W Asia

Our Japanese reporter falls in love with “Lebanese-style gyudon”【SoraKitchen】

”It’s super easy and soaked with umami!”

Read More

What do Indian people think of Japanese curry? We investigate with the power of Pikachu

How will this instant curry fare in India, the country with some of the best curry in the world?

Read More

Mr Sato steps inside the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tokyo【Photos】

A number of embassies in Japan are opening their doors to the public for a limited time. 

Read More

After more than three years as a terrorist hostage in Syria, Japanese reporter is on his way home

Jumpei Yasuda also explains why he said he was a South Korean man named Umaru in a video filmed by is captors.

Read More

Asian muscle men featured in steamy photos with cultural flavor

These guys must be from Southeast Asia because they are hot and steamy!

Read More

Iran becomes first country to completely ban Pokémon GO

Sorry, Pikachu, but the Middle Eastern nation doesn’t choose you.

Read More

Syrian children using Pokémon Go to bring attention to their situation

These honest pleas for help have caught all of our hearts.

Read More

New “species of snake” discovered purring in desert?【Video】

Could the long, twitching piece of fur belong to the body of a snake or some other cheeky animal?

Read More

And now, a transgender Indian version of Pharrell’s “Happy” 【Video】

Dubbed “India’s first transgender band,” the Brooke Bond Red Label 6 Pack Band’s first single shows just how happy the hijra community can get with an Indian-flavored take on the Pharrell Williams hit of 2014.

Read More

New school in Iraq to provide a Japanese-style education

Impressed with Japan’s ability to quickly rebuild after the Second World War, some educators in Iraq are looking to instill similar values in their own youth.

Read More

Famous Kuwaiti actor is “too handsome”, arrested for causing public disturbance

People may think that being beautiful has no downsides; you’re popular, you get drinks for free, you look good in all your clothes.

But believe it or not, being beautiful isn’t always easy! Just ask Kuwaiti actor Abdul Aziz Al Kassar, who was recently arrested in Saudi Arabia for upsetting public order by being “too handsome”.

Read More

Japan’s rags-to-riches Nepalese restaurant “Daisuki Nippon” closes doors after five years

November marks five years since Vikas Pradhan sent out his first tweets in broken Japanese describing the hardships of starting a restaurant. In response and a heartwarming show of support, the Twitter community rallied behind Pradhan not only online but in actual paid visits to his Nepalese cuisine restaurant Daisuki Nippon, putting it firmly in the black.

However, in a rather sudden turn of events, Pradhan tweeted that as of 31 October the original Daisuki Nippon had closed down.

Read More

Not-so-pretty bird in India arrested on charges of verbal assault

A parrot answering to the name Hariyal was taken into police custody last week after a woman reported it for verbal abuse. The victim, one Janabai Sakharkar, claimed that every time the bird laid eyes on her it would begin to hurl obscenities.

Read More

Otaku oasis of anime and manga discovered in the Dubai Mall 【Photos】

Growing up, I spent many a weekend fighting traffic to drive into downtown L.A. or Orange County to check out the manga, magazines, and other publications imported from Japan at one of the area’s handful of Kinokuniya bookstore branches. But Southern California isn’t the only place where you’ll find fans of Japanese pop culture looking for a fix. Over the last few decades, anime and manga fandom has spread around the globe, and travelers to the Middle East are sometimes surprised to find that there’s a gigantic Kinokuniya branch in Dubai helping Arabic and expat otaku keep up to date on all their favorite series.

Read More

Video from India shows fast way to load construction equipment…or die, whichever comes first

If you were charged with the task of putting a mini excavator like to one pictured above onto a flatbed truck in under two minutes, what would you do? If you’re like most people you’d probably find a ramp of some sort.

Or, if you have just that right balance of gutsiness and lack of self-preservation instinct, you might do what these guys in India did. Luckily, they recorded it on video for our enjoyment and as evidence preventing any lawsuit against the makers of the excavator.

Read More

36 more humorous glimpses of Asia 【Pics】

Need a little laugh to help ease yourself into the week?

In the past, we’ve featured some photo fun from Asia35 signs you might be in Asia, as well as 39 looks at the lighter side of Asia. This time, we’re bringing you 36 more bizarre, comical, and downright nonsensical scenes from around Asia!

Read More

And now for some photo fun from Asia 【Pics】

The continent of Asia itself contains over half of the world’s population. Looking solely at the numbers, this means that there’s a much higher chance for something crazy to go down here than in other parts of the world.

So when you see pictures of people like the woman above, you might get the sense that a lot of Asians are a little bit out-there, but actually for the most part they’re just as plain as you, me or my buddy Kenji who dresses up like a panda at his local zoo and pretends to mate with another panda-dressed co-worker to encourage the real pandas to get it on.

So please keep people like Kenji in mind when viewing these 14 photos of strange occurrences around our lovely continent.

Read More

A six-year-old smashed the previous limbo skating record, in case you wanted to know

Who would have thought the world of limbo skating would be so competitive? Also, who would have thought limbo skating was a thing that exists?

Limbo skating is the sport of using old-school roller skates – we presume there’s some kind of rule about them having to be in pastel colors – to project yourself across the ground while staying as low as possible. Sometimes, limbo skaters can squish their bodies down to about the same height as a Coke bottle while bending their ankles at seemingly impossible angles to keep the roller skate’s wheels on the pavement.

So, since we went ahead and told you that limbo skating is a thing, we might as well also tell you that a 6-year-old just broke the previous limbo skating world record by limbo skating under 39 cars like it was nothing.

Read More

Princest Diaries: Artist uses Disney Princesses in Rape Awareness posters

An artist has been causing controversy online recently with a set of posters featuring Disney princesses in incestual embraces with their fathers. Entitled “The Princest Diaries”, the three posters in the series are designed to raise incest and rape awareness using simple imagery and characters well-known to people of all ages and nationalities. Disney fans may find the following pictures disturbing but according to the artist, this is exactly the point.

Read More

Iraqi Shadow of the Colossus is hardcore (plus more fun with bootlegs) 【Photos】

It’s become less common with the increasing globalization of the video game industry, but not so long ago, box art for the same title could vary wildly from one region to the next. Much of this was due to the nature of licensing contracts. For example, it may have made sense to commission a popular anime artist to draw the cover for a Japanese release of a game, but without that same fan base and recognition overseas, oftentimes executives judged it was wiser to hire a struggling artist to draw new art on the cheap than to shell out the extra money necessary to procure the rights to use the anime art internationally.

But while these sorts of legal technicalities explain how North American gamers ended up with such horrible art on the packaging for Mega Man and Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle, it doesn’t explain why someone felt the need to create strange new covers for bootlegged video games in Iraq.

Read More

  1. 1
  2. 2