Preston Phro

Preston Phro (or simply Phro as most know him) is a Coloradoan attempting to fit in in Tokyo. (Surely, he would succeed if not for his unruly hair.) He puts his master's in classical Japanese literature to good use by writing silly stories and articles for the Internet. Having lived in Nara, Osaka, and Yamaguchi before moving to the Kanto area, he's quite happy to finally have a place to call home! When not writing, he enjoys annoying his wife by plucking at his shamisen (a three-stringed Japanese instrument not entirely unlike a banjo) and pestering her with questions about Japanese history. He also occasionally attempts to remember all the stuff he's forgotten since university.

Posted by Preston Phro (Page 27)

Math, art, and music: Sputniko! reimagines J-pop【J-Tunes】

J-pop usually brings to mind images of teenage girls dancing in unison while singing songs about…something resembling love. It’s about as saccharine as you can get without actually pouring a sachet of sugar directly into your ear. But there’s an exception to every rule, and we today we have for you some of the most fascinating pop music–and videos–you’ll likely ever see.

Even if you’re not a J-pop fan, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Sputniko!, the artist name of Hiromi Ozaki, and her delightful take on popular music. One of the recipients of Vogue Japan’s 2013 Women of the Year award, this mathematician-turned-artist is not at all what you would call an idol–in fact she’s almost an anti-idol! Her music, voice, and videos, though, are just as enjoyable as anything you’ll find on the radio and far, far more thoughtful. Oh, and did we mention that she’s a professor at MIT?

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Adorable American Akita proves its pedigree with willingness to take on a bear

Even if you’re not an animal person, there’s a good chance that you’ll still like dogs. Or at least some kinds of dogs! We can understand people not enjoying being around smaller, shriller breeds, but everyone loves Akitas, right? Any animal that can inspire memes and cryptocurrency can’t be all bad, right?

And while there’s nothing quite as heartwarming as a happy Akita, it tuns out that they’re also the dogs you want by your side if you ever happen to run into a bear. At least if this adorable YouTube video is any sign!

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Get ready to rock! 38 awesome covers of video game music in 17 minutes

It goes without saying that here at RocketNews24, we love video games. While we might not always agree on which system is the best (PC MASTER RACE!), there’s no doubting that we’ll never complain about plunking our butts down in front of a screen and killing some baddies. In fact, some of us are even going to E3 this year for…uh, you, our dear readers! We promise that we are in no way totally, completely, and utterly thrilled to be attending. It’s all for you!

See how much we love you?

And what else do we love besides video games and our super awesome readers? Well, I can’t speak for everyone here, but I love some tasty metal riffs. Which is exactly what makes this medley combining music from 38 different games so awesome. Check out the 17 minutes of awesomeness below to see if your favorite game made the cut! Read More

Viral zoo video of ‘headbanging’ bear hides a dark, sad truth

Most of us have been to a zoo at least once. As children, it’s often the highlight of a weekend–watching the prowling big cats, hearing the bellowing elephants, and petting the adorable rabbits–it’s almost too good to be true. Unfortunately, “too good to be true” may be more accurate than we want to admit.

In fact, a certain Japanese video that has recently gone viral due to its “cute” footage shows just how traumatizing zoos can be for their animal residents.

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Average savings of Japanese households revealed, netizens reel in shock

Our mothers always told us that it’s not polite to talk about money. And while we usually listen to what our mother’s tell us, this one time we’re going to ignore their advice. Sorry, mom!

But, really, it’s not a big deal, because we’re not talking about our money. Instead, we’re talking about Japanese people’s money–specifically, how much they have saved up on average. And the number might surprise you.

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Tsushima no Miya Station: The Japanese train station open only two days a year

Without a doubt, one of the things Japan is best known for is trains. And it’s not just marketing hype either–public transportation is apparently good enough to accommodate the decreasing number of Japanese youth getting driver’s licenses. But while most trains can be counted on to run from 5 am to 1 am every day of the week in the cities, that’s not always the case in rural areas.

Take Tsushima no Miya station in Kagawa Prefecture, for example, where the train has the most limited schedule in the country: It’s only open two days out of the year!

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Chinese man cuts off hand to escape burning car, James Franco not signed to star in film

The difference between life and death can be as big as an elephant sitting on your face or as a small your wrist caught in a car frame. Though we haven’t heard stories about murder-by-elephant recently, the story of a Chinese man’s lucky – yet horrendous – escape from a burning car stood the hair on the back of our necks on end…and made us want to keep an emergency meat clever in our car. Just in case.

Find out what James Franco and this poor Chinese man have in common below…

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Knocking on your door: Kiyoshi Sugo’s beautiful, melodic dubstep【J-Tunes】

May is almost over and summer is about to kick into high-gear. Business people are slipping into their “cool-biz” outfits, and the air conditioners on the trains are coming on full blast now. Pretty soon you’ll be able to find us all at the beach fanning ourselves while slurping down the finest kakigori money can buy. And what better way is there to go into summer than with some sick new tunes?

That’s right, we’re back with more J-Tunes for you! And today we have one of Japan’s best electronic music producers, Kiyoshi Sugo. If you like dancing, lush melodies, fat basslines, or sick drops, you need to check this out.

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These beer and cigarette poster from the Meiji and Showa periods will confuse and enchant you!

Perhaps one of the most fascinating things in the world is old photos. There’s something almost otherworldly about those 100-year-old photos of Japan, Japanese landscape, and Japanese people, as if we were looking back through a time-telescope. It doesn’t hurt that the photos, despite technological restrictions, also happen to be gorgeous! The same can be said for old Japanese advertising posters that show off a time and place few even remember.

Check out these 16 alcohol and cigarette posters below and try to remember: Just because the cool kids are doing it, that doesn’t mean you should! Cigarettes are still bad for your health.

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Drop the… iPhone? Dupstep remix of smartphone ringtone leaves us shaking our booties

There are a few things we at RocketNews24 love more than anything else in the world: Food, video games, animeweirdness from Asia, and sending Mr. Sato out on adventures involving as many of the above as possible. We also love good music, so it goes without saying that we’re always ready for some new tunes to dance off all of our junk food calories, like maybe some sexy new dubstep remixes.

So, how about this live remix of the iPhone ring tone, complete with a drop dirty enough to make Skrillex blush? It’s guaranteed to get your body moving and confuse all your Apple-loving friends at the same time!

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Attack on Titan fragrances return with expanded line-up, ready to make you smell like adventure

Just because you’re out fighting enormous monsters all day doesn’t mean you have to smell like you’ve been fighting enormous monsters all day. Slaying titans is stinky business. We can’t imagine anything that big and skinless has the scent of anything but “ewwwwwww,” so we imagine the heroes of Attack on Titan need a pretty healthy spray or 10 of deodorant each morning.

Well, fortunately, they’ll soon be able to splash on some specialty fragrances! Kodansha has announced the addition of four more scents to its line up of Attack on Titan fragrances, again based on characters from the franchise. Find out who made the sweet-smelling cut below!

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Sailor Suit Old Man origin story revealed! Not an extra-dimensional wizard after all

When I woke up this morning, there were a few things I had expected for my day: a few gallons of coffee, a couple hundred photos of cute cats on the Internet, and a dozen more replays of Urbangarde’s music videos. What I had not expected to see was an origin story for none other than Sailor Suit Old Man.

And in case you’re wondering, no, he’s a not a grand wizard from an alternate dimension. But that might not be too far off!

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Learning Japanese? All you really need is this one word…

Japanese is not an easy language to learn. Though, we have to say, we’re not sure that any language is easy to learn when you’re a beginner! But for English speakers, Japanese is certainly one of the most difficult languages to pick up. Anyone who’s taken a class will surely remember the first time they opened their textbook and saw two massive charts full of squiggly lines and realized that they now had to learn two more alphabets! And then start on kanji…

However, it looks like one Japanese-speaking UK native has found the key to Japanese using just one word!

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Pleated skirts, Kewpie dolls, and death: The wild music and videos of Urbangarde【J-Tunes】

It’s been a good few months for weird music videos, hasn’t it? With BABYMETAL, Avril Lavigne, and Die Antwoord all confusing us in good and/or bad ways (seriously, Avril?), it might seem like there’s no room for crazy music left in your head. But you’d be wrong, because today we have for you the most recent offering of the electro-pop-rock band Urbangarde. And the video isn’t just visually striking–the music is guaranteed to get stuck in your head for the next couple of days! It’s a problem we haven’t figured out to solve yet.

Though, we have to admit that we’re not trying very hard.

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What in the world is going on at Hermes in Shibuya??

When you think about fashion, there’s a good chance that the first place you think of is Paris–and with good reason! France is certainly one of the leading fashion centers in the world, but Tokyo isn’t far behind. Though it may not be at the very top of the list of fashion cities, we’d reckon that the Japanese metropolis is at least in the top ten. So, it’s hardly any surprise at all that Hermès, one of France’s most celebrated fashion companies, has over ten locations in Tokyo proper alone, with a few more in Narita and Haneda airports as well.

Of course, high fashion is an art form, so it’s only fitting that Hermès stores also feature eye-catching displays to match their mesmerizing goods. But we think they might have gotten a bit too eye-catching with a few of these showcases…

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Japanese men dish on the sexy things other men do

What is “sexy”? It’s a question that no one person can definitively answer. But in much the same way that we know “art” when we see it, we also know “sexy” when it comes our way! Even if it’s from an unexpected place.

A recent survey asked of 150 Japanese men if they had ever felt attracted to another guy. Roughly 25 percent said yes, and even offered up their reasons for these rare moments of boy-love, which were so adorable that we just had to share.

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Determined Japanese artist recreates Attack on Titan opening sequence–using only pencils!

There is no doubting the popularity of Attack on Titan. Live-action movies and a video games aside, one of the best way to judge a property’s popularity is by the number and variety of fan-made projects. And in that category, we’d say that AoT is absolutely killing it! We’ve already seen two different short films created by inspired fans–one from Germany and another from Taiwan combining Attack on Titan and A Certain Scientific Railgun–as well as numerous craft projects like these “real” swords.

But this new fan-made, pencil-drawn reimagining of the Attack on Titan opening might be one of the best things we’ve ever seen! Even if you’ve never seen the show before, you won’t want to miss this incredible video–it’s equal parts beautiful and amazing.

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Time to procrastinate! A cat fights its way through a door and other videos

Oh cats, how we love you. We would try to count the ways, but we know you have better stuff to do than listen to us…like taking a nap in the sun, taking a nap on the couch, or taking a nap in a nabe. So, we’ll just say that of all the reasons we have to adore your fuzzy faces, perhaps the top one is your intractable nosiness. While we’re not entirely convinced that curiosity killed the cat–it might have Schrödinger for all we know–we are certain that watching our feline cuties get up to no good is one of the best ways to kill a few minutes while putting off work. So if you have a big project looming or some housework you’d rather be ignoring, check out these six adorable cat videos!

After all, you really don’t need to do that work today, do you?

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These seven witty Japanese Twitter users will put a smile on your face

One of the best parts of Twitter is the comedy. Though the microblogging service is filled with high-profile comedians who can easily delight fans with hashtag humor, some of the funniest tweets come from its less famous users. The Japanese twitterverse isn’t much different, with many of the most highly retweeted and favorited posts coming from relative unknowns. Which makes Twitter not only a great way to practice reading Japanese, but also a great way to relax by having a laugh!

So, to help you get through the rest of your week and give you enough energy to get to the weekend, here are seven of our favorite funny tweets from the Japanese twitterverse!

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