RocketNews24 / Bringing You Yesterday's News From Japan and Asia, Today (Page 61)

Anime Princess Marriage Certificates Big Hit with Japanese City

Dec 10, 2012 by Steven
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It seems like nearly every city, town, and village in Japan has a cute mascot character to represent it. Usually these are yuru-kyara, anthropomorphic characters often designed with qualities representing whatever that municipality is known for.

The city of Suwa, Nagano, however, knows that the worth of a mascot character should be judged not by how well it represents the region, but by how well it sells. And in Japan, nothing sells better than cute anime girls.

That’s why they came up with Suwa-hime, or Princess Suwa, a young anime princess from medieval Japan with her own manga, voice actress, and line of original figures and goods.

Since her creation in 2011, Suwa-hime has been such a success that the city has even started printing her on their official marriage certificates, and the nerdy public official who came up with her is likely basking in splendid vindication of his hobby for the first time in his life.

Dec 10, 2012 by Michelle
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Who’s your secret celebrity crush? No, I’m not talking to the ladies. We know you can go on for days about Channing Tatum’s twelve-pack abs or Bradley Cooper’s smile (PS – they were People’s “sexiest man alive” for 2012 and 2011, respectively). I want to hear from the guys.

And don’t pretend like you don’t have a secret celebrity crush. I know at least some of you have had a moment like Andy from The Office:

Let me give you a scenario. I’m at like a beach cabana, and Brad Pitt approaches. Tries to lean in and kiss me. I would definitely resist, like at first. But if he was persistent, I might give in a little bit just to see what it felt like. Would I push him away? How hard? Like, what if he’s really aggressive?

For the fourth year in a row, Japanese entertainment website, Oricon Style, has asked this very question (not about whether or not you’d kiss Brad Pitt…they asked men to choose which celebrity they think is the most handsome). Five hundred men in their teens to forties took the online survey from November 6 to November 9.

Let’s take a look at the results!

Dec 9, 2012 by Steven
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Some Japanese companies are known for making really clever commercials, others are known for making some really dumb commercials (looking at you Sony).

Mobile carrier au (pronounced “A-U”) has proven itself a part of the former camp with its fantastic new commercial, “FULL CONTROL/Xmas”, which shows what Tokyo might look like if it were turned into one giant night club.

Dec 9, 2012 by Kay
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Can you tell who the character in the above picture is? She’s cosplayed, posed nude and even turned herself into various edible treats before, but once again Ms. Kitty stretches the boundaries of her professionalism, this time by turning herself into human form, and an über-hot, sexy form at that. And you’ve got to admit, she really isn’t looking too bad, to put it mildly. Read More

Photo Booth Horrors: When Japanese Purikura Goes Wrong

Dec 9, 2012 by Steven
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Purikura, short for Purinto Kurabu (Print Club), are Japanese photo booths that let you take digital pictures with your friends and then decorate and edit them using a touch screen and stylus. After you finish decorating, your pictures are then printed on multiple copies of sticker paper so you can cut them and distribute them among your friends. You can also have them sent to your cell phone or e-mail address.

Purikura booths can be found at shopping areas and arcades around Japan and are incredibly popular with teenage girls and young women, who use the image editing features to wash out the natural colors of the photos so their skin look smoother and lighter. Over the past few years, many booths have even introduced a function that lets you enlarge your eyes so you can look “cute” like an “anime character” or “freaky” like an “alien”, depending on who you ask.

These are powerful tools and, as you can imagine, can conjure horrifying results if abused. We’ve searched the Japanese internets to assemble a gallery of some of the more disturbing (and hilarious) photos that have emerged from purikura photo slots.

Check it out below, if you dare.

Dec 9, 2012 by Master Blaster
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It pays to keep a keen eye on Japan’s Yahoo! Auctions every once I a while. You’ll never know when you can get a personal live performance form your favorite band, or the opportunity to hire them to clean your home.

So imagine our surprise when the chance to have the Dragon God, Shenlong, from the Dragon Ball series for one day went under the hammer! And in this deal you aren’t limited to one wish like in the manga, you can make as many as you want.

Dec 9, 2012 by Michelle
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You, Me, And a Tanuki is a weekly featured blog run by Michelle, a Californian who is currently one of only two foreigners living in Chibu, a tiny fishing village on one of the Oki islands in Japan. Check back every Saturday for a new post or read more on her website here!

I remember during my school days in the United States, we would have a “Code Red” drill once a year where we practiced the proper protocol in the event a gunman came to school. We were taught the proper way to build a barricade using desks and chairs in our classroom, the best place to build it, and the different announcements and signals that we could expect to hear should such a situation occur. But the thing is, there was never an actual gunman or anyone playing the part of a gunman during the drill.

In Japan (or at least in my area of Japan), they do Code Red drills a little differently. First of all, in the Code Red drill scenario, there is no fictitious gunman, instead there is a fictitious crazy person trying to stab people. Read More

High-Speed Chocolate: A Look at the New Shinkansen Kit Kat and Other Cool Japanese Kit Kat Packages

Dec 9, 2012 by Steven
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Japan gets all the cool Kit Kats. Since 2000, Nestlé has introduced over 200 flavors and varieties of the chocolate bar to Japan, from chestnut and espresso to baked corn and soy sauce.

Some flavors come and go with the seasons and others are exclusive to certain regions; at the souvenir shops of my home prefecture Nagano you can find the tasty Shinshu Apple flavor and the questionable Ichimi Ground Red Pepper flavor.

One of our Japanese reporters recently came across a new variety of Kit Kat at Nagoya Station that we thought was pretty cool. While the Kit Kat bars themselves are the regular milk chocolate flavor—which, mind you, differs from country to country—the box art is inspired by the Tokaido Shinkansen line and should be familiar to anyone who has ridden the bullet train in Japan.

Dec 8, 2012 by Karen Bremer Masuda
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Did you know that a nap during your work day is a good thing? A power nap does wonders for productivity!

But it’s not like you can just sleep on the job. Luckily for those of us in Tokyo, there are quite a few cafes you can go to where sleeping is OK—in fact, it’s encouraged!

Naver Matome has put together a list of these “Nap Cafes”, places in the metropolis where worn-out salarymen can go to catch a few Z’s without having to resort to such drastic measures as setting up a bunk on the file cabinets at work.

Dec 8, 2012 by Master Blaster
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Even without ever having gone to Tokyo one can probably imagine the sprawling metropolis of 13 million people. It’s an ocean of buildings spackled with LED lights and paper signs threaded by vines of elevated walkways sitting atop a massive labyrinth of a subway system.

Of course it wasn’t always like this. Thanks to an incredibly well made and well preserved piece of film we can get a glimpse of a rare Tokyo. It was taken right between the city’s two 20th century destructions during the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1944 firebombing campaign.

Dec 8, 2012 by Steven
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Many of you are probably familiar with Rule 34, an arbitrarily-numbered internet rule which states: if it exists, there is a porn of it.

We’d like to propose a Rule 24: “If it exists, someone in Japan has a fetish for it.“

Because really, in just the past month we’ve seen serialized videos of Japanese girls diving into mud and manga about a boy with a gun for a penis.

And now we have Tonsure Market, a series of over 50 videos of Japanese women having their heads shaved bald.

That’s it. Read More

【Video】 “Sexual Harassment Interface” Lets You Grope Moaning Radishes

Dec 8, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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I sat down to write this introduction with half a mind to just plonk the video in the centre of the page and leave you to it. Never before has the term “WTF” been more relevant.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the “Sexual Harassment Interface”, a series of daikon radishes wired up to electric sensors that produce erotic moans and groans whenever they are touched. With just a few pieces of simple electrical equipment, these poor, innocent radishes are transformed from simple brassicas to legs, arms, butts and, well, whatever you want them to be.

Never before have vegetables been more NSFW…

Dec 8, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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The dubbed Blu-ray version of recent hollywood smash The Avengers hasn’t even made it into stores yet, but Japanese film fans are already writing it off as junk.

Despite the Japanese releases of previous superhero movies – The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man and Thor included – being voiced by professional, suitably cast voice actors, the dubbed version of The Avengers in cinemas featured none of the same voices, despite the movie being based around the premise of bringing these much-loved heroes together in one spot.

Movie buffs had hoped that Disney Japan, the company behind the Japanese Blu-ray release, would reinstate the original super heroes’ Japanese counterparts for the home release, but it has become clear that those wishing to enjoy the action movie without subtitles will have to put up with the same subpar voice acting that was shoehorned into the cinema release.

Dec 8, 2012 by Master Blaster
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Imagine you want to ask that girl or guy of your dreams out this holiday season, but maybe you’re too shy to do it out right. You could send a text or e-mail, but that’s kind of lame and bland.

Go figure: the megacorporation Coca Cola is here to provide you with a sweet, intimate, and memorable way to tell people how you feel.

It works kind of like a sugary time bomb of love. All you need is a plastic bottle of coke and a marker.

Dec 8, 2012 by Karen Bremer Masuda
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The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse is one of Aesop’s Fables and tells the story of country bumpkin mouse who visits his urban-dwelling cousin for a taste of the luxurious life. The country mouse is at first captivated by the fine food of the city, but is thrown into panic and forced to run and hide after someone throws open the door while he and his cousin are eating. There are numerous retellings of the story, but the moral is that it’s better to live with little in safety, than to live in abundance surrounded by danger.

This may be how many Japanese people feel after leaving their peaceful and secure life in the countryside for the city. Every year thousands of Japanese move to big cities like Tokyo and Osaka from outlying country areas, for work or for school, experiencing all kinds of culture shock as they adjust to new lives. Even moving from one big city to another is an adjustment, as the character of the people and the way things are done differs by region.

Naver Matome has put together the voices of people from different regions of Japan who experienced what the Country Mouse experienced: that the city life isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

See what surprised these Japanese “Country Mice” about the big city below:

Dec 8, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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OK, this is getting weird. In the space of eight weeks we’ve seen a perfectly white koi carp in Isihikawa prefecture, an angelic white crow in Shimane prefecture, and now a tiny albino mole quite literally pops up in Wakayama prefecture, Japan!

Dec 7, 2012 by Steven
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Japan’s 46th general election is a little over a week away, and if there’s one demographic that could care less, it’s the otaku. For the obsessive Japanese nerd, it doesn’t matter what political party wins the election, so long as they can buy the latest shiny toys and spend quality time with their 2-D lovers.

Still, while otaku may feel like the major political issues of this election, like energy policy and social security, are of no concern to them, their lifestyle isn’t completely unaffected by the decisions of the higher ups. For example, some worry that joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) would bring changes to copyright laws that could threaten the thriving doujin, or fan-made works featuring licensed characters, market. You hear that, otaku!? No more Final Fantasy porn!

That’s right; you can always count on porn to get otaku moving. That’s why PC Shop MK, a software shop in Sapporo, Hokkaido that specializes in new and used erotic games, is offering huge discounts for customers who vote in the December 16 election.

Dec 7, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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State media in North Korea, notorious for its far-fetched claims like the late Kim Jong Il’s near-impossible golf scores and how the earth around his birthplace cracked at the moment of his death, is reported to have told its public last week that the lair of a mythical unicorn-like creature had been discovered by archaeologists.

Cue the sound of crayons being dropped the world over and dewy-eyed children turning to their parents and yelling “See!? They are real!”

Dec 7, 2012 by Master Blaster
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Finally you can put awesome power of giant battle robots in the palm of your hand— or around the palm of your hand—with GIANT ROBOT BATTLE FISTS. Now available in Japan! Sounds like the perfect Christmas gift to me!

Dec 7, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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Six years ago, a man inviting a group of girls to come and play with his Wii would probably have resulted in face slapping and a visit from the police, but here in 2012 everyone and their dog knows what a Wii is. And now, with the launch of the new Wii U, the next generation of remote-wielding gaming featuring a touchscreen-equipped controller, nerdy men the world over have a new toy to lure girls into their homes with.

The console supports up to four Wii remotes, plus the new touchscreen contoller, meaning that it’s one of the most group-oriented games consoles ever made, and just begs to be played by whole families or groups of friends.

But since RocketNews24 Japan‘s closest Wii U-owning pal (who we shall refer only as WiiMan to protect his nerdy identity) is a self-confessed part-time hemit and only ever gets to see the single-player modes of his games, he called his friend Kaori and invited her over for some multiplayer fun.

“A Wii U!?” Kaori said excitedly, “Definitely! I’ll bring my band friends with me! Don’t worry, they’re all cute.”

From home alone to a night of videogames with five cute girls in 90 seconds. WiiMan couldn’t believe his luck!