A farm in Hokkaido has created pyramid-shaped watermelons:

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A Japanese news program recently featured some pretty damn neat works of wiener art:

Her wiener animals are perfect for moms looking to make cute bento lunches for their kids, so Soejima’s area of the store is very popular.

Here are some screen captures of some of the coolest wiener animals (pigs, koalas, otters, sunflowers, a snail, and a little mouse driving a car):

In the video clip, you can also see some rabbits, beetles, and a few other wiener creatures.

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The trailer for Tengu, a new movie by Swiss filmmaker Roger Walch:

David (Ted Taylor) comes to Japan for one week to study traditional legends. He is supposed to meet Professor Ozawa, a leading expert in the field. But when he arrives, he gets picked up by Ozawa’s two female assistants, Sanae (Mimori Sento) and Manami (Sakiko Ikegami). They bring him to a traditional guest-house and accompany him during his stay. A strange man in the bath house (Kan Mikami) tells David about the local Tengu legend. Tengu are a class of well known monster-spirits with a long nose and a red face who live in the Japanese forests and mountains. David is immediately fascinated. But the more he finds out about the Tengu, the more he is drawn into his own past-life.

Walch informs us that the film will be screening next Thursday (July 23rd) at Cinema Skhole in Nagoya at 19:00.

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The BBC reports on how Japanese love hotels are still doing well during the economic downturn:

Foreign correspondents in Japan sure do seem lazy! This report is a recycled version of reports already made by Reuters and CNN. Like both of those news outlets, the BBC talks to Steve Mansfield, a hotel owner who feeds them PR about the great condition of his hotels and his company. It is unclear just how much this industry is “booming,” but you can be sure that these news reports are helping Mr. Mansfield find lots of investors.

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The LA Times has an article up about former defector to North Korea Charles Robert Jenkins, reporting on his life at a souvenir shop on Sado Island:

“Jenkins-san!” shout two dozen tourists lined up to meet this diminutive man with jug-handle ears, a 69-year-old American who speaks only a few words of their native tongue.

With a weary smile, Jenkins poses for a frenzy of snapshots, awkwardly holding a box of specialty cookies. Everyone wants a piece of him, pressing in close to shake his hand and ask him to sign their souvenir snacks.

“One day I counted 300 pictures in the first hour alone,” Jenkins recalls in the easy cadence of his native North Carolina. “Then I just gave up counting.”

His quote in the article about still fearing that North Korean spies might come and kill him has been reported by the Japanese media.

For more information on Jenkin’s life, check out his autobiography: The Reluctant Communist.

[The photo in this post comes from a Japanese blogger writing about a trip to Sado Island. The Jenkins-san photo is presented along with other typical tourist pics.]

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The 70-year-old woman has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for stealing a 98 yen plastic eraser. She was a repeat offender, so she must go to jail:

Presiding Judge Satoshi Miyamoto said the woman had a previous record of shoplifting and other offenses, and the nature of her crime “reflected her experience.”

He accepted the amount in question was negligible, but said the woman could not avoid prison. The woman was released from prison in January and has been living alone on welfare.

It’s common for petty criminals to receive suspended prison sentences in Japan, but I guess this woman never learned her lesson and needs to do some time in the slammer. Sometimes, even serious criminals get off with no prison time, such as : an executive who knowingly built and sold buildings that did not meet earthquake safety standards, a manager whose negligence of sanitation caused six people to die, a music producer who swindled investors out of 500 million yen, and a human trafficker who forced women into prostitution.

[via JapanSoc]

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A Fuji TV news report about Adamo-chan singing and dancing with some little children to promote the new release of a song:

The existence of Japanese comedians who put on make-up to imitate the physical features of other races is a sensitive one for non-Japanese, so I’ve included a poll to see what this site’s readership thinks of Adamo-chan:

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Competitions for firefighters are common in Japan–perhaps more so (?) in rural areas like the Kiso Valley where I live.  Teams of firefighters run and scream and make very much like army soldiers, then pump some water, knock down a sign, and roll up their hose.  It’s all quite impressive, in a rather boring sort of way.

My village, Otaki, has no professional firefighters, only volunteers.  But, I’ll be damned if these guys aren’t dedicated.  They practiced every night for about a month to prepare for the competition.  The goal, apparently, is to place 2nd.  Placing 1st means securing a spot in the prefectural competition . . . which means securing another month of practicing.

This year my own wee village of Otaki placed 1st in the Kiso Valley competition–even though they had done what they felt was a 2nd place performance.  Anyway, congratulations . . . I guess.  Have fun practicing and good luck at the prefecture competition.

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One of the top stories on the news yesterday was Ichiro Suzuki’s meeting with President Barack Obama in the locker room at the All-Star Game:

When the president came up to Ichiro Suzuki, or just Ichiro as the Japanese like to call him, Ichiro told reporters that he had planned to casually say “What’s up?” However, once face-to-face with the Barrack, Ichiro lost his nerve and was unable to say much more than something like, “It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” he admitted.

Despite his nervousness, and disappointment from missing his chance to gingerly greet the President, Ichiro was able to get his signature on a baseball.

He’s not used to such formalities, and says it was the first time that he called somebody “sir.” The players had been told they couldn’t get autographs from the President, but Ichiro got one because Obama offered him one.

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The 1:1 scale Gundam mobile suit officially went on display in the Odaiba area of Tokyo over the weekend, and the “Mezamashi TV” morning news show was there to interview some fans (this video has partially translated into English):

• a cosplayer couple
• a little kid dressed like Char
• a dude who built his own Zaku
• Gundam-obsessed photographers
• a hotel room with a perfect view of the giant mobile suit

And in case you missed it, here’s a high quality video of the giant Gundam from the Asahi Shimbun:

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When railway otaku are taking pictures of a special train, they absolutely hate people who block their camera shots. Don’t believe me? Just watch this clip of one poor Japan Rail employee facing the anger of railfans:

[via Zaeega]

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If you thought last year’s record $900 price for the first bunch of “Ruby Roma” premium grapes was ridiculous, your stomach may turn upon hearing that this year’s first bunch was auctioned off for an astounding 210,000 yen ($2,250)!

Here is a video of the grapes (which are about $70 each, if you do the math):

The other bunches of grapes in the batch sold for an average price of 71,000 yen ($760) each.

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Junichiro Koizumi and Taro Aso impersonators from political comedy group the newspaper make some jokes at a “speech” they gave in Tokyo:

• A joke is made about how Aso’s accidental prediction of a “close defeat” actually turned out to be a big defeat in the Tokyo elections.
• Koizumi makes a pun about the general election being a choice between a feelgood candidate from a well-to-do family and a candidate that can’t read kanji from a well-to-do family. (kanji 「感じ」 = feeling)
• Apparently Prime Minister Aso recently mistakenly said “Bush” when referring to President Obama – does that mean he can’t katakana either?
• When kids at school can’t read kanji, they are now being called “Taro.” That means the Prime Minister is sort of popular!

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A pair of swallows somehow built a nest inside the kitchen of a home in Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture, and the owners of the house have decided not to disturb it:

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A man has died after a boulder rolled down Mt. Fuji and crushed his campervan:

The boulder, about a meter in diameter, reportedly hit the campervan shortly after 10 p.m. on Monday, crashing through the vehicle’s roof.

The accident occurred at the highest parking lot on the Shizuoka side of Mount Fuji, located at an altitude of approximately 2,400 meters. The trails between the ninth station and the mountain’s summit were closed due to remaining snow, but were reopened at midnight on Tuesday.

NTV’s “Real Time News” considered this story so important that they built a fake rock:

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On Sunday night’s episode of “Itte Q,” weird reporter Imoto was sent to India so she could experience the “world’s most crowded train”:

Note: Yes, she painted those stupid eyebrows on. They are part of her character.

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That seems to be the conclusion of this report from “Mezamashi TV,” which tested the ability of pachinko parlor customers to notice fire alarms and warnings from staff:

Such factors no doubt played a role in the recent case of an Osaka pachinko parlor fire that killed four and injured 19.

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A Japanese parody of the Scatman John’s “Scatman” song, starring Ultraman:

[via Tokyo Five]

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A British man has sold a piece of burned roof tile from a temple in Hiroshima that was damaged by the atomic bomb:

John Watts, 81, said he had been given the roof tile by the priest of Sairenji Temple when he visited Hiroshima in 1952.

“I’m 81 now, single, and nobody from my family seems to want it,” Watts said last week when contacted in his Lincoln home. “Somebody might like it as a memento, and I didn’t want to throw it away.”

When news broke about his plan to auction the roof tile, there was a negative reaction from groups in Hiroshima who thought it was “not something you should sell or buy.” The tile ended up selling for only 42 pounds, but Watts plans to give a 200 pound donation to support groups for A-bomb survivors.

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Atsugi City in Kanagawa Prefecture has got itself a leech problem! Here’s a partially-translated news report about the leech invasion (with lots of dramatic music):

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And they’re using awkward English to tell you so:

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Former Kamen Rider Hiroshi Fujioka travels to Okinawa to eat some spider pizza:

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On last night’s episode of “Shimura Zoo,” genius chimpanzee Pan-kun learned how to skateboard:

Not bad, but not nearly as cool as when he learned how to drive a Segway.

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A commercial for Seiyu (Japanese Walmart) shows that the prices are so good that you’re bound to run into all your friends there (including a foreign dude):

More explanation from Mark:

Just showed my wife and she immediately understood it, and then explained it to me. You have representatives from all the electronics shops – Kojima Denki, Yamada Denki, Bic Camera and Takata (from the TV shopping channel) – so they’re saying that even people from those stores go to Seiyu as the prices are so cheap.

Because “Bic” isn’t a Japanese name, Bic-san had to be a foreigner.

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The BBC reports that Japanese tourists have come out on top of a “World’s Best Tourists” ranking:

The study by travel company Expedia asked 4,500 hotels worldwide to rank tourists on their behaviour.

Japanese tourists – seen as clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining – came top for the third year running.

French travellers made amends on elegance – classed third – as well as for their discretion and cleanliness.

France, Spain, and Greece were named the countries with the worst tourists.

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Female students at a high school in Fukui participate in a screaming contest:

The report doesn’t mention anyone being named the winner of the contest, but their teacher does a pretty good job of loudly shouting an insult at the guy.

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An apartment complex in Osaka is dealing with an invasion of alien escargot snails (cue the dramatic music, TBS news):

“They are resistant to dry conditions and can be active during winter, so it is feared they could spread further to other areas,” Nakai said.

The conservation society will hold a lecture for local residents Sunday on how to differentiate between garden snails and domestic species, which can be difficult for ordinary people, and how to eradicate the alien species.

Included at the end of the clip is some footage of a mongoose that was captured in a trap in Kagoshima prefecture. (As noted in an earlier post, two other mongooses have already been captured by such traps.)

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A new rule regarding tourist visas went into effect this week, allowing Chinese individuals to visit Japan:

Since 2000, tourist visas were issued to Chinese who came in tour groups, but now Chinese from certain cities who make at least 250,000 yuan a year will be allowed to visit by themselves. The income requirement is probably meant to allow rich Chinese to freely come to Japan and spend their money while restricting access to poorer individuals who might be tempted to overstay their visas and illegally settle in Japan.

A Japanese language article from Record China notes that some Japanese netizens are not happy about the idea of lots of Chinese getting easier access to their country. The bad manners of Chinese are mentioned a major reason why they are unwanted. (”Observe your schedules, obey the laws,don’t litter, and don’t hock up phlegm!”) Accompanying the article is a photo of a tourist site in China that has been horribly defaced by graffiti.

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The trailer for “Flowers & Troops,” a documentary about Japanese soldiers who stayed behind in Southeast Asia after the war ended (the audio is in Japanese, but 空 blog has provided an English translation of its contents):

１９４５，Aug 15: some Japanese soldiers who survived didn’t return to their home country.
These are notes from them after 60 years from the end of the war.
More soldiers died from sickness than being killed in the battle by being shot.
He is a poor guy, the Japanese army left him alone.
There were hellish battle fields in Asia.
There were dead bodies after dead bodies along the road: they were Japanese soldiers. Their heads being cut off.
190,000 Japanese soldiers were killed in Burma in the Pacific War.
I suffer. My heart suffers.
Why didn’t they return?
I could but I didn’t.
I decided to marry him after the war. I had to.
What is life? What is family? And what is War?
I always think of my life, and it is impossible for us to live in Japan and it is hard to live in Burma
Another story of the post-war—”FLOWERS & TROOPS”
We want to leave this message NOW.

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The Asahi reports on new Justice Ministry guidelines for granting special residency to illegal immigrants:

Under the new guidelines for the special permits, one of the biggest positive factors is if the foreign resident is living with biological children who have been in Japan for 10 or more years and are currently attending elementary, junior high or senior high school.

People with children in junior high school or higher levels of education have often been granted special residence permits. The scope will effectively widen under the new guidelines.

Another main positive factor is if the applicant is suffering from a serious illness, or has kin suffering from illness, that requires treatment in Japan.

Other factors that would work in favor of the foreign resident are residency in Japan for 20 years or longer and if the resident surrenders to authorities.

The main negative factor for an applicant would be a conviction and punishment for a serious crime, including gun or drug smuggling.

Membership to a criminal organization or illegal entry into the country would also be disadvantageous.

The new rules are quite clearly influenced by the case of Noriko Calderon, which focused a lot of negative attention on the government’s lack of clear policies about illegal immigrants who have children in Japan.

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An update on the story of wild mongoose being spotted in Kagoshima:

A clip from Fuji TV news:

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Cops in Shizuoka Prefecture show the press their new “color ball” launchers, which shoot non-lethal paintballs at criminals:

It has a laser pointer to help with aiming, but as the video clip shows, the police officers still need to spend some time at the shooting rage. Somehow a slow-moving motorbike evades their aim, and a parked car is hit instead.

Update: Gizmodo has picked up this story, and one of their readers has provided some very insightful commentary.

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The conservative Tokyo citizens’ group Shuken Kaifuku wo Mezasu Kai (The Society to Seek Restoration of Sovereignty) seems to be appealing to an international audience by including some English descriptions a video of a protest they recently held:

Anti-Japanese groups have been spreading outrageous lies that Japanese Army kidnapped 200,000 Korean women. Mitaka city (TOKYO) doesn’t understand the meaning of “education of children” at all. Mitaka city is going to help anti-Japanese groups which try desperately to give school children false information. So-called “wartime comfort women issue” can be restated as “prostitution issue”. It is outrageous that Mitaka city provides a place to teach school children the meaning of prostitution.

The Mitaka city employees do not seem intimidated by the protest, and a few of them head to the gate of their building and try to answer the shouts the Shuken Kaifuku wo Mezasu Kai members. In parts two and three of the video, which don’t seem to have English translations yet, they sit down and meet with city representatives who try to answer their complaints.

If there are indeed factual problems with the content being taught to school kids in Mitaka, this group isn’t doing a good job of adding information in English about them. The YouTube video has no link to outside information, and their homepage doesn’t have an English section. Without supporting English language explanations to back up their claims, their appeal to an international audience is pointless.

“Instances of ‘violence’ that aren’t serious in nature, but basic and isolated, are natural among married couples,” the authors wrote. “The idea of ‘eliminating spousal violence’ is a display of radical feminism.”

Good luck on getting international support on that issue…

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A South Korean teacher explains why no Koreans have won a Nobel prize for literature:

[hat tip to Mulboyne]

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A total solar eclipse will take place on July 22nd, and it will be somewhat visible in certain areas of Japan. The above map from the Yomiuri tells us how much of the eclipse will be visible from Japan’s major cities. Folks in Okinawa should get a pretty nice view.

The dark blue line indicates the part of the earth where there should be total darkness. Only a few small Japanese islands fall within that zone, and most of which are accessible to tourists. Find out about them here (in English!).

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A fish shop on Oharai-machi street near the entrance of the Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture has some dried aliens on display:

For another nice photo of the alien fish, check out this post over at Pink Tentacle.

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Fuji TV gives us a look at some Japanese freestyle football players:

The second freestyle footballer Kotaro Tokuda, a 17-year-old high school student from Ehime. Tokuda studied videos of Yokota’s previous appearances in competitions, and had prepared some moves to challenge him. When they face off at an event in Yokohama, the judges pick Tokuda over Yokota. Tokuda went on to win that competition, and will represent Japan at the world championship later this year in South Africa.

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Kumi Takahashi, an employment adviser at the local branch of the national jobs agency Hello Work, was covered with flames when a passerby called the police shortly after 8 a.m. and was rushed to hospital, Chiba prefectural police said.

The police arrested Fan Yuping, a 45-year-old resident of Kashiwa in the same prefecture, who was near the scene, on suspicion of attempted murder, the police said. The arrested woman says she was born in China, according to the police.

Fan was quoted as telling investigators, “I tried to scare (the victim) out of desperation as I have been looking for a job but couldn’t find one. I wanted to kill myself, too.”

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Prime Minister Taro Aso presents his holiness Pope Benedict XVI with a piece of Japanese technology:

As his first stop during a trip to attend July 8-10 summit of G8 leaders in Italy, Aso went to the Vatican, gave the pope a Sony digital video camera and discussed the global economic crisis with him.

And, in case your are interested, here’s a video clip of the occasion:

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A follow up to the post from last week about Japanese police allegedly making foreigners take drug tests as they left bars and clubs in the Roppongi area of Tokyo:

Arudou Debito’s latest Just Be Cause column in the Japan Times focuses on the urine testing issue. Debito had asked on his blog for people who have been forced to take the urine tests to come forward and share their stories, but the column doesn’t have much new information. Nameless witnesses are cited as having been asked to take tests, and they say “few people who looked Japanese were detained.” In what appears to be a rephrasing of a post left on the Gaijinpot forums, we are given second account of how “those testing positive for controlled substances have been deported.”

There is, however, one piece of new information in the column. It would seem that the Japan Times had a reporter call a police PR center and ask some questions:

In a separate inquiry, The Japan Times wrung these clarifications out of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Public Relations Center: 1. Police raids on businesses only happen after a reliable tip; 2. Urine testing is not a new procedure, and has always been done whenever necessary; 3. Only those who look wasted on drugs will be asked for a urine sample; 4. Urine samples are only ever taken after persuasion, never under threat.

Interesting, but how exactly can police determine if a person looks “wasted on drugs”? It would be a pretty hard call to make, considering the huge number of heavily intoxicated Japanese people who stumble around the streets of popular nightlife areas of Tokyo on any given weekend. Questions also remain about the type of persuasion police employ, the possibility of false positive results to urine tests, and about what crime a person commits when a urine test comes back positive for controlled substances.

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A clip from TBS news introducing two Japanese bodybuilders:

The second is Yoichi Matsumoto, an 80-year-old in Tottori Prefecture who engages in a different kind of bodybuilding – he hand sculpts the bodies of small gliders. He claims that his gliders are so good, he could keep them flying indefinitely (unfortunately, his occasional need to go to the bathroom prevents this).

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Richard Gere was in Tokyo the other day to visit Shibuya’s Hachiko statue:

Gere’s new movie, Hachi, will be introducing the famous true story of Hachiko to an international audience. It will hit theaters in Japan on August 8th.

Here’s the Japanese teaser/trailer for the movie:

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A commercial currently running on Japanese TV in which monkeys inform us that eMobile wireless broadband now works even in underground shopping malls and subway stations:

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Spotted on Google.co.jp this morning:

Want to find out more about Tananbata? Check out this Wikipedia article.

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A video tells the story of Armand Nelson Schneider, an American who got so drunk at a Japanese nomikai that he ended up getting hit by a train:

[hat tip to Mulboyne]

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I know I’ve posted a video of this girl before, but this particular clip is from a different TV show:

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Italian authorities have taken action after a Japanese couple was told to pay an outrageous 700 euros for a seafood lunch at a restaurant in Rome:

The tourists filed a fraud complaint with police after being surprised with a bill for 579.50 euros plus 115.50 euros in tip for downing pasta and lobster with wine and gelato at the Il Passetto restaurant just off the popular Piazza Navona square.

Health inspectors arrived within days to shut down the 149-year old restaurant — which has served stars ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Grace Kelly — citing hygiene reasons.

Restaurants in Rome’s center have long been notorious for overcharging or serving overcooked pasta to the millions of tourists that flock here each year, and news of the pricey lunch sparked sharp criticism from consumer groups and city officials.

“As far as I’m concerned, this restaurant should never reopen again and operating licenses should be revoked for things of this nature,” Mayor Gianni Alemanno said, adding that he had ordered police to make surprise checks to uncover such fraud.

This has not escaped the attention of people in Japan: The Japanese language version of this Reuters story was one of the most popular stories on Yahoo! News Japan yesterday.

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The above photo shows the injuries sustained by Ryotaro Wright, a Japanese-born New Zealander who was nearly beaten to death by bullies:

The teen, Japanese-born Ryotaro Wright, needed emergency brain surgery in Waikato Hospital after the attack at Forest View High School in Tokoroa this week. Doctors say he was close to death.

Four students have been suspended and police are investigating.

Ryotaro’s father Llewellyn said yesterday his son had been racially abused by four students over the past few weeks, including being called “whale muncher“.

Hopefully those that committed this violent crime will be arrested and thrown in jail.

[via 空]

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A machine-translated description for a weird YouTube video of a Japanese guy drinking milk:

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Mongolian-born Yokozuna Asashoryu has announced that his marriage is over.

He had married his childhood sweetheart, Tamir, back in 2002 when he was not yet a grand champion. She came to live with him in Japan, but apparently their relationship had some trouble and they started living separately two years ago (some media reports said that domestic violence had taken place).

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A bus company in Nagano Prefecture that parks its buses in a dangerous-looking manner:

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NTV’s “Real Time News” reports on sumo face stickers that seem to be popping up all over the place in Tokyo:

The illustrator who created the stickers seems to have produced many variations of the sumo face. Some smile, others don’t. Some are white, others are not. Most pedestrians find them neither pretty or cute.

An expert says the stickers first began appearing last summer. Their creator probably spent some time checking for reactions on the internet, and when they began to appear, he escalated his activities to build an even greater reaction. This act of vandalism is compared to a similar case of panda stickers appearing all over Fukuoka city, and both vandals are assumed to be seeking attention.

The person responsible has not yet been identified, but a taxi driver in Tokyo says he saw a skater putting up one of the stickers. Others say that it is the work of a famous graffiti artist who is in his early thirties. Whoever it is, they must be extremely happy to see their work has made it onto the TV news. (At the end of the report, the news anchors point out that their report may actually encourage further acts of vandalism — oops!)

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A Japanese man blocks a Yamanote Line train at Shinagawa station, screaming and throwing rocks until JR workers take him down (the video clip is from a year ago, but its still making its way through the Japanese blogosphere):

[via Zaeega]

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Congratulations to Miyazaki City for its creation of the world’s biggest hamburger:

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