Yahoo!

Yahoo! Japan bans ads that “create inferiority complexes” about weight, physical characteristics

Internet portal says such ads “preserve and promote discrimination.”

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New Yahoo! News Juice bar in Harajuku squeezes headlines to make your free custom drink

The latest pop-up Tokyo juice bar grants you a custom juice based on a Yahoo! News article, its comments and post date!

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Yahoo! Shopping now offers funeral services in Japan

Provider boasts of least-expensive funerals in the industry, cremation costs included.

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Don’t forget: Yahoo! Japan to make disaster relief donation for every person who searches for “3.11” today

Four years on, the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis that befell Japan’s Tohoku region on March 11, 2011 have very little effect on the day-to-day lives of most people in the country. The rolling blackouts have stopped. Batteries and bottled water are once again readily available. Trains are running, and whole cities aren’t spending hours walking home from work or school.

But while a return to normalcy is a desirable, and ultimately necessary, part of recovery, it’s also important to remember what happened. To stem the forgetfulness that often accompanies the later stages of coping with tragedy, on March 11 Yahoo! Japan will be making a donation to the Tohoku recovery efforts for every person that searches for “3.11” through the company’s search engine.

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Auction for “the present I was going to surprise my girlfriend with” closes with a happy ending

A curious item came up for bid on Japan’s Yahoo! Auction site, simply titled, “The present I was going to surprise my girlfriend with – 2 years and 1 month old.” The story behind the ungiven present was as emotional as it seemed and included a description that inspired netizens all over to persevere even in the face of heartbreak. The item, a modest leather pencil case, started with an opening bid of just 2,000 yen (US$18) but closed at an impressive final price of 35,853 yen ($335).

The story of this young man’s unrequited love and the steps he took to mend his broken heart up next after the break!

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Yahoo! Japan’s “50%-off” campaign isn’t quite what it seems

When Japan’s Yahoo! Shopping introduced their 15-year anniversary sale with the promise of ‘50% off’, people were of course looking forward to getting their hands on some half-price bargains. However, the products on offer turned out to be nothing like anyone was expecting…

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Yahoo! Japan releases app that tricks girls into making a “kissy” face and takes their photo

With the plethora of applications available across all the major platforms, it seems there’s nothing a smartphone app can’t help you with. And now for those who to spend part of their days exploiting the insecurities of people for their own amusement, Yahoo! Japan has released Kisushiyo!, an app that secretly photographs women as they would look when going in for a smooch.

Granted it’s a novelty app that might not appeal to those without a sweet tooth for schadenfruede. However, the story of how this app became available to Android phones everywhere is an interesting look into the state of the internet.

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Yahoo! Japan’s mobile site has been attacked by titans!

That’s right, Kodansha’s super popular manga series Shingeki no Kyojin: Attack on Titan has teamed up with Yahoo! Japan to bring Japanese smart phone users a terrifying titan-themed search engine!

Imagine the world overrun with enormous humanoid monsters whose sole purpose seems to be extinguishing the human race. What can anyone do to stop the carnage? The answer to that question is what the remaining humans on the planet have to find out in Hajime Isayama’s manga-turned-anime series, Shingeki no Kyojin: Attack on Titan.

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Death by stereo: Japanese electronics chain found boasting deals on death through Yahoo! search

Upon hearing rumors swirling around the internet that a search on Yahoo! Japan’s struggling search engine does something strange when you enter the words “death” and “die” in Japanese, our reporter went to check it out. Could Japan’s most popular online search tool have revealed the sinister truth about a household name?

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Yahoo! Japan to Offer Employees One-Year Sabbaticals

Yahoo! Japan president Manabu Miyasaka announced at a press conference on the 25th that the company would introduce a new system by the end of the current fiscal year which allows employees to take up to one year off from their jobs. The system, which is based on the concept of sabbaticals, allows employees to spend up to one year freely pursing whatever they desire, albeit without pay. Though fairly common in the west, offering such a system of leave is very rare for a Japanese company.
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Japanese Convenience Store and Yahoo! Launch Ready-to-Cook Meal Delivery Service

When it comes to preparing a gourmet meal you can be proud of, an investment of time and a good recipe book are often required. If you’re a busy parent or living alone while working full time, just dashing out to gather the ingredients — not to mention actually preparing the meal — can prove rather time consuming and, let’s admit, a little bothersome.

The intricacies of it all leave many abandoning hope, opting for the greasier ‘ready prepared’ meal option or dining out at a local restaurant. But even those who do make the effort to cook have probably found themselves saying “This just doesn’t have the same impact as the dish I tried at the restaurant the other day,” every so often. If only there were a way to replicate the same taste at home!

If you live in Japan, a collaboration between convenience store chain Lawson and Yahoo! (yes, that Yahoo!) may be the answer to your culinary conundrums: a new home delivery service that offers not ready-to-eat meals, but rather a combination of ready-to-cook dishes that can be thrown together to create a tasty meal of your own.

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Man Auctions Himself on Yahoo! Auctions, Yours for just $100!!!

While most of the world has used online auction site eBay for ten years or more, Japan remains one of the few countries where the site has never quite taken off. Yahoo! Auctions, a service set up in 1998, remains the firm favourite in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and receives a phenomenal amount of net traffic every single day.

The site has provided us with plenty of interesting tales recently, with a case of a man auctioning off a human skull, soon followed by a quirky individual advertising soil allegedly bequeathed to him by God.

This week, however, tongues have been wagging after a 22-year-old man put himself up for auction under the rental services category, starting at just 8,000 yen (US$100) for a 24-hour loan…

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Japanese Person Given Earth as a Present from God, Sells it on Yahoo Auction

Strange and interesting items often pop up on the Japanese Yahoo Auction page. Human billboards, human skulls, inhumanly overpriced electronics, and a private pop idol performance, could all be found in the past.

This time, however, it looks like the Earth itself is going under the hammer at a starting price of 69 yen (hehe) (US$0.86).

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“Heavy Metal Idols” Perform for Audience of One Lucky Yahoo Auction Winner, Not a Dry Eye in the House

This photo might make you think that times are tough for the “heavy metal idols” in Alice Juban, oft referred to as the “sisters of rock.” Actually, it was an unprecedented promotion for the innovative idol group.

This September, major auction site Yahoo Auction opened a new category, Knowledge and Skills. Tucked away in there was a very special item up for bid: the girls of Alice Juban.

That didn’t sound right.  I didn’t mean the girls were selling themselves. They were selling the rights to an exclusive live performance for the winning bid in Shibaura, Tokyo on 10 October.

It turned out to be a really surreal event, and I don’t mean because of the usual hockey masks, chainsaws, and stage diving. It was a surprisingly touching performance that moved everyone in the room to tears.

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Wait… Did Someone Just Sell a Human Skull on Yahoo Auction?!

A pretty rare item popped up on Yahoo Japan’s auction page recently seemingly just in time for the Halloween season.  From 26 September to 3 October, users were able to place their bid on a real human skull – at least I think it’s real according to the eerily vague product description.

At the closing, the winning bid was for 104,000 yen (US$1,300) which may or may not be a bargain. I haven’t been following the human bone index recently.

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Traditional Japanese House Being Sold for 1 Yen on Yahoo! Auction

Interested in investing in Japanese historical real estate but don’t have quite enough to afford a medieval castle town?

Right now there’s a 150-year-old traditional Japanese thatched-roof farmhouse for sale on Yahoo! Auction for the unbeatable price of 1 yen (about 1 penny)!

Though by judging from the pictures, it may be a bit of fixer-upper…

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