Yo-yo champion Hiroyuki Suzuki showing off some of his techniques:

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A short clip showing the interior of Joshoin Temple in Shizuoka Prefecture, where the 223 local men who died in the Russo-Japanese War are memorialized in the form of wooden dolls:

More information about the temple and a few more photos can be found here and here (in Japanese).

[The video clip in this post is from NHK's "Japan Debut" documentary series. The documentaries have really angered some right wing groups, but I have found them to be some of the best NHK programs I've ever seen.]

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Radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd will be using Earthrace, a futuristic-looking biofueled boat, in its violent activism against Japanese whalers:

“It looks like a spaceship. It can do 40 knots and dive under waves completely. We’ll be using it to intercept and block harpoons.”

In 61 days last year Earthrace circled the globe fuelled by biodiesel. The New Zealand owner/skipper, Pete Bethune, said he decided to become involved because “this is happening in my backyard and it really pisses me off. I’m going to make a stand.”

He said he was adding half a tonne of Kevlar to the vessel to toughen it against the ice. It had the endurance to go half way round the world on a tank of fuel.

“They won’t get away from me,” he said.

Earthrace’s role was unveiled as the International Whaling Commission heard that Sea Shepherd’s protests endangered the lives of whalers in the Southern Ocean last summer when the Steve Irwin was involved in two collisions.

The second season of “Whale Wars,” a reality TV show that serves as a PR engine for Sea Shepherd’s activities, is currently airing on the Animal Planet channel.

[via JapanSoc]

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Genius chimpanzee Pan-kun was taught how to eat various foods on last night’s episode of “Shimura Zoo”:

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“Nanikore Chin Hakkei” discovers a toilet that makes a human-like sighing sound after it is flushed:

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Amy Odell of NY Mag reports that Uniqlo owner Tadashi Yanai might buy the Gap:

Yanai is trying to turn Fast Retailing into the biggest clothing manufacturer and retailer in the world. The easiest way for him to do this by targeting the U.S. market is not to open a million new Uniqlo stores — that would be too much of a pain. So he plans to take a shortcut and simply buy a large chain. Insiders speculate that Gap is that chain.

[hat tip to Marxy]

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• Matt Alt: “Surprisingly drinkable.”
• Curzon: “I LOVE the new soft drink.”
• Iwakan – “This was rockin’ good.”
• Claytonian – “Not bad.”
• Kumaboshi – “It’s actually not bad, and does smell and taste (at least at first) like shiso.”

Negative Reviews

• Gaijin Tonic – “While it might be refreshing on a humid summer’s day, there’s no escaping the fact that it tastes like mouthwash.”
• Tokyo Five: “unappealing” & “mediocre”
• Rinkya – “Medicine taste, but makes you feel worse.”
• Hikan Ninja – “tastes like a mild mouthwash.”
• Adventures in Japanland – “Whoever decided to make SHISO into a Pepsi flavor needs to be pushed off a bridge.”

My verdict: It tastes like shiso and it is not terrible. Good to try once for the odd flavor experience, but other soft drinks are far more tasty and refreshing.

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MinnPost has a very interesting article up about how a Benedictine monastery in Japan was able to thrive after Japanizing the lifestyle of its monks:

To outsiders, this may seem obvious. In fact, it was obvious to insiders, too. But it’s one thing to suggest that a culture needs to change, and another matter altogether to actually change it. Nonetheless, last year — with great effort, and after much discussion — the monks at Trinity made the decision to shift the monastery’s culture — especially in the dining room (second in importance to the chapel — which had benefited from a Japanese liturgy for years. Japanese cuisine became a more regular facet of the Trinity dining experience; chopsticks began to appear at the common tables and, most significantly, conversations were translated from Japanese into English, and not — as had long been the practice — from English into Japanese.

Father Edward Vebelun, 41, a still boyish native of Ohio who was trained as a priest in a Japanese seminary, describes the transition as a revelation. “From there, the flood gates really opened for us.”

Read the rest of the article here.

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Michael Jackson is dead, and Japanese fans have reacted with sorrow. And, for some reason, Japanese politicians have also felt the need to talk about the King of Pop:

“He was a superstar. He was a singer who made his presence felt,” said Prime Minister Taro Aso, who remembered first seeing the pop icon as a tap-dancing child in the Jackson Five in the mid-1960s.
[...]
“I feel sad as I had watched him since he was a member of Jackson Five,” Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Tsutomu Sato, 57, told reporters.

“With a lot of popular songs, he built a generation,” said Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada, 53.

Top government spokesman Takeo Kawamura hurried to retract potentially controversial remarks about the late pop icon, who he said did not appear to be black because of his pale skin.

“I didn’t get the impression that he was a black man because his face was all white,” Kawamura told reporters, recalling his meeting with the singer in 1998 at the inauguration ceremony of then South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung.

He later withdrew the remark, saying he had not intended to cause offence.

Wakita Inc in Japan, a company that sells Michael Jackson suits in Japan, has also posted a message of sorrow on its website.

[hat tip to Aceface]

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Last night, a task force of some 220 police and immigration officers descended upon the Roppongi area of Tokyo, tightening their crackdown on illegal activities by foreigners in that neighborhood [the area, known for its overly-aggressive street touts and shady bars, was recently mentioning in a safety warning from the US embassy]:

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The media has reported that a recent round of “random” drug tests conducted by the Japan Sumo Association found that no wrestlers had been using illegal substances. It’s really no surprise, considering the advance warning given to everyone who was tested:

The JSA plans to continue the random tests until all members of the association have been examined.

Each stable has been warned of the procedure two days in advance, throwing into question the stringency of the so-called random test.

The term being used to describe the tests in Japanese is 抜き打ち検査, or “test without warning.”

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You’ve gotta love the dramatic way TBS News filmed this report about an alligator snapping turtle that was caught in Kanagawa Prefecture:

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The Colonel Sanders statue that was fished out of the Dotombori River in March has been exorcised:

“The curse is completely broken,” chief priest Tsunetada Mayumi said at Sumiyoshi Shrine in Osaka, home to the Hanshin Tigers, after reciting a prayer in front of a life-sized doll of the bearded, bespectacled colonel.

The statue of the KFC founder was raised from the sludge of a canal in Osaka in March, 24 years after it was tossed there by overexcited supporters when the Tigers won the national championship for the first time.

“It is destined to become a saviour for the slumping Hanshin Tigers,” the priest, an 86-year-old devout Tigers fan, told reporters at the 1,800-year-old shrine.

The rite was held during the fast food chain’s annual service to give thanks to the chickens it has served up.

I wonder if the KFC restaurants in America hold rites to honor the spirits of the chickens they fry?

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NTV’s “Real Time News” went through a lot of trouble yesterday to show that two piece umbrella holders are safer than umbrella holders that only secure one part of an umbrella:

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Meet KOBIAN, a creepy new Japanese robot that show “emotions” with its face:

The robot is installed with 48 “actuators” which allow its face and body to move in a variety of ways.

It shows happiness by opening its eyes and mouth wide and raising its arms, and sorrow by drooping its head and covering its eyes.

The robot’s hands are covered with a soft material which is supposed to replicate the feeling of a human hand.

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Behold, the newest edition of the Shimajiro toilet training cartoon for Japanese children [translated by Benjamin of Benz Babbles blog]:

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For some people, including this post’s sad-sack of an author, singing in a foreign language is easy compared to actually speaking it. It’s an interesting phenomenon. So my heart goes out to this Canadian who is working hard to become a J-pop idol.

Catherine St-Onge, stage name HIMEKA, is an incredibly good singer of Japanese songs. So much so that she recently won an Animax contest. Here is the subtitled footage:

And here is the theme song she was given the opportunity to sing as a reward for winning the contest:

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On May 21st, a park in Tokyo installed a “mosquito” noisemaker to drive away teenagers and prevent vandalism. The rare device drew some tourists to the area, but it failed to stop vandals from smashing a toilet:

The broken toilet, which was discovered on the morning of June 21, appears to have been smashed with a baseball bat. Spent bottle rockets were also found at the site.

Surveillance camera footage showed what appeared to be as many as seven teenagers hanging out in the park in the early morning hours of June 21, while the Mosquito was in operation. Authorities were unable to determine whether the teens in the video were responsible for the vandalism.

The park official shown in the video clip claims that the mosquito device, which was installed near the entrance to the men’s bathroom, may not have had the range to effectively stop vandals from hitting the women’s bathroom. He says that other security measures, such as neighborhood patrols, must also be used to protect the area.

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A car tree in Ageo, Saitama:

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Reporters for Fuji TV ask North Koreans if they know about the decision to make Kim Jong-un successor to the DPRK regime:

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Some video from TBS news showing a stray dog that squeezed through some fencing and ran around the runways of Osaka International Airport:

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Danny Choo reports that the website of Minori, a Japanese company that produces erotic computer games (”eroge”), has blocked foreign access to its website with the following message:

The decision is probably influenced in no small part by the fact that international outrage recently made the Japanese media discover the existence of certain pornographic games, leading Japanese software makers to ban the creation of rape games. There may also be a slight connection to the case of an American man being arrested and convicted of possessing child pornography because he owned seven sexually explicit Japanese comic books.

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A line about foreign cars in Japan from an article by Slate’s Daniel Gross about how those wacky anti-foreign Japanese somehow love foreign food:

On the 80-minute ride from Narita Airport to Tokyo, I tried in vain to spot an imported car on the road.

It’s hard to see this statement as anything other than a deliberate lie. If one was indeed trying to spot imported cars on a Japanese road, it should not have taken very long to do so – European cars are everywhere in Japan. Volkswagens, BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, Audis, Volvos, and Renault cars are so visible in Japan that it would be downright impossible for someone to miss them.

[hat tip to Joe]

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A Fuji TV morning news program gives us a peek at Prime Minister Aso charming “large” crowds:

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Morisanchu returns to Turkey to give a repeat performance of their horrible belly dance routine:

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An examination of some roadkill has confirmed the presence of a wild mongoose in Kyushu:

Photos posted on the internet and eyewitness accounts point towards the conclusion that there could be more wild mongooses in the Kagoshima area.

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An “eco” convenience store has opened inside Kyoto’s city hall building:

[A note to our American readers: Convenience stores in Japan do not usually sell drinks that customers can fill themselves. There are no Big Gulps or Slurpees at Seven Eleven in Japan.]

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A few months ago, it was announced that fitness guru Billy Blanks had married a Japanese woman. Here’s a video of their wedding ceremony, which was held several days ago in Osaka:

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Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has instructed Seven Eleven to halt its practice of banning franchise stores from discounting aging food (great news for those of us who would like to pay less for our bentos):

The FTC said the nation’s biggest convenience store chain had unfairly hindered the franchises from selling bento boxed lunches and other food products at lower prices when they were close to their expiration dates.

Under normal practice at Seven-Eleven Japan outlets, franchises have to incur the cost of items not sold.

Some franchises had tried to cut prices to reduce losses–as they are legally entitled to do–but FTC officials said Seven-Eleven Japan had put pressure on them not to. The FTC said the company had even threatened to terminate franchise agreements as a way of bullying the outlets, often run as small businesses, to comply.

Monday’s decision is likely to have a bearing on other convenience store chains, many of which use similar practices to stop discounting, analysts said.

In the above video clip, a franchise that has been engaging in the practice is shown. According to the franchise owners’ books, the revenue from sales has gone up and the cost of old bento disposal has gone down since the change. The owner had received threats from Seven Eleven, who told him they would not allow him to renew his contract because they “don’t need people who sell products at a loss.”

Seven Eleven has announced that it will now shoulder 15% of disposal costs for unsold items, which may be an attempt to convince some franchises that they should continue not discounting old bentos.

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A limousine company has revealed its plan to create hybrid hearses using the Toyota Prius as a base:

They will cost about 7.8 million yen ($80,000) each – Let the “eco” funeral boom begin!

[hat tip to fukumimi]

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Memorial services were held in Okinawa today to mark a special date:

On June 23, 1945, organized fighting by the Japanese military in Okinawa ended after nearly three months of fierce battles which turned the area into a grueling battlefield in the final phase of the Pacific War.

Survivors and families of the war victims gathered at the Peace Memorial Park, located in Mabuni hill in the city of Itoman, to remember the fallen who lost their lives during the battle.

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