TOKYOMANGO

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

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

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

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

Gallery of new cell phone designs from au

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

Hand lotion so cute it makes you want to become friends

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

Former FCCJ cook caught in Australian ice cream poop scandal

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

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

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High school girl inspired by the Red Sox makes draft

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

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

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Masks that make your face smaller

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

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

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

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

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

Boys' Shibuya fashion makes US debut at ETech

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

Man visits suicide forest, returns unharmed

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

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

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

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Runway show flaunts sex appeal of adult diapers

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

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

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

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Internet cafe doubles as a karaoke joint

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

Piggy bank plays Yamanote train platform music

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

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

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

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

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

Found in Shibuya: USB Whac-a-Mole

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

Booger girl and box-headed men at Design Festa

More fun stuff that Emily found at Design Festa:

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

I'm speaking about Japanese tech culture at ETech

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

Kenzo Saeki and Toast Girl's tributes to Claude Francois

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

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

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

Purikura makes radio host crave boy band concerts

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

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

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

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Lubricant parodied after popular tea brands

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

Fast food udon joint has buffet-style condiments

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

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