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Want to Grow a Bonsai Tree? There’s an App for That

Want to Grow a Bonsai Tree? There’s an App for That

Saitama Prefecture might be known abroad for its connection to famous anime like Lucky Star and Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, but it’s better known in traditional art circles as a modern center for bonsai, the ancient practice of cultivating miniature trees. In fact, there is even a section of Saitama City called Bonsai Village that was once selected by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism as one of the 100 most scenic towns in Japan.

The prefecture has now created a smartphone game called Twit Bonsai to promote Saitama’s bonsai attractions, and although you may think pruning a virtual tree sounds like the height of boredom, the app is gaining an unexpectedly enthusiastic following. Read More

SoftBank’s White Dog Gets a Free Rap and DJ App for iOS (and It’s Awesome)

SoftBank’s White Dog Gets a Free Rap and DJ App for iOS (and It’s Awesome)

Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank is seemingly never out of the news recently. In the past seven days, we’ve seen CEO Masayoshi Son put down a heckler on Twitter, offer his employees up to a month’s pay for mastering English, and now the company comes out with a genuinely wonderful free app for iOS in celebration of being Japan’s most popular telecommunications provider for five years running.

Officially titled 「ラップお父さん」 “Rappu Otousan” (lit. rap dad), the application is essentially a sound board filled with memorable lines uttered by members of SoftBank’s fictional White Family, as seen in commercials. As well as allowing users to annoy friends with one-liners like “Shut it!”, “What’s so funny!?” and even the company CEO’s famous “Let’s do it!” line, users can play and mix a variety of prerecorded rhythm tracks, making this app by far the most wonderful time-waster we’ve discovered so far this year.

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Turning Dull Life into Exciting Manga, iPhone App Sees Two Million Downloads in Just 18 Days

Turning Dull Life into Exciting Manga, iPhone App Sees Two Million Downloads in Just 18 Days

Tokyo-based smart-phone application developer SuperSoftware has announced that, after just 18 days, its free app. Manga Camera has been downloaded an incredible two million times.

Launched on September 11, the app. soon became popular among Japanese iPhone users who were thrilled to be able to turn snaps of everyday sights into images that look like they could have been lifted straight from a comic-book.

The application was downloaded one million times within the first 24 hours of its release, and has seen consistently high download rates ever since, popular in China and Korea as well as its homeland. Read More