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!

Asashoryu gets in trouble for putting arms in air after victory

Sumo star Asashoryu got in trouble yesterday for expressing his happiness in winning a match by raising both arms up in victory. His stablemaster had to later apologize to the Sumo Association head for the lewd act. Asashoryu, who is originally from Mongolia and has been the subject of several behavioral controversies in the strict sumo world, later explained that he got too excited and forgot that he wasn't supposed to do that.

Personally, I feel like this isn't such a big deal. The art and sport of sumo has had some trouble maintaining its pure image as of late, and perhaps loosening some of its less important rules, like how victors rejoice, will give it some breathing space and help it survive.

Link (Japanese) (Thanks, Yushi!)

Dancing cosplay duo in SF Japantown

At Japantown a couple of weeks ago, this pair was dancing to barely audible anime music in front of the Peace Pagoda.

Honda's U3-X is the Segway of the future

Honda unveiled the U3-X, a Segway-like amusement vehicle that moves to one direction or another based on a lean. This one, though, has you in a seated position and is more like a unicycle.

via DannyChoo.com

New maid cafe lets you custom-dress girls and get slapped in the face

A new concept cafe opens in Akihabara on October 4th. It's called Cute Room, and it promises clients a 2.7-dimensional fantasy world — basically, something in between 2D and 3D, but getting closer and closer to 3D. From what I can tell from the web site, the difference between this and other maid cafes is that you can customize the fantasy by choosing a room to hang out in, a costume for the girl to wear, and the types of activities you want to do with them. Aside from the $1 a minute entrance fee, there's a long menu of paid services you can get — video game, a hand massage, a slap in the face, a love letter, a gift exchange. 30 lucky customers will get a sneak preview on Oct 3.

[Cute Room main page (Japanese) via DigiMaga] (Thanks, Hitoshi!)

Reader photo: Boy reading a book at a shopping mall in Hokkaido

TokyoMango reader Sam Koh writes:

Last year I spent 3 months in Sapporo, and here's a picture that I took while I was wondering through the shopping centres one night.

Its the picture of a child reading a book while his mother goes shopping.

I love it, especially that it's in black and white!

Video: Two guys fly Cup Noodle into rivers and out of windows

My friend Steven sent me this Cup Noodle video that uses the same camera tech as the Ray-Ban and MSI laptop ads on American TV. In it, two guys throw a cup of noodle across crazy distances without spilling any of it. It's directed by Daisuke Izumi. Fun to watch!

Crayon Shin-chan author dead from a cliff fall

The body of Yoshito Usui, the author of the hugely popular comedic manga and anime called Crayon Shin-chan, was found dead at the bottom of a cliff in Gunma Prefecture on Saturday. It appeared to have been an accident — his backpack full of hiking gear was found about 50 yards away, and it was near a hiking trail with no rails. His camera, found with his belongings, had a photo that looked like it was taken right by the cliff. He was 51. According to his wife, he left the house on the morning of September 11th and never returned.

Crayon Shin-chan was a hit among all age groups; he's an adorable little goofy boy whose dialogue and obsession with pretty girls are reminiscent of a dirty old man. It started as a manga in 1990 and became an anime in 1992. I didn't know this, but Usui had still bee creating new segments every month. Here's a short clip from an episode in which Shin-chan's dad loses his keys.

Rest in peace, Mr. Usui.

Link

Reader photo: Fall foliage at Miyajima Park

TokyoMango reader Miss Birdie says:

This is a photo I took in Miyajima Koen. It makes me want to return to Japan again every year.

Video of Friday's bus terminal bear attack

People taking a break at a bus terminal not too far from Tokyo were stunned on Friday by a sudden bear attack that left 4 people seriously injured. The black bear was preparing for hibernation and out looking for food. He was shot dead after he ran into the terminal building. Here's a low-res video of him taken by a tourist of the bear mauling one of his victims.

White on Rice, a funny movie about an annoying uncle, is in theaters now

This morning in San Francisco, I interviewed Dave Boyle, the director of a new-ish movie called White on Rice. With him was actor Hiroshi Watanabe; he plays the part of Jimmy, a super-immature 40-year old who moves in with his sister's family in Utah after getting a divorce in Japan. We mostly talked about how a Mormon missionary ended up making movies about Japanese culture. The interview will air on NPR sometime soon; in the meantime, you should go check out White on Rice at the movie theater. If you're in SF, it's playing at the Metreon now.

I thought the same when I saw Boyle's first film, Big Dreams Little Tokyo, but Boyle always does an excellent job of depicting aspects of Japanese culture without being offensive or compromising his sense of humor.

Btw, this is a pic I took of Boyle, Watanabe, and Ruby.

White on Rice main page
My review of Big Dreams Little Tokyo

Sparky the Robot on Studio360

My interview with San Francisco artist/roboticist Marque Cornblatt airs on PRI's Studio 360 this weekend. You can listen to the segment here and check out the slideshow at Studio 360's web site. Cornblatt and I actually took his RC robot to the Museum of Modern Art completely unannounced to see if we could get in — it was a prank of sorts, and we had no idea what would happen. Lucky us, we not only got into the galleries, but we scored three free tickets!

The post office's apology letter and stamp book

Some of you may remember the story I told back in February about how my passport got lost in the mail in Tokyo and I missed my flight back to San Francisco. Afterward, my dad and I filed a claim with the post office. Missing my flight had cost me about $500 and a lot of stress, and since the whole reason I couldn't get on the flight was because the postal employees couldn't find my package (which was sitting right on their shelf the whole time), could they reimburse me? We kind of knew the answer would be no, but figured it couldn't hurt to try — at the very least, we would make things a little bit better for future customers by making sure this doesn't happen again to anyone else.

In response to our claim phone call, the post office sent us the above letter a couple of weeks later. We wrote them back refuting many of their reasons and telling them that more than anything we were disappointed in their services and had lost faith in a system that we had once trusted. A few weeks after that, two postal service employees showed up at my dad's office. One was the branch manager, the other was just some dude. They had come to apologize and, while they couldn't offer monetary compensation for our losses, they brought us a nicely bound book of collectors' item stamps. When my dad called to tell me that, I just laughed. As with most adverse situations, I had gone through the pain of it once, let it soak in, and then moved on. No point continuing the fight. The book of stamps was a peace offering, and we accepted.

I Love Me, a film about famous OCD artist Yayoi Kusama

I just came back from watching a documentary about celebrated avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama. I have always been fascinated with this woman — she's 80 years old, but ever since she was a teenager she has been unapologetically paranoid and OCD and has driven all her obsessions into her artwork, which largely consists of dots and lines and eyeballs. The documentary follows her through the process of making a series of 50 giant black-and-white permanent marker drawings for a traveling exhibition; the film starts off a bit slow with some pretty shoddy footage but improves later as it dives into some interesting detail about a childhood full of manipulation and depression, and her middle years as an active, radical member of the NY art community. There's a lot of great footage of her actually drawing, which is fascinating to watch, and it becomes evident through her frequent self-praise that she's really into herself. I wouldn't call her egocentric, exactly. It's almost as if she isn't able to see outside of herself and her obsessions; it's not a choice, it's a condition she lives with, and copes with through her art, which is indeed brilliant and original.

Related stories:
Amazing handsets designed by Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama, avant-garde genius
Yayoi Deki is the new Yayoi Kusama

Frozen corn cream croquettes

I was so happy to find these in the corner of my freezer the other day, when I had no time or patience to figure out lunch plans. I had a bowl of leftover rice in the fridge, so I ate it with that. Delicious and much better than frozen-almost-anything-else.

Summary of Joi and Lisa's session about Japanese obsessions at Foo Camp

On Saturday, August 29th, Joi Ito and I gave an impromptu talk at O'Reilly's Foo Camp about Japanese otaku culture and how it relates to hacking and Zen Buddhism. The talk wasn't recorded so we don't have an exact transcript, but here's the gist of it:

We started by showing several photos that portray otaku obsessions—rows of figurines on a store shelf, cat cafes, itasha, body pillow covers, a man with his body pillow girlfriend, and a maid cafe bento box with a bunny rabbit drawn on the lid. We also showed some non-otaku photos, like a perfectly designed plate of cooked vegetables at the restaurant Daigo and Yoichiro Kawaguchi's futuristic sea creatures lined up in front of a Yushima Seido temple. The obsessiveness of otaku culture, we said, can be seen even in more traditional and non-otaku Japanese aesthetic, from food presentation to religious display. And it's this obsessiveness—which clearly goes beyond economical or functional rationale—that enables the precision manufacturing, cleanliness, punctuality, and politeness that we think of as stereotypically Japanese.

Joi noted that the caste system of Japan probably plays a role in this obsessiveness. For generations, people have been taught to be happy perfecting their role in society, without necessarily viewing social or financial gain as a measurement of their success—it's the shokunin culture in which focusing on one job allows one to obsess with abandon until they reach perfection on a very local level. As examples, we mentioned waiters working for no tip and the guy at Narita airport whose only job is to tell people that their checked-in bags are on the revolving belt. As an example of obsession reaching a perfected end, Joi mentioned ukiyo-e, a type of woodblock printing that was popular during the Edo period. According to Professor Mitsuhiro Takemura, a media design scholar at Sapporo City University, the art form was essentially made more simple and abstract through rapid iterations until it reached obsessive perfection, and that was where innovation in this genre ended. (The actual end of ukiyo-e is attributed to the Meiji Restoration.)

Sekai camera AR iPhone app makes high-fashion debut

Sekai Camera, the augmented reality iPhone app that tags and overlays information about products and places, debuted in Tokyo today at a press event held at the Spanish luxury designer Loewe. Here's a video showing how it works — basically, when your camera scans a certain tagged item, it shows up on the screen along with a description, pricing, etc. Video by Nobi Hayashi.

(Thanks, Nobi and Hitoshi!)

Reader photo: Pornographic straw dummy in Ueno

Photo by TokyoMango reader Morag Kewell

Korean sake bottle cell phone strap with bottle opener

This cell phone strap resembles a Korean sake bottle, and even comes with a miniature working bottle opener. Kinda neat!

Product page

Hello Kitty PC

Korean PC maker Moneual recently released this Hello Kitty-branded PC. Wow.

via Crunchgear

Love Plus, a new dating sim, spawns online discussions about virtual cheating

There's a lot of buzz about this new dating sim for the DS called Love Plus. This one takes the virtual girlfriend idea a step further than most — getting the girl is one step, but one you're officially an item, you're supposed to engage with your new girlfriend in real time by taking her out on dates, making plans, and planning things together. Some men have become so hooked on it that their wives are complaining publicly about it — one husband even sleeps with Love Plus near his pillow, and takes his virtual girlfriend into the bathtub with him. On online discussion boards, these complaints have spawned debates on whether "cheating" with a virtual girlfriend is the sign of a bad husband or not.Very interesting...

Love Plus main page (Japanese)
IT Media article in Japanese titled "Which is more important, me or your Love Plus?!"

Super Mario manicure

I'd like to get my nails painted like Super Mario World one day, too.

Link via Boing Boing

Taiji dolphins freed due to pressure from The Cove

I just got this information from the Oceanic Preservation Society, the organization behind the documentary The Cove about the dolphin killings in Taiji:

Fishermen in Taiji, Japan will be releasing captured dolphins this week in response to international outcry following the award-winning film “The Cove.” Some of the dolphins captured during the annual round up will be sold to aquariums, and while the rest are typically slaughtered in secret, the fishermen will be releasing them because of recent criticism.

...An anonymous Taiji fisheries official said that it’s not clear whether the town will stop killing dolphins permanently. Taiji residents see the dolphin hunt as a tradition that is no different than killing other animals for food. However, the dolphins that are killed and sold as food, often as mislabeled whale meat, contain toxic levels of mercury and are potentially poisoning Japanese consumers.

...The fishermen in Taiji captured about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales on Wednesday, with plans to sell some of their catch to aquariums for up to $150,000 per animal.

The Taiji government hasn't confirmed yet whether the killings will be halted permanently, but the fact that they're on hold means that they're listening.

Related stories:
The Cove, an upcoming documentary about dolphins in Taiji
Dolphin slaughter: horrible injustice, or just another meal?

Polaris, a new cell phone x robot that acts as a desktop secretary

This is Polaris, a robot designed by KDDI and Flower Robotics that monitors your behavior via your cell phone and then communicates to you via your TV. Basically what it does is function as an intelligent dock for your cell phone — when you put the phone on it, it extracts information from the handset and then gives you recommendations and reminders. Kinda like a miniature personal secretary! It also has the ability to self-navigate on flat surfaces. We should be seeing this in the consumer market soon — so far it's just a prototype.

via Impress Watch (Japanese)

Follow my live Apple event Tweets

Hey guys! I'm not here right now — I'm at Yerba Buena Center in downtown San Francisco live-tweeting the very important announcement by Apple for Boing Boing. Follow my Twitter feed to read my updates live.

BBG's Live-Tweeting the Apple Event Today

How to recreate a scene from Zelda in your lunchbox

There's a wonderful cookbook in bookstores & on Amazon now called Face Food:The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes. It's a bento book that teaches you how to make delicious, nutritious meals that resemble your favorite anime, video game, or zoo animal. The art is simply amazing — here are Astro Boy and Zelda.

Face Food:The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes by Christopher Salyers

More book reviews & recommendations on TokyoMango

Otamatone, Maywa Denki's new instrument, looks like a tadpole

In this video, inventor Novmichi Tosa of Maywa Denki demos his new instrument, the Otamatone, which looks like a tadpole (otamajyakushi) and sounds like a theremin. I met Tosa about a year ago to interview him for an upcoming story in Make Magazine — he's a super awesome, fun guy, and I encourage you to check out his work online or to try to go to one of his nonsense toy workshops at his studio in Tokyo.

Maywa Denki main page

The 6% Doki Doki crew in San Francisco

Here's a pic of me with the 6% Doki Doki crew at New People opening reception at the Consulate General's house in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. Apparently I didn't get the memo about the colored tights and super crazy earrings. The good news is that you or I can go to Japantown to buy these awesomely cute colorful outfits at their new store in New People World.

Photos from New People World, the new J-pop center in SF

I finally visited New People World, the new entertainment complex in San Francisco's Japantown. It's small, but really cool! The shop has tons of awesome design-y Japanese things that I actually wanted to own, the cafe has delicious — albeit overpriced ($10!) — pork cutlet sandwiches, the art exhibit by Yoshitaka Amano was stunning, and I really want to go back to see the Yayoi Kusama movie at the cinema.

This is the 6% Doki Doki store, where you can buy super cute hair accessories and colorful earrings that spell out Japanese words like "arigato."

This amazing piece of art by Yoshikata Amano was made specifically for the US showing of his exhibit, Deva Loka. It's created much like the way a car is painted — with automotive paint on aluminum. And if you look carefully, it actually spells out "America" in katakana. アメリカ. The photo does it no justice, but all his works are strikingly bold and amazing! This one's price tag was around $40-50K. Made me wish I had real money to spend on art.

New People World home page

iPhone cases designed after famous samurai

These iPhone cases cost $1000 each and were designed after warlords and warriors from the samurai era. I just wrote about them on BBG.

Bamboo dining set teaches kids table manners

I love this dining set for kids made by Funfam. Everything's made of bamboo and is reusable (huge amounts of wooden chopsticks are used and thrown away every day in Japan), but not only that, the embedded cutlery design automatically teaches your kids how to set a table! It's one less thing you have to teach them &mdash not to mention that it's just an extremely cute design. The only caveat: it costs $200.

Product page via Designboom

Otaku Encyclopedia, a book that teaches you everything about otaku culture

Great news for those of you who have always wanted to know everything there is to ever know about the otaku world! A new book called The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan, written by Patrick Galbraith, is now available on Amazon. I have a copy, and was impressed by the thoroughness of his research &mdash he is doing his PhD at Todai, after all. Ever wonder what "moe" really means? Want to know more about Shokotan, itasha, or maid cafes? It's all here.

The super awesome Fred Schodt wrote the foreword.

The Otaku Encyclopedia by Patrick Galbraith

Hatoyama's wife flies in UFOs, meets Tom Cruise, chomps on the sun

Ladies and gents, meet the soon-to-be first couple of Japanese politics, Mr. and Mrs. Yukio Hatoyama. Miyuki, the wife, is quite an interesting character &mdash she used to be a Takarazuka actor, is an excellent cook, and authored a book called Very Strange Things I've Encountered. In it, she writes about a journey she took on a UFO:

While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus. It was a very beautiful place and it was really green.

Another one of the very strange things she claims to have encountered is actor Tom Cruise. Apparently, Cruise used to be Japanese in his past life, and that's why they met. Who knew?

Mrs. Hatoyama also admittedly likes to chomp on the sun for energy. MSNBC reports:

"I also eat the sun," Hatoyama said on the program, looking up with her eyes closed, raising her arms high as if she was tearing pieces off an imaginary sun. "Like this, hum, hum, hum. It gives me enormous energy."

Interesting lady!

Japanese snack-matching game for when you're bored

TokyoMango reader Ian S. just sent me this silly web-based game he made, where you have to match Japanese snack cards with each other. The ones you acquire get skewered on the left. It's pretty basic but may be fun if you're bored at work and like to think about eating Japanese food.

Link

Recipe: gyoza made out of ice cream

Ice cream gyoza! They actually taste like ice cream and cookie dough. There are detailed instructions on how to make them here.

Evil Mad Scientists via Boing Boing