watashi to tokyo

Nujabes, a Japanese DJ dead

Nujabes is a Japanese hip-hop and jazz musician, DJ, and producer. He passed away at the young age of 36, in a car accident in Tokyo. Nujabes created buzz about the Japanese club music scene and paved the way for many other artists in the world. He was one of the most prolific contributors to the background music and soundtracks of Samurai Champloo, an anime which blends a feudal Japan setting with modern anachronisms, especially in regards to hip hop culture.

future man....

This is a hilarious post: "Italian politicians drop trousers in budget protest." I hope Japanese politicians adopt such humor. In Japan, the governor of the Miyazaki prefecture, Kunio Higashikokubaru, used to be a comedian and was a member of Takeshi Kitano's comedy team. He may be a future candidate for prime minister, but since we knew him as a funny man, it's a strange feeling.

JT will release a new smokeless tobacco product, "Zerostyle Mint," which contains refillable cartridges of tobacco leaves that are inserted into the pipe, with zero tar and a less nicotine. I am not sure if smokers can enjoy this instead of regular tobacco.

future man....

radiko.jp open

Japanese radio portal site "radiko.jp" launched today, you can listen to Japanese FM and AM radio stations there.

I love this type of silly post: "please make him cool!!"

Love cub 50 project started the third and last auction, this time Honda's customized cub will be a popular one, it cost 3 million yen to customize it. No. 2 is this Johannes Krauser II model from Detroit Metal City.

This is the Honda's customized one

This Johannes Krauser II model from Detroit Metal City

beautiful music video

This is very interesting art work. People look like a drawing. Can you believe it? it's real human being.

OK Go's music video, "This Too Shall Pass" is hot on the Interenet last week in Japan, their music video is always great and the most well known one is running machine , which got a video award on YouTube.

In Japan, this video got a music award on Youtube last year. I wrote before

And personally I like this one very much, it's very simple but very impressive and beautiful. I picked this one long time ago too.

Good ads

UNICLO will release "Japan Manga + anime" series. Here is a page, I can't find them in foreign site, so maybe only in Japan or later. I like this Doragon Ball one, it looks Chinese design first but you can gind Goku. And I like the Devil man one, very cool design.

Kirsten Dunst Akihabara Mojokko Princess Video. What the purpose of this for her? She just like cosplay?

This is the best news I read on the Internet today. "Midnight Knitter' Wanted In NJ Shore Town"

This is interesting advertisement. IKEA set thier chair in subway station.

Here is another ad topic, Salsa sauce ad movie, it's no different when you watch it here in my site.

But when you watch the ad on vimeo site, it's compeletely different. Look at this.

Chinese homeless back to home and....

TOYOTA's great ad, it reminds me of Honda's one.

 

This homeless guy became a fashion icon in China, and became a hot topic in Japan too, but today people are a little bit disappointed to see these new photos that show his new shave and haircut... oh oh.

By the way, I am really impressed by how big China is as a country: so many people, so many things happening. Here is a grandma, aged 101, with a mystery horn. And here is a four month old baby with a tail.

Ahhh, this looks yummy. "Love Sweets Antique" is a cake shop in the Nagoya area which released a "Toro nama donut" (melt raw donut). It's called a donut, but it's really fruit jelly on sponge cake. The name was is inspired by the way it melts in your mouth when you eat it.

Tomica 40th anniversary and crazy animation

Tomica is a series of miniature cars created by Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy. They have been releasing Tomica cars for over 40 years (since 1970) and they are a big collector's item throughout the world. On their official site, you can check out some of their collections. Wow, good old Honda City Turbo! This year, Tomy has released a 40 year anniversary platinum Nissan Fairlady Z. The packaging is also made of platinum, and it all costs 7 million yen. Tomy says that they will release more premium cars in this anniversary year. Wow, what is next?

Mr Ando of the Woods" is a kind of animation made by Takeshi Taniguchi. I read that this animation became hot on YouTube recently, but it was originally released 4 years ago in this open Art TV. (I guess) I don't know what I can say, but I enjoyed reading people's reactions in the comments. I like this "what did i just watch? a metaphor of? yourself." ha ha ha ha

Another video that I enjoyed reading the comments section of is this Satsugai song from "Detroit Metal City." Satsugai means "kill," ha ha ha it's a pretty crazy joke.

Chinese homeless is hot topic on Tokyo too

A Bathing Ape is a clothing company founded by Nigo and it's a typical Urahara shop (but different from the Urahara shop in Bleach, but I guess Bleach made it the same name on purpose). We can buy Ape limited edition T-shirts at the online shop. This one is with Kid Cudi, this is Edvard Munch and this is a collaboration T-shirt with Nintendo.

Have you seen this news? I read that a handsome homeless guy is generating buzz in China. Here is another article. We can read about him in Japan too, someone is loading updates almost everyday. Today, we learned that he was in the military before and that public services tried to help him, but he refused them and hoped that they would leave him alone. By the way, I laughed when looking at this, expensive fashion doesn't mean anything, being good-looking is more important and actually his fashion sense was not so bad. :-) But the funny part is that he wears women's clothing too. Maybe it's his taste, or maybe he just doesn't have summer clothes, we don't know.

Studio crocodile is an animation studio that makes animations with a unique mood. This is their Nissan TV ad and this is the Heidi version. This is a collaboration with Fist of the North Star. I think their style is similar to South Park. Last month, they released a Disney version, it's very cute.

Honda Love Cub 50 project

The Honda Super Cub is a small but powerful 49cc motorbike that was first manufactured by the Honda company in 1958. With more than 60 million sold worldwide, it is the best selling vehicle of all time. The Cub is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year so Honda created this love cub 50 project. 61 celebs designed their original cub and are selling them in auctions. Now, the first 20 sets are on Yahoo! Auctions. This is the Ultraman design one.

This is F1 driver Jenson Button's design.

The new 800 type Shinkansen will begin running in Kyushu. The train was carried by a trailer from the Kawauchi port. It took a long time to carry such big train through the narrow road.

Jason-san make Big Daddy from Bioshock2, using only a chainsaw! Look at this video. Wow, cool!

kimokawaii?

Something that looks cute/pretty but also weird and grotesque is said to be "kimo kawaii" in Japanese slang. "Kimo" (from "Kimochi warui") means disgusting and "kawaii" means cute or pretty. For example, this coin bank, "Face Bank," eats coin when you put them in his mouth. It is kimo kawaii.

Sento-kun was another kimo kawaii character. People complained when Nara released him as their city mascot, and some started an "am-Sento-kun" campaign. However, we're used to him now. Actually, there's a Japanese saying that says "ones gets bored of beauty in three days and one gets used to ugly in three days." Now we have a new kimo kawaii character: Kobito Dukan (the dwarf encyclopedia). It's for kids: a little boy observes dwarves with a guidebook that his grandpa wrote. Here is trailer of the DVD.

At the official website, they sell some dwarf items and also a Kabaya-released "shokugan" (candy with toys). You can find them here. Hmm... weird.