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Mike

With nothing better to do in his native Ohio, Mike took a leave of absence from all responsibilities in life and came to Japan for the first time in 2006. After several years of what amounted to an extended vacation with occasional Japanese lessons, circumstances led Mike to finally settle down in Tokyo and get serious about life in 2009. He’s worked at magazines, a Japanese ad agency, and currently works in the entertainment industry. He also co-founded and writes for the humorous Japan news website Tokyodesu.com.

Posted by Mike (Page 22)

American dance crew accuses Korean team of stealing moves, epic dance battle imminent?

Mike
Oct 18, 2013
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Who knew that hip hop dancing could be such serious business? An American hip-hop dance team – or crew as they’re called in dance circles – is so miffed that another dance crew allegedly stole part of their routine that they’re taking the fight to the rival team half a world away.

The apparent ripping off occurred when a Korean dance crew busted out a brief but complex choreographed dance move that is exactly the same as a move pioneered by the American dance crew I.Am.Me on the MTV show America’s Best Dance Crew (side note: the show is hosted by none other than A.C. Slater, a well-known expert on 80s-style dance numbers).

Keep warm and confuse your cat this winter with this wearable feline blanket

Mike
Oct 16, 2013

We’re so jealous of cats. They get virtually all of the attention on the Internet, they’re allowed to lounge around convenience stores day and night like they own the place, drinking cat wine, and generally being doted on.

Finally, though, Japan’s obsession with cats and cat paraphernalia is making it possible for us to become the cat. Behold, the hooded cat blanket from online retailer Felissimo.

Kid putting off college to play video games all day? Just give up on him, Gundam creator says

Mike
Oct 16, 2013

There’s never been an easier point in history to waste time than now. Especially with the advent of video games and their gradual evolution into slot machine-like addiction engines, more and more kids are electing to forgo homework, jobs and even college to sink more time into their favorite title.

And parents should let them go ahead and keep doing it, according to Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of the epic space opera anime franchise Gundam.

Anpanman creator Takashi Yanase dies at age 94

Mike
Oct 15, 2013

Takashi Yanase, renowned manga artist and creator of one of Japan’s most widely beloved children’s characters, Anpanman, passed away in the early morning hours of October 13 at a Tokyo hospital. A spokesman named heart failure as the cause of death.

McDonald’s Japan’s menu item base costs leaked, make us wonder what’s in the burgers

Mike
Oct 8, 2013

It’s no secret that RocketNews24 writers are big fans of McDonald’s Japan, with its selection of artery-clogging novelty menu items providing endless amusement and article fodder at price ranges that even an Internet “journalist” can afford day after day.

Every once in a while, though, we find it necessary to dish the dirt on McDonald’s Japan so that our readers don’t think we’re on the Golden Arches’ payroll. So, fortuitously, an anonymous Netizen recently leaked McDonald’s Japan’s base costs for its most popular menu items and we have to admit, we found the dangerously low – sometimes single digit – yen values to be alarming and disturbing at the same time.

Qing Dynasty-era Doraemon statue raises serious questions about possibility of time travel

Mike
Oct 7, 2013

Doraemon, that loveable robotic, time-travelling kitty, may have inadvertently inspired an early Qing Dynasty cult of Doraemon worship during his travels through the space-time continuum, if this bizarrely similar idol of a grinning cat discovered by a Chinese tourist is to be believed.

You’ll feel guilty about more than just the calories when you eat this Rilakkuma cake

Mike
Oct 4, 2013

We’ve already elaborated on how much food-themed characters freak us out, but until now we thought we were pretty much fine with food based on characters. When we saw this photo of a Rilakkuma birthday cake being served at a Japanese restaurant, we found ourselves suddenly overwhelmed with melancholy, plus a touch of revulsion.

This fish is so good you’ll literally s&#t

Mike
Oct 4, 2013

We can all agree that there are few things more embarrassing than sudden, public diarrhea.

If forgetting to zip your fly is a one on the scale of public embarrassment, and tripping down an entire flight of stairs is maybe a four, explosive diarrhea has got to be an 11 or 12. With this in mind, you’re really taking your social life in your hands when you eat this bizarre but incredibly delicious fish in front of friends.

This huge shank of anime meat is actually a sweet dessert

Mike
Oct 2, 2013

Anime meat looks delicious and grotesque at the same time. It almost always makes you hunger for a big turkey leg because of how perfectly it’s drawn – like how hamburgers look on the McDonald’s menu – but then it’s got the two bones sticking out of it, as though someone just savagely tore the leg off of some poor, frightened animal, bone and all.

Which seems entirely possible considering that everyone in an anime universe is as strong as an ox. Maybe they gain their power by killing and eating the hearts and leg bones of said oxen.

Anyway, a baumkuchen manufacturer in Japan realized that with the sweet, dense cake dessert popular throughout Europe and Japan, they could almost perfectly recreate a cartoony anime meat shank and the below “Manga Niku” baumkuchen was born.

Western games may have won the Tokyo Game Show this year

Mike
Sep 25, 2013

The old saying in Japanese gamer circles used to go “Bei game wa Kuso game” (“Western games are sh&%ty games”), but the tables may have turned in a big way if this year’s Tokyo Game Show turnout is any indication.

Western publishers were out in spades this year. In fact, the very first thing attendees saw when entering the gates of this year’s TGS were a bunch of armed soldiers and (tastefully) military-garbed booth girls promoting the newest entry in the Battlefield series of online multiplayer military shooter games.

Mochi and Cookies & Cream together at last with new Yukimi Daifuku flavor

Mike
Sep 23, 2013

If you’ve never actually been to Japan and had a Yukimi Daifuku recommended to or forced upon you, you probably have no idea what that headline means.

Yukimi Daifuku is an ice cream treat that wraps the Japanese candy staple, mochi – rice pounded to a gooey consistency – with ice cream. It may be one of the few ice cream desserts in Japan that is popular outside of the summer months, most likely because it combines so many different flavors and eating experiences: The gooey, sticky mochi – which is slightly savory – contrasts with the sweet, creamy ice cream to create a totally unique treat you’d be hard pressed to find outside of Japan.

Futuristic but grimy Nagasaki Station toilet proves Japan is really just “Blade Runner”

Mike
Sep 20, 2013

A Nagaski area public toilet is proving that the future that Blade Runner envisioned is now, and it’s in Japan.

The public toilet in question is apparently about a 10-minute walk from the station proper, at an unassuming location near a pedestrian underpass. To even gain access to the toilet requires you to figure out a complex series of buttons and probably pass a retinal scan to ensure you aren’t a Replicant.

This sushi art is the coolest thing made out of food you’ll see all day

Mike
Sep 19, 2013

Edible art is kind of a thing these days, especially in Asia, where seemingly every dish is so artfully crafted and cute you couldn’t possibly eat it – especially when it takes the form of a cat poking out of your latte.

This admittedly somewhat wasteful art form may have reached its pinnacle with these mind-boggling works of makizushi magnificence.

South Koreans really hate it when you ask for directions, video proves

Mike
Sep 17, 2013

An American tourist apparently learned the hard way recently to never ask Koreans – Korean smokers, actually – for directions, if the following video is to be believed.

After eating live octopus for your viewing pleasure – and it really is quite the spectacle – the host of this YouTube video inexplicably decides to keep rolling, telling viewers that Koreans are a laid back and wonderful people, before immediately asking two young men taking a smoke break for directions to a nearby landmark. They respond by physically attacking him and stealing his camera.

Rarest Pokémon card ever can be yours for a small fortune

Mike
Sep 13, 2013

As you’re surely aware, Pokémon is serious business in Japan, with tournaments and competitions for the myriad playable variations so viciously competitive that many resort to illegally acquiring and modifying Pokémon.

In that sense, it’s odd that one of the most valuable pieces of Pokémon memorabilia, the Pokémon Illustrator card from the Pokémon Trading Card Game, serves absolutely no in-game purpose. It is, however, considered to be one of the rarest Pokémon cards in existence.

“Study Cube” combines prison cell and latrine… for kids!

Mike
Sep 12, 2013

Everyone hated studying when they were kids. Hell, everyone hated studying in college. That’s why you sat up on the top floor of the dorm with both a textbook and a beer open and somehow convinced yourself that studying drunk was totally cool as long as you were also drunk while taking the test.

But now a South Korean company has made it possible for kids and college students alike to get some hardcore studying done by creating a study prison that you may also be able to poop in because it totally looks like an old-timey latrine.

Hello Kitty creators bet you’ll eat up their new characters

Mike
Sep 10, 2013

Have you ever walked by, say, a fried chicken restaurant that had a chicken mascot and been slightly disturbed by the implications of a food-themed character? If you eat the chicken there, aren’t you essentially killing the mascot? And why on earth is he so happy about it?

Japan is full of stuff like this. Pigs selling tonkatsu, chickens shucking poultry, dumplings who dream of being eaten by grandma. And now, Sanrio – famous for giving birth to everybody’s favorite mouthless kitty – is jumping on the food character bandwagon with this odd mascot with an edible head made out of grilled fish.

Mario, Luigi, Link to appear in Capcom’s Monster Hunter 4

Mike
Sep 9, 2013

Sadly, there are very few ways to make money spontaneously appear in your pockets. We hear animal sacrifices work, but there’s all kinds of ethical complications, plus you need a rock solid alibi when your neighbor comes asking if you know where her poodle went.

But game manufacturer Capcom has found a simpler way that won’t get them arrested: adding Nintendo mascots into their games.

Tokyo Olympic stadium looks like aliens landed downtown

Mike
Sep 9, 2013

As we’re sure you’ve heard, Tokyo was selected by the International Olympic Committee to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

Of course, no host city would be complete without a ludicrously over-designed Olympic stadium that looks like a race of aliens that watched Blade Runner on VHS one too many times took a wrong turn somewhere and landed their space ship downtown. Welcome to New National Stadium!

Dream gaming cabinet puts 119 consoles, 75 controllers at your fingertips

Mike
Sep 5, 2013

In the topsy-turvy world we live in, where console manufacturers are reluctant even to let people bring their last-gen games to their newest hardware, a lot of gamers may be feeling fatigued, longing for the good old days when a pixelated blue hedgehog fighting a fat scientist with a weird fetish for forest creatures was the definition of a triple-A title.

One gamer, at least, was so fed up with the current gen console wars, he decided to ball up basically the entire history of gaming consoles into one sexy rig with 75 distinct controllers jutting out from it as if the cosmic protagonist of Katamari Damacy had rolled it through a vintage game store.