother, are hoping to find out a little bit about what she was like. "(I want) to hear about her manners, her habits, and catch a glimpse of my mother," he told the Mainichi.

Link

Video: Otagei = a new dance form for Akiba geeks only

Otagei is a unique dance form that originated in the backstreets of Akihabara. It literally means "otaku tricks," and entails a series of strange moves, or tricks, that geeks do to send energy to anime singers and maid idols on stage. I had the unique opportunity to see otagei up close while reporting a story about maid cafes for Afar, and learned some of the moves myself. You can, too. Just follow the steps of the guys in the video. We'll be touching on the topic at ETech, too. A much more close-up look at the art form after the jump.

Agejo, the new hostess bar-inspired gal trend

If you've ever walked through the streets of Kabukicho, or walked past a sticker picture booth in Shibuya, for that matter, you know what a hostess club worker looks like. Long and voluptuous wavy hair, light skin, big doe eyes, fake lashes, silky loungey dresses. It's actually now being linked to a new street trend called the agejo—-the modern day version of a kogyal, you could say. A fairly new magazine called Koakuma Ageha leads this trend, with a circulation of nearly half a million per month. The photo shows models from the magazine posing in what are dubbed "agejo dresses." It would make a great Halloween costume! (Thanks, Mary!)

Mimi Switch promises wireless face-controlled gadget operability in 2-3 years

Fumbling with the tiny controls of an iPod is so archaic. The Mimi Switch is a new IR sensor headphone that lets you control music with facial expressions. Created by an Osaka University researcher, it's basically a hands-free universal remote that can operate everything from a music player to household appliances. Of course, the thing still needs work--it's not wireless yet, and its controls are limited. But pretty soon, your morning will be like this: Wink for coffee, wide-eyed for laundry, squint for tunes. You still have to fold your own shirts though.

Link

Widget displays time held up by a hot Japanese girl

Bijin Tokei is this awesome new widget by Tokyo-based Phiria Design. It's a simple clock, really, except that every minute the time is displayed on an analog blackboard held up by a hot Japanese girl (or in this case, two hot Japanese girls). It's super entertaining, even if you don't have a Japanese girl fetish.

Get it here for Vista or iGoogle, or check it out online.

via Asiajin

13-year old boy becomes the youngest weather forecaster in Japan

A 13-year old Yokohama boy just became the youngest weatherman in the country. Kazuya Yamazaki wanted to become a weather forecaster since the 5th grade, when he read about it in a reference book. So he studied to take the semiannual forecaster exam, a difficult test that has a pass rate of 6%, and passed it on his fourth try. His mom claims he was a science geek since kindergarten. He told the Mainichi:

"I'm also interested in chemistry, and I want to do jobs like making medicines and discovering new materials."

What a cute kid!

Video: Jesse rapping at Club Asia

One of the few non-work-related thing I did in Tokyo this past trip was go see some of my kohai from high school perform at a night club in Shibuya. They're actually pretty famous—the guy in this video is Jesse, he was the lead singer in a band called Rize and now has a bunch of outfits that he raps with, including
GICode, which has a new album coming out mid-month. My good friend Colin is their sound engineer, so he made me a CD and got us backstage. That's where I took this video from.

Jesse, my friend Lara, and I always took the train to school together. I had no idea then that he had so much passion for music. After the concert, I was like, hey! You became so good! And he was like, Right? This is all I've been doing since high school! That, and he got a ton of tattoos.

Washi bracelet and other Japan-inspired jewelry

If you're looking for something to do in SF on Saturday night, you could go to 111 Minna and check out their local designers show. My friend Christine will be selling her washi cuff bracelets and earrings, as well as other cool Japanese nature-inspired things like earrings that look like moth wings or silver-and-gold necklaces that flap their wings. If you can't make it or aren't in SF, you can also buy some of her stuff on Etsy.

Related posts:
Pretty silver jewelry featuring cool moving parts
My favorite buy of the week: lotus root jewelry

Aso and Obama's cheesy happy handshake photo

Taro Aso's a lucky guy. He isn't all that smart, and he barely reads Japanese, but he got to be the first foreign dignitary to meet Barack Obama since he became president. Why do they always take this cheesy happy handshake photo? Click through for a cheesy handshake photo of Taro Aso with Hillary Clinton.

High school girl forced to wear maid costume by teacher

An 51-year old male teacher in Akita Prefecture was caught forcing one of his students to dress up in a maid costume. The student was blackmailed into it; he told her that she wouldn't get class credits if she didn't do it. He claims it was a joke; the school tried to keep it on the down-low by simply suspending the teacher, but the girl's family called the cops on Tuesday. The costumes were props for an art club project that he was administering; the girl refused to wear the maid costume because her parents were against it. That's interesting, that her parents were against it. Perhaps they have a negative perception of maid cafes and cosplay. I wonder if that's common?

BTW, this pic is of my caramel macchiato at a maid cafe. It has a kitty drawn on it with caramel. Soooo much better than Starbucks.

Link

Related stories:
I became a maid cafe maid for 30 minutes
The 10 commandments of a maid cafe

Brian's virgin maid cafe experience

Royce strawberry chocolate is yummy

My friend gave me this awesome box of raw chocolates from Japan. It's apparently a pretty famous chocolatier based in Hokkaido, called Royce. The special edition flavor of the season is strawberry. I think I ate half the box while watching America's Next Top Model season premiere tonight. I must say, the Japanese might be more famous for fresh fish and Kobe beef, but they make some pretty good chocolate too. I think the trick is that it's not too sweet or heavy—I usually can't even finish one piece of Godiva or Ghirardelli's.

Related stories:
Infusion technology used to make strawberries that taste like chocolate
Garlic chocolate for stinky V-day lovers
High fashion shoe made of chocolate
Beautiful designer chocolate pencil kit

Demystifying "Weird" Japanese Tech and Toys at ETech, next week

Hi guys! I'm going to be giving a 45-minute presentation at ETech, O'Reilly's flagship tech conference, next Wednesday @ 2:55PM. It's at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. The topic is "Japanese tech culture: Demystifying "weird" Japanese toys and tools" and I still haven't figured out exactly what I'm gonna say, but I've recruited my friend and colleague Fumi Yamazaki to co-present with me. She showed me her slides today, and they are awesome.

My speaker bio
Fumi's speaker bio

Seating reserved for Ruby's guests

Today is my dog Ruby's birthday, and to celebrate, I went to Ruby's Diner in Vegas Airport and got her a special Ruby napkin and took photos of their Ruby's guests only sign. That's right, only Ruby's guests are allowed at Ruby's birthday party. Continue reading to see a pic of her with her #1 favorite guest!

Felt iPod speakers shaped like kokeshi

Check out these super-cute armless, legless iPod speakers made of felt. They kinda look like kokeshi, or maybe more like those stacking dolls.

Link (Thanks, Chris!)

Bandai's human relations calculator analyzes your relationships

Wondering why your love life isn't going so well? It's all in the numbers, according to this new toy by Bandai, called the Human Relations Calculator. By combining the techniques of numerology with the interface of a desktop calculator, this toy gives you everything from personality analysis to relationship advice to forecasts of your future.

Kazuhiko Hachiya, creator of the first flying anime plane, in Make

The profile I wrote about Kazuhiko Hachiya, a very well-known idea man and maker in Japan, is in Volume 17 of Make Magazine. You can read it here.

I will be writing about cool Japanese makers like Hachiya in each of the upcoming issues of Make Mag (except then next one, which is a special issue) so keep an eye out!