watashi to tokyo

Cute pets from Japan

Cutting tuna is tough work and it became a kind of performance at the Ttukiji fish market.. Nifty Portal Z had this post today. She made a tuna cutting show using a handmade stuffed tuna, cute!

Two cute pets from Japan.

Neon Genesis evangelion's location

I don't have an iPhone, but I think I will buy one. If I buy one, I want this cute skin: "iPhone Gameboy skin." I will never use a deco skin!

Amazon did this (web translated)! When you search for a word in Google, relevant store ads show up at the top line sometimes, right? Amazon deleted this already, but when you search for “A-bomb test” in Google, there was an ad selling an A-bomb test on Amazon. Here is the fish print (In Japan, to “take a fish print” means to save a screenshot from the web to keep as evidence).

I wrote about Ghibli's movie locations before. Did you know that Neon Genesis Evangelion's locations are real too? Actually, it's not so far from where I am living. For example, episode 4 is the "Hedgehog's Dilemma," when Kenji left Nerv and tried to get on a train. The station was called “Shin Hakone Yumoto” and was based on the real Hakone Yumoto station. Here is the comparison between the anime frames and the real location. The funny thing is that Hakone created their own Eva map to promote the area. You can follow what happened in the story on a real Hakone map.

Japanese beverage maker Suntory is selling Pepsi in Japan. I don't know why, but as of two years ago, we have had limited edition Pepsi with "strange flavors." In 2007, it was cucumber. In 2008, it was Blue Hawaii. This year, it is "shiso." Shiso means Perilla in Japanese. We use it for sushi or as an herb for sashimi and soba. The red color of Umeboshi comes from red perilla leaves. It's a very good herb that’s used with many foods, so maybe it’d be good with Pepsi. :-p

TV ad of athlete's foot

I can't understand this at all but I can tell that it is a very interesting discovery. "Cicadas Primed for Defense."
Wired Japan has this article: "Fantasy Love Hotels." Ha ha ha! They are such strange places, I feel like they’re for really sick people!?

This is an ad for athlete's foot medication. Their pitch is that athlete's foot is very persistent.

On their official site, you can download the toenail (the toenail will follow your mouse cursor around) and see other strange ads too. Oh, how sick (pun intended!).?Though American people may not laugh, I think that this product is really weird too!?

Weird stuff in Yahoo!JAPAN shopping

This is Air New Zealand's ad "Air New Zealand’s staff has nothing to hide" and this is the behind the scenes video. :-)

Karoshi means "death from overwork." I’m familiar with the term because of this well-known flash game. They released a second one: "Super Karoshi." But like I wrote a few days ago, Japanese people think job stress is not so bad. But I agree with Jeff, Americans and Japanese people consider stress a normal part of life and Japanese people think that working overtime is normal too (though I don't think so, I only worked 8 hours of overtime in last month). But right now, some people want to work overtime but can’t because some companies are prohibiting overtime as a cost curtailment measure!

Do you know the PlayStation game Okami? This is a simple Okami game, this type of game is so addictive for me.

This is a DVD jacket making site, you can make your own version of "Dragon Ball" or "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

This was an interesting article: "A bouquet toss is insulting to single women" (web translated). The article says that single women feel uncomfortable attending a friend's wedding because of the bouquet toss, because that custom assumes that all single women want to marry and are envious of the bride. But it's not always the case and some women hate participating in the bouquet toss. However, it's really hard to refuse participating since it would ruin the good mood.

I enjoyed seeing this Top 10 Weirdest Amazon Stuff, though some of these items don’t seem so weird to me. So I tried searching on my own to find weird stuff on Yahoo! JAPAN shopping today.
Cherry Curry: Hmm… I don't need this pink colored curry. I wonder if the guy who is a big Japanese curry fan would like to try it.
Miso Ramen candy: I like sweet candy, and I like miso ramen, but I wouldn’t like miso ramen candy.
Supporter for sitting on heels: Of course when we sit that way, our legs would still feel like pins and needles even with that product.
Decoration items for deco den: My co-worker loves to make Deco den during the weekend. She said that it’s very little work but you get a very colorful result.
USB Bento warmer: This is good but I guess it would make you hungry because the lunchbox would emit aromas as it’s warmed.

Monster Hunter Viral ad

I don't know this anime but this was big news in Japan: Haruhi’s second season began without any notice. There wasn’t even any information about it on the TV program schedule page in the newspapers.

I can't tell what this language is in... Some singer's promotion site "Labuat." It's a very good flash site with an Asian mood. Check it out, you need flash 10 to view it.

These images are from this year's International Garden Photographer of the Year competition. A photograph of a Japanese autumn scene was picked, but they are all beautiful.

I wrote about chara-ben often. This is not a blog just about chara-ben, it's more creative. Her lunchbox was picked up in foreign magazine. Very cute.

I read that Monster Hunter made a viral ad. Maybe they mean this video. In the video, there are only Japanese people, but the location is not in Japan (I can tell from the panel and gate). At the end of the video, they show the URL for this site: "Encyclopedia Gigantica." This page wrote about it in this post .

Wow, the movie "Big Man Japan (Dai Nippon Jin)" directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto got good ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. It's much better than Angels and Demons. :-P Maybe people who are interested in Japanese culture watched it and gave it high ratings. In Japan, the movie had a bad reputation and I didn't watch it. Maybe I should check it out.

A guy asked nude in your PC

This guy returned to the US last February. He lived in Japan for 7 years and he has a lot of experience in Japanese culture. He is looking for a job and I hope he can get one. がんばれ Ken!

I wrote that for Japanese people, everything contains god, but that American people might think the same thing. This time, Jesus was in a cheese snack, he appeared in a Kit Kat, pancake, baby scan and even in such a place! :-) cute.

The swine flu has spread to Japan too. I feel that Japanese people tend to overreact to this kind of thing. Actually, on various shopping site's best seller rankings, there are only face masks. This phenomenon reminds me of the SARS outbreak in China a few years ago. Chinese people were full of ideas for protection though.

Look at this site, that is a ukiyoe by my favorite ukiyoe artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi. To make that Ukiyoe with real women, a guy asked people to send him nude photos that they have... and then people actually reacted very well. Ha ha ha crazy.

By the way, when you buy Japanese antiques, you should choose a trustworthy shop. This shop Uragami Sokyu-do looks very good and they have English instructions so you can download nice HOKUSAI ukiyoe blog parts.

Did you read this news? "Team ICO's Project Trico Trailer Leaked" The trailer was pretty good, check it out.

 

 

boys ranch had closed

The real size Gundam is under construction. We can see its bone structure now.

This year, the word "Konkatsu" is hot, it means “marriage partner hunting.” We have the TV drama "Kontatsu," but the drama was made because of the current Konkatsu boom people in their 30’s and 40’s who can't find a partner although they want to have one. Last week, we had this strange news: a cyber agent (internet company) started a cell phone site named "boys ranch." On the site, women who registered introduced their male friends to each other. The problem was the way that these women categorized each guy as soushoku kei or nikushoku kei (herbivorous or carnivorous type), poor or rich, handsome or not, and you can see the result as a cow on a mapping of the ranch. One week after they launched the site, cyber agent had to close the site because guys complained "are we farm animals?" ...That is so true. Stupid service.

Shobu means "victory or defeat" or "contest." We use the word to describe special clothes or underwear like Shobu shitagi (victory underwear), Shobu fuku (victory clothes) or Shobu coordinate (victory fashion). It means that you wear such clothes for a special occasion like spending a night together or going on a first date. By the way, I laughed when I saw this site. For that guy, those silver eyeglasses and loose gray sweater with the emblem are his shobu clothes, which he always wore at important events. However, people told him that his outfit is so DASAI (uncool) but he couldn’t believe it, so he let his friends wear his shobu clothes and judge. Then, he realized that those clothes destroyed everything, they made even fashionable-looking guys look like creepy underwear bandits... ha ha ha! But it's a good idea to test out your fashion sense. Actually, I don't know how to judge whether my clothes are okay or not by myself, because I believe they are good.

According to the OECD Research Society’s "At a Glance 2009," Swedes have the highest percentage of people who think their jobs are stressful, followed by Korea, France, the UK, Norway, and Canada. The US is #12 and Japan comes in at #16 between Portugal and Spain. Here is an interesting article (web translated). In answer to the question "Do you come home from work exhausted?" 93.8% of Hungarians said yes compared to 92.5% of French, 90.1% of Australians, 85.3% of Americans and 73.6% of Japanese who said yes (Japanese had the lowest level found in this research). I don't know, when I consider the high rate of suicide, I think that our society is stressful, but for most regular workers, jobs may be easy and not stressful? When you hear news that foreign affiliate companies are in tough situations and have tight competition, it might be possible. Actually I am not usually exhausted when I got home. Jobs are stressful but it's not so bad now. Or it may possible that Japanese people have good patience. What do you think?

macho pikachu?

The biggest advertising award in the world is the Cannes Lions Advertiser of the Year Award. I remember when UNIQLO won the Grand Prix last year with this UNIQLO clock ad that was a fusion of dance video routines,time signal music and a clock utility. Another big ad award is the Clio Awards and a Japanese beauty salon won the gold award this year. This is it. What asilly ad...

I take one hour to clean up my house on Saturday morning and cleaning the dust off the floor takes the longest time. I wonder where the dust comes from because nobody is in my house during the day on weekdays. Since I like cleaning, I don't mind doing it though this Panasonic wiping cleaner seems helpful, though the way it moves is a little bit creepy. Fukirotimushi means “wiping worm.”

I watch more than 5 movies in a week. Last night, I saw Kamome shokudo (Kamome diner). It's rare that I watch Japanese movies, but the movie was okay except for the first monologue about a cat. My friends said that I’m similar to the actress Satomi Kobayashi. Not in the face, but in that I have the same kind of funny air about me. Yes, maybe... Actually, I like her comedy "Tenkosei (I Are You, You Am Me On )" the most. Story is about two teenagers, Kazuo and Kazumi, who fall down a long flight of stone steps from a hilltop shrine. While unconscious, their bodies are mysteriously exchanged. Upon regaining their consciousness, they develop affectionate feelings for each other.

This was funny: an interview with the president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata(web translated). He said when he brought Pokemon to the US, American people said that such cute things couldn't be called “monsters,” and they sent Nintendo a sample of muscular monsters and wrote "monsters should be like this." Ha ha ha… That was why some Japanese game characters were changed into such tough guy types.

Japanese car parking

I really appreciate this news: "Nobel Peace winners issue declaration." I support Obama and I hope we can make it (Yes we can!). I found this video shocking: "Atomic Shock Wave." A hundred kilometers away, an atomic shock wave is felt just as the blast ignites. Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered atomic bomb attacks and 250,000 people died, but beyond the bombed area, there were a-bomb victims and a-bomb solders who got sick from the nuclear bomb testing. There were far-reaching effects even 1000 km away, I read. 100 km was not far enough at all.

Did you read this? Australian SETI-Astronomers detect unknown signal! It's CONTACT!

I really love this topic! I was surprised to see this when I came to Japan (sorry web translated). I agree that we decided many things through rock-paper-scissors. Yes, nobody sings or even talks loudly on a train because we think it's rude. My favorite is this: a TV show reporter scooped up a fish from a preserve and said "Wow, it's fresh! Looks delicious!" I think it’s supposed to be like that. Oh, I laughed at this too: "Pushing the crowd of people aside while firing karate chops in a crowd. It's Moses!"
Anyways, here are some videos of Japanese car parking taken by foreign travelers. Car parking may be interesting to foreign people.

This page said the same thing too. Since we have a law that says that we can't buy a car without having a parking space, people find small parking spaces and develop a super technique for parking like this, this, and this. We also had some ideas to help drivers.

kusoge (kuso game)

I added another odd animal to my animal folder today. "Four foot jellyfish found on British beach". Wow, big...

We call low quality games "Kusoge (Kuso game)", we have a kusoge page on wikipedia. Last year, perfect closer was hot as a new super kusoge, do you remember? The pitcher was totally exorcist. As an old game, transformer convoy was a famous kusoge, nobody can survive more than 30 seconds first (because the enemy's shot is too small and almost invisible!). And the worldwide well known kusoge would be Big Rigs, I guess. There are a lot of comments to the video of Big Rigs on YouTube. When you check kusoge or クソゲー, you will see more videos on YouTube. Check them out.

Then today I read a post about a new online kusoge "QWOP". It's a simple game where you run 100m by using "QWOP" keys of the keyboard. However, nobody can run. Actually I could run -0.3m!

Here are somebody's trials, you will know how kuso (sh*t) game it is. I made worse than this though.

However always there is some genius, somebody could run 100m without stopping! Good job (but I guess he wasted a lot of time of his life to clear that kusoge. he he he