watashi to tokyo

Production IG and Oshii will relase new movie in 2009

Production IG and Mamoru Oshii will make new movie in 2009. The title s Musashi Miyamoto, his heart goes out to dual swords' (my translation). Musashi Miyamoto was a Japanese swordsman famed for his duels and his distinctive style. His duel with rival swordsman Sasaki Kojirou became sort of a legend because of his smart strategy. By the way, I didn't watch Sky Crawlers. Some said it's good, and some said it's so so... Since I didn't enjoy Innocence (Ghost in the Shell 2), I am not sure I will go to the theater to check it out.

I don't know how many American people know of this news: Kazuyoshi Miura committed suicide in an LA prison. His life was strongly related to LA. We can't know whether or not he killed his wife in LA anymore.

Lipton Japan released their tea product 'Lipton Limone' with very cute key chains. The first time, it was a macaron strap that was a collaboration with French patissier Pierre Hermes. And last time, it was a popular cake and sweets series. This time it will be more familiar snacks and sweets such as biscuits, chocolates, creams and cookies, etc. As the added bonus on a beverage bottle that costs only 150 yen, it's pretty good!!

A house for pets

Ahhhhhh cute! 'Baby Tigers and a Chimpanzee'. The chimp and the tiger both look so happy and relaxed!
Here is a collection of new game trailers from the Tokyo Game Show. You can watch each trailer by clicking the banner.


This is very interesting. Habel House is a well known easy-order house brand. They offer various types of house plans. For example, since land is so expensive in the urban areas of Japan, they offer three-floor house plans. In Japan, in many cases, the eldest son is expected to take care of his parents when they get old and need help. So they offer two-family home plans. There offer two entrances, two kitchen types with two entrances, one kitchen type, etc. And they also have house plans for 'living with pets'. In the dog plan, they made a small room for the dog under the stairs, and they made an outdoor washing area for cleaning the dog's paws. The house itself is designed for easy dog circulation. In the cat plan, there are various cat walks and cat doors in the walls. Cats also have their own room under the stairs, etc. Hmm｡ﾄ if I were a pet, I would want to live in such a place!

By the way, talking about houses, this is the site of Japanese architect Hiroshi Nakamura. His Dancing Trees, Singing Birds house is very beautiful, but the most impressive design is this House SH. It looks like the inside of a body, it has a very organic mood.

I am back to the cyber world

La la la finally! I got new PC! Guess what, I got the same one: VAIO G1-KBN. Because I like this machine!
This is Evangelion origami. Wow, great, but I heard that some people can easily picture how to fold the paper. I have such a friend and he made this King Ghidorah easily. The Eva seems to be hard to fold, but angel Ramiel seems to be okay. Try it.

Here is the Japanese massager Head Kenzan, it's not a joke item, they are really serious about using it as a massager. By the way, originally, 'kenzan' was this, an item that we use to hold flowers in Ikebana.
The 2008 Good Design Awards was held. Here are the best 15. I was so impressed by this LAN sheet. Sooner or later, we will have desks with LAN sheets at work.
I put up another video that I found. He is a Japanese magician, 'Kenji Minemura'. His sketch book magic is great! Since I have never heard of his name, maybe he mainly works in foreign casino or somewhere else.

Cool news

Naoki Urasawa will start new manga soon, the title is "Billy Bat". This time his motif, is Amecain catoon characters like Batman, Spiderman and micky mouse! Hmm I will pick after the magazine release.

I have never tried Manga cafe (cominc cafe) But since they increase in number, some cafes makes service differentiation. One of them is this place "Nishi Azabu leisure center" usage fee is high,5000yen ($50), but maybe their target will be a littlbe bit older than usual. You can read manga, enjoy table tennis, games, 80's old nude magazine, drink Moet Chandon and eat instant fried noodle Peyoung (super junk food though), mixture of cheap and gougeous, chaoes world. By the way,that deer head is table tennis lesson machine, deer will throw ball to you.

Anyway we have cool news! Osamu Shimomura(80) and two Americans won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for a discovery that revolutionized laboratory work around the world, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced. 　His son, Tsutomu Shimomura, is a computer security expert who was involved in the arrest of Kevin Mitnick. I read the book of battle of those two hackers. Dad is Nobel winner, Son is super hacker. Cooooooool!

Moss ball

Cute public pannel from foreign countries. One is this sloth one. That doesn't mean warning for sloth. That means sloth is so slow, please help him when you find on the road. Cute! There is such public prayer place on the road in the U.S? Ha ha , I read that is the art object by American artist.

A Spainish guy swam in moat of Imperial Palace. He said he dropped his bag there. Hmm it would be cold to swim. 　

I was trying to grow moss, but I must fail always. I don't know why. I like this moss ball type, but today I found very cute one "hedgehog" lovely....t now I feel I picked this already. If so, sorry.

I think this is not so bad, "Gundam dom's mono eye jacket". You wear this with another two guys. You can make Black Tri-Stars!!

I need a PC!!

1 American, and 3 Japanese Share Nobel Physics Prize!! Congratulation!! And also we shouldn't forget Ig Nobel too. This year's Ig Nobel Prize were awared in October 2nd too. Recent years, Japanese got some awards. Then again! this year this study got the awards "Intelligence: Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism".

Sorry I couldn't up my blog recently. Finally Sony replied to me and they said repairing cost will be over 200,000yen. Who pay for that? I can buy a new highger spec one with such money. So now I am looking for my new Note PC and my blog updating will be a little bit unstable more.　

I picked before about barcode in this post, we can see cute bar codes on products, this English site collects cute Japanese barcodes.. Lovely!

I love to see old packages and old postcards. I tried to collect postcards though, I stopped it because I felt collecting would be never done and there is no space to keep such a lot of cards. I picked nice old Japanese tabbaco and match collection before. 　And today I found another two Japanese matchbox label collections, here and here. Don't you think it will be cute to make T-shirt with those design.

I've just pick "Eternal pulling off tab" last week, Japanese toy. Such addictive toy is a sort of boom in Japan. Japanese toy maker epoc released Yamitsuki (addictive) sieries. In August they released yamitsuki cat's pad. You push pad as much as you want and hear cat's voice (in fact voice actress did it). Here is the video. Epoc said they will release next one in January 2009, it will be yamitsuki Banana. You can strip a banana as much as you want and hear some sound....you want??

Eternal pulling off tab

We have a new eternal series. The first one was eternal puchi puchi, the next one was eternal edamame Then the third one is eternal pulling off tab You know, that pulling tab on sweets boxes like Pocky They made a big size one of that, Look at this Ha ha ha, Addiction level is not so high for me. But if you like it, you can do that forever with this.

This is a site of 'Old photos of Japan' They have a lot of interesting old photos. This is 'Prostitutes in Cage' in 1890s. This is foreign settlement in Nagasaki That place became in Nagasaki, actually I went there two years ago.

Unfortunately, they only have a Japanese version, but if you like Ukiyoe or Hokusai or just some Japanese motif, this site is nice. It's a Hokusai creation kit. Start with the red button, then a new window opens. Drag some illustrations from the left part, default is 'men' but you can choose 'woman', 'animal', 'circumstances' and 'items' from other tabs. When you drag illustrations from the left part, a tool bar appears above the illlustrations, and you can change color, size, mirror effect, and delete the illustration with that. Please try :-)

This is a video about a hotel of Polystyrene They say it is cheap, warm, ecological, strong, light weight, etc., etc. -- many merits. It looks very good, at least for a temporary house in emergency cases.

deadly foods

This is a very cute 'skunk book end' It is just at the moment of attack!

I really love the rice cake 'mochi'. This year the rice "cake waffle" called 'moffle' was hot and I read moffle cookersold well.  Since mochi is not sweet, it can be an ingredient of some dishes

By the way, I wrote mochi is a deadly food too. Every New Year, we have news someone died from mochi, so that we have special vacuum attachment to rescue people.
And unfortunately, we have another deadly food, it's Konjac ( you say devil's tongue?) jelly . People love it as low calorie sweets, however since it's so elastic, it can't be broken up easily. So small kids and babies accidentally swallow it without chewing and die from suffocation. But in fact, people died from suffocation with more regular foods. According to the record of 119(emergency call) and ER in 2006, there are totally 803 cases of suffocation. Here is the worst food.
1. Mochi 168
2. Bread 90
3. rice 89
4. Sushi 41
5. Candy 28
6. Dango 23
7. rice gruel 22
8. some liquid meal 21
9. devil's tongue jelly
10. Shirataki Konjyac.
Hmmm, many dangerous foods in Japan, be carefull when you try them.
ataki Konjyac. Hmmm, many dangerous foods in Japan, be carefull when you try them.