watashi to tokyo

Great Honda ad

This is the world military women's photos site, apparently most of the Japanese women pictured are not really in the military… orz Why did they pick such photos?

Kamehameha is a fictional energy wave in Dragon Ball; this toy lets you feel as if you are making a kamehameha through vibration and sound effects.
We had Roppongi art night last week. I didn't get to see it for myself, but this was the biggest art work: "Giant baby robot spits fire on Roppongi." Here are some videos too.

I don't know what county this ad is aired in. But I like this HONDA ad. Compared to this cool ad, Japan’s HONDA ad are so boring. Like I always said about Sony, why do Japanese company make such boring local ads?

This is a little bit of an old post, but here is a list of "Japan's 10 funniest tech-related ads."

Katamari will come!

FINALLY! On March 31th, the official site for the Katamari Damacy tribute will launch! The new game will be for Play Station 3. They haven’t given the exact release date yet. Check it out!

Nissin announced that they will change THAT small mystery meat found in Cup Noodle to Chinese-style barbecued pork. This isn’t a problem for me, but on the Internet, an opposition movement has formed. Apparently, some people love that mysterious cube meat (it was called “dice meat”).
If you are a PC nerd and like to go to electronics shops, you would know about the series "KUROTO SHIKO" (professional type). I didn't know that cartoon logo guy was based on a real person. This is photo taken in Akiba.

One package of Marlboros is 320yen ($3). The price of tobacco in Japan is cheaper than in other countries, but prices are increasing every year and many smokers want to quit smoking. Now we have electric tobacco, this USB type is sold especially well online.

Knt travel agency created a Gunkan Island tour. It is an overnight or three days/two nights tour. I guess travelers will stay on the ship, don't miss it! ruin lovers.

cube house PACO

Today was NOMIKAI job drinking party, I went to this place and ate some Kyushu special foods. Upper right photo is horse meat sashimi (we say basashi). It deos't have any bad smell or taste and I have never met people who said I hate this! Actually they seem to like it too :-)

This is 3m cube house "PACO". 　PACO has movable roof, hunmock, kitchen, table, sleeping room (under floor), shower, toilet (open floor). The price is 6 million yen.

The manga award 2009

Though this is a little bit old article, famed manga artist Takehiko Inoue (Slam Dunk and Vagabond) drew a mural at Kinokuniya shop in NY. I am not sure if it is still there but it's very cool.

Manga award is a comics prize sponsored by the manga award executive committee to consist of a volunteer of each bookstore and publishers. The first manga award was announced in the end of March, 2008 and yesterday "manga award 2009" was released. Here is the list.
No.1: Chihaya furu : Story about a Hyakunin isshu club.
No.2: Uchu Kyodai (space bros) : Story about brothers who go to NASA to be space pilots.
No.3: Sangatsu no Lion (March comes in Like a Lion) :Chika Umino (best known for Honey and Clover)'s manga, a story about Shogi players.
No.4: Shinya Shokudo (Midnight restaurant) :It's a cheap but delicious gourmet story in a small restaurant.
No.5: Seishun Shonen Magazine : This is a real-life fable about the weekly manga "Shonen Magazine". Editors, writers, poeple who worked for Shonen Magazine appear with their real names.
No.6: Saint Young men :this is my favorite one!!
No.7: Tomehane : story about art of calligraphy club.
No.8: Mama ha tempalist : Story about raising a kid.
No.9: Triko : Another gourmet manga, but "Midnight restaurant" make me hungry much better than this. This is a kind of fantasy, they pick unreal food.
No.10: Youndemasu yo Azazel san : A demon in an investigation firm.
*Here is manga award 2008 winner list

short post on busy day

Wow! The Empire State Building lights up in Japanese natinal flag color! Thank you very much. I didn't know they change color such often.

Yeah! My favorite manga is "Saint Young Men" and vol.3 was released yesterday! I have finished reading it already. Have you never read it before? Check this page, you can read one chapter here. If you like it, some sites upload sans or pdf files (here and here)

Do you know Pop Japan travel?　They seem to be a travel agency in California, but their tours are very unique. In May, they will have a dark side tour and Fujoshi tour (what is fujoshi). Welcome American fujoshi to Japan!

Hmm strange, Tomoko Miyake is called a big eater idol. This is her site "big eater TV". You can see the big size foods that are called "challenge menu" in each shop. She could eat them....orz

Get Down meme

YATTA! We love ICHIRO!!! Thank you thank you thank you!

This is beautiful, Mt.Fuji :-) Maybe we can see such a view soon in Spring! (near Aokigahara ha ha.)

Brian sent me this CNET article "Tokyo Shift- Goldeneye game glitch turns into viral meme in Japan". As far as I check on YouTube, the meme seems to have started last year.

At first someone uploaded the bug movie of the Nintendo 64 game "Golden eye 007" to niconico or YouTube. The bug was when you remove half the game casette (we say "han nuki"), charactors turn around in crazy ways. Since the game was released in 1997, the guy used a song "promise" of Komi Hirose at BGM that was released in 1997 too. Here is the one.

Then after that, people made their own get down videos. I like the CNET picks, the horse one called "basic" and the Donald's one are good too. I like these good four.

Aokigahara

Do you know the most popular suicide location in the world? It's San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. And in the Golden Gate Bridge, people chose point 69.

And the next place is? It's Aokigahara in Japan, it's called a suicide forest. Today I found this article "Desperate Japanese head to 'suicide forest'" in CNN. Aokigahara is a famous forest near Mt.Fuji, basically it is a beautiful place for walking and camping. Since there a lot of guide boards and trails, it's no problem to go around. However if youdeviate from the trails, it will be hard to go back where you were. Many people believe that a compass doesn't work in Aokigahara because the forest is on lava, including the magnetic material of Mt.Fuji. But it's superstition, a compass can work there. So the important part is you should walk on trails and take a compass and map always.

But it is true many people decide to die there. The really scary thing is if you walk on non-trail parts, you may find a dead body easily. A person who wants to die will choose a place where nobody will come soon, but someone will find his dead body finally. This is a little bit old date though, they said in 2003, 100 dead bodies were found in Aokigahara. Some said Aokigahara became a suicide spot because of a book of bestselling suspense author Seicho Matsumoto. In his novel "A tower of wave" published in 1960, central characters committed suicide in Aokigahara. (Of his novels, I recommend "castle of sand" Here are some videos of Aokigahara on YouTube, some look shocking, watch out. (I can't open it, scary.)

In this wiki's world suicide spots list, there is no Aokiigahara. (I don't know why, because it's the no. 2 place). Except for Aokigahara, Chuo line in Tokyo and Tojinbo in Ishikawa are famous places for suicide.

world builder

This is very impressed short video "world builder".

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Japanese curry

I read this last year's article "Go Go Curry Brings Japan's Authentic Comfort Food to NYC". Have you ever been to Go Go curry? (Now I remember I picked "Go Go curry goes NY" in my blog too.) He loves Japanese curry so much! He will go crazy if Coco Ichban or C&C Curry Shop go to the U.S too. However it is very easy to cook Japanese curry, like this recipe, what you need it Japanese curry paste. And you will get it at a Japanese shop or Asian super market easily. There are no rules and you can arrange it by yourself. You can add some tofu, green onion, mushroom, apple or pine apple (such fruits can match too). However, because of that, the curry can be deep and different in each shop and home. For example, here are two videos, one is an American guy cooking Japanese curry and another is Japanese lady. Both look pretty good to me. How about my curry? I add chopped and well-cooked brown onion, I prefer chicken without skin as meat, I choose the hottest paste. The point is, curry gets more tasty the next day after cooking.

Anyway this article is interesting too: "Cooking Up a Gaming Revolution". Last year, Nintendo released Shaberu Oryori navi world version. It has over 300 recipes of the world, not only Japan. Maybe they will release an English version, I guess.

Good review for Japanese stuff

Motoi Yamamoto is a Japanese artist, his SALT series is made with white table salt. It's beautiful.

The T-shirt shop Ultra-Violence sells JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure T-shirts, check out the T-shirt page, it's very artistic.

    I enjoyed reading some foreign message board’s reviews about Japanese products. They talked about Japanese straight perms. I am not sure why they say that the Japanese perm is the best. What is the difference? This hair iron sold very well, it can make hair straight or curly without damaging it and can even makes your hair shiny! I want it!

This is the Mr. Bento (lunch box) page on Amazon, people praised this product very much in their reviews. That lunch box is almost the same price in Japan too. I use a slim type bento because it is easy to carry in my bag. Talking about bentos, because of the "chara-ben boom," there are a lot of chara-ben items available in online shops.

This is a writing pen, you can fill it with ketchup or nori tsukudani (seaweed paste) and draw something on rice. This and this are face punches, you can cut nori, cucumber, or sausage into a smiley face. There are an pan man molds, doraemon molds, and hello kitty molds. But recently, chara-ben have started to get more complex. The boom will be over soon, who can devote so much time into making such a bento in the morning!

Lastly, I will write about this forum. I was surprised to find that it is becoming common sense to take off your shoes before entering a house in North America. If I live in the US in the future, I will take off my shoes. I love having a clean floor so that I can lie down to watch TV on the floor :-)