Who doesn’t love Nakagawa Shoko? With her well-documented fondness for cosplay, anime, the internet and, of course, cats, Shokotan’s eccentric charm has captured the hearts of oily, overweight, bespectacled virgin fanboys everywhere.

And so what better vehicle for her to capitalize on her appeal among the geek demographic than an advertisement for a video game? Earlier this year, Japanese game development firm Banpresto released Super Robo Taisen W for the Nintendo DS and gave Shocotan the starring role in a pair of TV commercials, which are conveniently available for your viewing pleasure in a single video linked below:

[AVI, 2.2MB]
YouTube

Anyone else a little disappointed that she didn’t put the DS in her mouth?

To those looking for some hot cat-in-mouth action, I invite you to check out the clip of Shokotan appearing on the Pochitama program here [AVI, 17.8MB] or here [YouTube]. (I must warn you: it’s pretty dull until about the two-minute mark.)

Now, let the pussy-eating jokes begin. . .

Longtime monarch of the Japanese Kawaii Kingdom, Sanrio, has recently released what is quite possibly the MOST AMAZING PRODUCT EVER CONCEIVED: the Banana Case.

No longer must people duck and dart in fear whilst carrying around their bananas. Made of seemingly indestructible polyester cloth, the Banana Case provides impenetrable protection against any sort of danger imaginable: household pests, natural disasters, IEDs, wild animals including blood-thirsty hybrid species cultivated by rogue geneticists, wheelchair-bound limbless homeless men with laser beams shooting out of their gaping, toothless maws, and even the occasional occurrence of being left in the backseat of a car on a hot afternoon.

The Sanrio Banana Case is not only eco-friendly compared to other alternatives, but it also comes in two eye-searingly cute designs guaranteed to make fine additions to any arsenal of adorability.

I swear, what a great, great, amazingly marvelous product! The only thing that could possibly be any more incredibly awesome would be if bananas could somehow be genetically engineered to grow in their own protective coverings that could somehow be removed or “peeled” before eating. . . but such a thing is surely so outrageously inconceivable that it enters the far-out realm of science fiction!

Do you want to know one thing that I don’t miss at all about Japan? It was something that I didn’t even realize I wasn’t missing until the other night when I was out and happened to pass by a group of slovenly teenagers seemingly doing all they could to look “cool.” Their clothes were baggy, their hair was shaggy and in each of their grubby mitts was a cigarette. At that moment, I realized that it had been ages since my nose had been assaulted by the acrid stench of cigarette smoke—an ever-present nuisance in Japan—and I didn’t miss it one bit. In fact, I was absolutely overjoyed to be free of it (well, at least until that particular moment).

Back to the teenagers, though. The fact that they seemed to be consciously attempting to direct their exhalations into the faces of passers-by was abhorrent enough; however, when I saw each of them proceed one by one to flick their butts onto the street, I could only thing of one thing:

That’s right, Japan Tobacco’s beautiful Smoking Manners campaign! And guess what? They’ve added 30 new ads to their website! The focus of these latest additions seems to be the importance of carrying portable ashtrays and the admonitions against littering in general. Somewhat mundane subject matter, perhaps, but their playful designs and esoteric charm definitely shine through.

Click here to go to the Smoking Manners gallery (the new entries are on the second page).

Aah, the misheard song lyric; that humorous phenomenon that leads to poor saps misguidedly singing along to lines about locking the cash box and bathrooms on the right. Leave it to the Japanese, naturally, to take such an everyday source of mild amusement and turn it into entertainment gold: Soramimi Hour, a short segment on Asahi TV’s Friday night staple, Tamori Club, hosted by the honorary blind man himself, Tamori, and his “Soramimist” co-host, illustrator Anzai Hajime.

The formula of Soramimi Hour begins with viewers submitting examples of songs by non-Japanese artists with lyrics that sound like words or phrases in Japanese. Short music videos—often no more than mere seconds in length—depicting the “misheard” Japanese lyrics are created and viewed on air by the hosts, after which Tamori awards prizes for the entries based on his assessment of their quality (in ranking order, the possible prizes are a hand towel, ear pick, t-shirt or jacket). The result of this process is nothing short of outright hilarity.

Strangely enough, despite having lived in Japan for five years, it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I first learned of this highly entertaining television gem. It wasn’t like I had a glamorous social life that kept me out and about until the wee hours every Friday night (8 o’clock at Gusto, anyone? Drink bar’s on me!); yet, somehow, to my utter shame, I managed to be completely out of the loop.

Fortunately, there are dozens of Soramimi Hour clips available for viewing on YouTube, so I encourage anyone who might possibly be as lame as I am to have never heard of it before to surf over there and search for ’soramimi’ and/or ‘空耳’ and get ready to laugh. Some Japanese ability would definitely be an asset, but for many of the videos, the visual images alone are enough to summon a guffaw or two.

For those so lazy that even searching YouTube is out of the question, I’ve linked below a sampling of clips that I happened to find particularly amusing (yes, my sense of humor resides firmly in the gutter). Enjoy!

One day in the advertising department of Japanese pharmaceutical company Hisamitsu:

Advertising Executive: “Have you come up with any ideas for advertising the new Salonpas easy stick-on transdermal patches?”
Indentured Underling: “Well, I gave it a lot of thought. . .”
AE: “And . . .”
IU: “And, yeah, I was thinking that we should do something that makes the patches seem exciting.”
AE: “That sounds good. What do you have in mind?”
IU: “Well, I was thinking of something like, ‘Let’s stick it on!’, you know, ‘Harou!’”
AE: “That’s a fantastic idea! Tell me more!”
IU: “Well, I was thinking about it and — isn’t it sort of funny how ‘harou’ kind of sounds like ‘hello’?”
AE: “Haha, you’re right! That is funny!”
IU: “Right, so I was thinking that we could work around that, you know? Hire a foreigner and—”
AE: “Wait just a minute! We can’t go around featuring foreigners in our commercials! We’re not selling cars here, you know! Our products are for Japanese people! Everyone knows that Japanese and foreigners are physiologically completely different! If we start showing foreigners using our products, the public is going to think that our products are made for foreigners and not for them! Our sales will plummet! My god, man, use your head!”
IU: “Sir, I’m terribly sorry! There is absolutely no excuse for my utter stupidity. Shall I go commit ritual suicide now for the great shame that I have brought upon myself and our beloved Hisamitsu?”
AE: “No, not yet. First, you must help finalize this idea for the commercial.”
IU: “Yes, sir.”
AE: “Let’s see. . . how about instead of a foreigner (*shakes head in disbelief*), we get a well-known Japanese talent and put him in a silly suit with a blond wig and a huge fake nose—”
IU: “Sir, that is an excellent idea!”
AE: “I know it is, that’s why I thought of it! Anyhow, he’ll come on screen, act all crazy and speak really weirdly accented Japanese and yell ‘Hello!’ a couple of times while introducing our easy stick-on Salonpas patches. Yes, that will do quite well.”
IU: “Sir, if I may say so, I am truly in awe of your brilliance.”
AE: “Thank you. However, rather than simply marveling at my astounding and, frankly, unparalleled genius, I would prefer that you also try using your own worthless puddle of a brain to think up some ideas of your own.”
IU: “I’m sorry, sir.”
AE: “‘I’m sorry’ is nothing but words! I want to see action! Go out there and make me the best gosh-darned ‘Harou!’ commercial the world has ever seen!”
IU: “Yes, sir! I will give every effort that my poor, feeble mind is capable of giving!”
AE: “Good. Oh, and on your way out, please call in my secretary. It’s time for her to earn her ‘weekly bonus,’ if you know what I mean. Heh heh.”
IU: “Yes, sir!”

Four months later. . .

Click image above to view the ad [MPG, 777KB]

Nakagawa Shoko loves cats. She really loves them.

Just how much does the 21-year-old ‘Akiba Idol’ love cats? Click below to find out.

(more…)

Generally speaking, Japanese television doesn’t do much for me. Sure, there are a few programs that I find mildly entertaining, but one can only watch so many shows about cooking and/or eating food, silly trivia and mundane, formulaic dramas. However, the one merit that Japanese TV has over, say, American TV, is the possibility of encountering random, sheer draw-dropping absurdity while casually flipping through the channels.

A case in point is something I stumbled upon last Wednesday night: a contest on a comedy variety program called Haneru no Tobira (Hanetobi for short). Basically, the game involves five Japanese comedians in a kaiten-zushi (conveyor-belt sushi) restaurant in Roppongi, an area in Tokyo known for its high concentration of foreign residents. Why Roppongi? Well, according to most Japanese people, it’s a universally-known fact that the Japanese invented chopsticks and people of other nationalities are inherently incapable of mastering their proper usage (resulting in every non-Japanese person being asked “Can you use chopsticks?” at least once per conversation with every single Japanese person they ever meet). Thus, in order to achieve absolute authenticity, the contestants in the game each came costumed to represent members of different foreign nations. Let’s meet them!

THE AMERICAN

Tsukaji Muga as Tsukageorge

_

THE INDIAN

Itakura Toshiyuki as Itachai

_

THE CHINA GIRL

Abukawa Mihoko as Abuchan

_

THE RUSSIAN

Akiyama Ryuji as Akibachof

_

THE MEXICAN

Kajiwara Yuta as Kajikaras

Wow, there’s nothing quite like offensive racial caricatures to get things off to a good start, eh?

The game began with all of the contestants taking a seat along the counter in front of the sushi chef, played by fellow comedian Nishino Akihiro, and engaging in witty banter on the sole topic of their foreignness, complete with exaggerated body language and heavily-accented Japanese.

Once the sheer hilarity of the fact that they were dressed as foreigners had died down a little, the game got off to a start. Small plates of sushi and other food items (e.g., a whole raw squid, a slice of honeydew melon, etc.) were sent around on the conveyor belt one-by-one, and the object of the game was for each contestant to use chopsticks to scoop each item up off of the plate and into his/her mouth without dropping it before the plate passed them by.

The only catch that the contestants were required to use their chopsticks in — say it ain’t so! — the proper form (i.e., grasping the top chopstick like a pencil).

One by one, each contestant did their best to pick up each item and put it into their mouths without incident. Those who succeeded were rewarded with the succulent taste of the whichever delicacy they managed to grab.

Those who failed, however, were greeted by unpleasant visitors: two ripped Japanese guys looking to mete out some fierce punishment! (Look familiar?)

Yep, at this particular kaiten-zushi joint, customers who fail to pick up their food from the revolving conveyor belt must face some revolving of their own.

As you can see, inadequate chopstick-handling is not without its consequences.

By the end of the game, whichever contestant managed to escape being spun around at the hands of the Chopstick Etiquette Enforcers was declared the winner. In this particular episode, it was the Chinese girl. Go figure.

Now, while it’s easy to imagine non-Japanese people who happened to view this program getting all up in arms with indignation over the stereotpyical portrayal of foreigners (I know I did at first), one thing worth noting is that the program is actually making fun of Japanese people’s inability to use chopsticks properly. The ironic truth of the matter is that many Japanese themselves people don’t hold their chopsticks “correctly;” most simply continue to use whatever method they found easiest as a child without regard for the proper form. In fact, the topic of how people hold their chopsticks pops up in conversations with surprising regularity here (at least among some of the dull people I work with, who always seem to bring it up after “o-hashi jouzu“-ing me for the gazillionth time in the many years we’ve known each other).

There’s certainly no denying the fact that the Japanese comedians dressing up like ethnic caricatures is nothing short of an old-time minstrel show, but for what it’s worth, it’s not like similar things haven’t been shown on TV in the West. I suppose some issues to consider are the nature of the humor as well as how it is received by the intended audience.

Hanetobi airs Wednesdays at 7:57p.m. on Fuji TV.

After last Saturday’s post about nihonjinron and the comments that followed, it was quite amusing to see this week’s Crisscross Japan PopVox, in which eight Japanese folks were asked what they think of Japan’s notably lackluster performance in the Word Cup thus far. One 19-year-old female respondent calling herself P-Chan offered this gem of a possible explanation:

I’m not sure why but the national team doesn’t know how to be aggressive or put on pressure in a game. Maybe it’s because of our ethnicity as an agricultural people. Physically we are small.

One can often hear the “Japan-is-a-small-agricultural-country” mentioned as the reasoning behind just about any possible shortcoming of Japanese society. Soccer team isn’t doing well? “We are a nation of small farmers.” Defeated in WWII? “We are a peaceful farming nation.” Increasing crime and weakening social fabric? “Western influences are destroying our small, harmonious nation.” Am I exaggerating a bit? Yes, but I’m not pulling it out of my ass completely. Click here to read someone else’s rant on the matter over at Japan Reference.

I didn’t mention it in the Zuiikin English post, but one of the videos contained a great little nugget of nihonjinron that’s definitely worth noting. The video in question — which Claytonian has already duly pointed out — is apparently the final episode of the series and the producers, in response to requests from non-Japanese viewers, decided to devote it to teaching Japanese phrases instead of English (sadly, they also replaced the Zuiikin Gals with three freaky Caucasian geezers).

To anyone who can’t be bothered to watch the video, here’s a quote from the introduction to the lesson, which was narrated over scenes of a toned Japanese guy doing various exercises:

First of all, our muslces and those of the Japanese are basically built differently. For example, their constant bowing and tendency to maintain a low posture results in well-developed lower back muslces. Squatting on the floor instead of sitting on chairs developed different leg muslces. So, by teaching such muscles Japanese, you, too, can begin speaking perfect Japanese.

Nihonjinron isn’t something that I hear people spouting off on a regular basis, but every so often during conversation I do encounter statements such as “You foreigners are so tall because traditionally you were hunters, but we Japanese were traditionally farmers and so we are short because we we were always bent over rice fields,” “You can’t truly appreciate the taste of sushi because foreigners have different taste buds than Japanese,” and so on. Of course, rational argument and evidence to the contrary do nothing to diminish people’s belief in such nonsensical notions, so all I can do is just roll my eyes and change the subject.

I just had to mention some great videos currently making their way around many Japan-related websites, lest anyone miss out.

Apparently in 1992, just before the burst of the Japanese bubble era, Fuji TV created an innovative morning program combining light aerobic exercise and English conversation lessons, entited Zuiikin English.

The result was nothing less than sheer brilliance.

Rather than focusing on standard textbook phrases such as the infamous “This is a pen” line, which to this very day can still be frequently heard shouted out by drunken middle-aged salarymen towards unsuspecting foreigners, each episode of the program was centered around a specific theme or situation and offered relevant (albeit often somewhat bizarre) phrases that would supposedly come in handy in such instances. Each phrase was repeated by a trio of leotard-clad women, dubbed the Zuiikin Gals, who provided accompmanying body movements over a bouncy and irritatingly catchy electronic beat.

There are a number of wonderful Zuiikin English videos up on YouTube thanks to a generous soul by the name of SkillfulAbbot. Each video is undeniably priceless and provided me with lengthy fits of uncontrollable laughter (much to the chagrin of my wife, alas), but favorites were no doubt this one and this one.

Let’s Zuiikin English!

- - - - - - -

If you liked these videos, be sure to also check out Let’s Sexy English! for another wacky example of unconventional Japanese English education.

On trips to Shibuya on separate occasions over the past two weekends, two visitors from abroad — my friend Josh and Judy’s mother — both commented on a particular billboard currently on display on the side of Tokyu department store. The billboard in question, which I had hitherto paid little notice, is an advertisement for Unilever’s Dove brand featuring a group of Japanese women in their underwear.

“Old news, chump,” I hear you say. Yes, Dove has been running their “Campaign for Real Beauty” in the States for over a year now, and although I read about the hubbub that it caused at the time, as far as I know it didn’t make its way over to these shores until recently.

For those who may not be familiar with Dove’s campaign, it was originally launched with a series of ads featuring “regular” woman of varying sizes and ethnicities cheerfully posing in plain white underwear (it has since expanded in scope, apparently). According to Dove’s website:

For too long, beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling stereotypes. Women have told us it’s time to change all that. Dove agrees. We believe real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages. That is why Dove is launching the Campaign for Real Beauty.

Dove’s global Campaign for Real Beauty aims to change the status quo and offer in its place a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty. A view of beauty that all women can own and enjoy everyday.

Here is a picture of one such ad shown in the US:

As you can see, there are women of different sizes, shapes and colors. One of them even has a prominent tattoo. Of course, not all ethnicities are represented (where’s the love for the Asian fatties?), and the women aren’t that big given today’s widespread obesity, but it’s an interesting campaign that brings attention important issues such as body image, ideals of feminine beauty as portrayed in the media, and so on.

Now let’s take a look an ad from Dove Japan’s “Real Beauty” campaign:

Hmmm… Women of different sizes? No. Shapes? No. Colors? No (unless you count the towels they’re holding, anyhow). As far as I can tell, the only obvious differences between the seven women are their hairstyles. And I can’t even imagine what sort of sick, misogynistic individual would even for a moment consider those women to be anything other than thin. They may not be models, as Dove purports, but they’re certainly not representative of the average Japanese woman (as much we might wish they were).

To be fair to Dove, though, the focus of the Japanese campaign is a teensy bit different than that of the American one. Rather than “Real women have real curves,” the Japanese slogan is (roughly) “I won’t hide my skin anymore.” The intended message, obviously, is that Japanese women should feel proud of their appearance and have confidence in themselves, even if they don’t conform to society’s image of beauty.

Of course, it seems that Unilever Japan did their market research and realized that if they came out with a campaign in featuring “fuller-figured” women, they would be immediately labeled as the brand for fatso’s and would thereupon lose any hope of appealing to fickle, extremely brand-conscious Japanese consumers. So, rather than “real women,” the Japanese public gets “women who are not models, but who are thinner and more attractive than 95% of the female population.” Interesting, to say the least.

Sorry, have been a bit busy these past few days. Judy’s mother and sister are visiting Japan at the moment and came up to Tokyo on Saturday, so last weekend was another busy one. Will try to post again soon!

My friend Josh and his girlfriend Wei Wei came out to Tokyo from Taipei this past weekend, and Judy and I did our best to give them The Tokyo Experience. We only had a few days, but we tried to see/do as much as possible during that time, and as a result, despite it now being several days later, I still have yet to fully recover.

I’ll try to put up some photos from the weekend within the next few days, but in the meantime here’s one of a scene we came across while passing through Ginza on Sunday:

The model dressed in geisha garb was on the street for less than two minutes, during which time nearly every single person in the vicinity in possession of a camera came rushing over to snap her photo [that’s Josh & Wei Wei on the right]. As is usually the case in such instances, almost immediately one of the photographers in the front began shouting that it was a private photo shoot and telling everyone else to stop taking pictures. Within moments, the model and main photographers quickly departed and everyone else continued on back in their respective directions, bringing with them a slight smile.

Sadly, I only managed to get one clear pic amidst the bedlam and the composition and lighting suck.

One thing I love about living in Tokyo is that you never know what you might come across during the course of any given day.

From today’s Mainichi Daily News:

School girl hit in head with hard object while walking home

KASUKABE, Saitama — A high school girl was hit in the head with a hard object by a man as she was walking home on Thursday night, police said.

The 15-year-old student was coming home from school alone in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, when a man approached her from behind at about 8:35 p.m. and hit her in the head as she entered the compound of an apartment complex.

She suffered injuries that will require two weeks to heal.

“I was hit with a hard object,” officers quoted the girl as saying.

Wow, talk about lazy reporting. All that’s missing is:

Doctors who treated the girl reported that her injuries were consistent with being hit in the head with a hard object.

And possibly:

Police have announced that they will undertake a thorough search of the area in the vicinity of the attack for hard objects. They also stated that, if apprehended, the assailant would be charged with using a hard object to hit someone in the head.

Unfortunately, the Japanese version of the article isn’t much better, although it does mention that the man ran away after the attack.

Talk about a scoop!

Last Friday was Judy’s older brother’s birthday, and to celebrate, his girlfriend planned a surprise dinner for him and invited the two of us join in. The festivities took place at a restaurant called Tooth Tooth in Ebisu, a pretty nice place with an eclectic aesthetic, smooth ambiance and a French-inspired menu. However, the coolest thing, without a doubt, that the restaurant had to offer was what we discovered upon entering the party room in the back:

THERE IS NO NEED TO ADJUST YOUR MONITOR.
YOUR EYES ARE NOT DECEIVING YOU.

Yes, that’s right: The centerpiece of the party room at Tooth Tooth is a freakin’ life-size replica of an Imperial Stormtrooper (!).

Now, as one can imagine, as all of us in attendance that evening were in our mid-twenties to early thirties, the effect of being in the same room with such an awe-inspiring object was of pants-peeing proportions, especially amongst the males in the group (the women were predictably less impressed). Thus, it was only natural and, in fact, inevitable that following the consumption of numerous alcoholic beverages during the two-hour all-you-can-drink period, we would gravitate towards the figure, much like the Millennium Falcon caught in the tractor beam of the Death Star. Poses were made, photos were taken and a good time was had by all.

For about ten minutes. Then we got scolded by a waiter who told us that we’re not allowed to touch it. It was fun while it lasted, though.

I’ve been a bit busy lately and now that the weather is getting warmer I’ve been spending a lot of what little free time I have outdoors, so my apologies for the dearth of posts this month. Since it’s late and my brain doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with me at the moment, rather than write a proper new post, I thought I’d revisit and follow up on a few posts from the past. So, in no particular order or relevance, here are some updates:

Jesus & the Gosperats
Just as announced, Bubble Aota’s sacrilegious new single, Jesus, was released last Wednesday (a video of her performing the song can be found here). On that same day, the Gosperats — the Japanese soul group composed of members of the former 80s groups Gospellers and Rats&Star — also released their self-titled debut album. The group is perhaps best known for the unique appearance of its members, namely the fact that they perform in blackface.

Yes, despite it being 21st century, this kind of thing still flies in Japan with nary a whimper of protest. To capitalize on the clearly untapped market for ethnic tribute bands, I’m thinking of starting a rival group called Tojo’s Troubadours, which will feature five white guys in yellowface with eyes taped back who sing about ninjas, geishas and robots. Whaddya think??

“I’m soakin’ in your onsen of love~”

Take that, ya old bag!
Last week, the Nara District Court sentenced noisy whackjob Miyoko Kawahara to one year in prison for “inflicting injury” on her neighbor via a three-year barrage of nearly non-stop aural assault. I’d love to see this case result in legislation against the widespread noise pollution that plagues nearly every inch of Japan, but sadly I know that would never happen. For now I’ll just have to stick with my personal grass-roots effort of flashing my bits to every offender I encounter.

Ah, DS Lite, my evasive friend
The Nintendo DS Lite is still next to impossible to get in Tokyo. I’ve heard reports of electronics stores out in the boondocks with shelves full of the little buggers, but here in the city the only place where they can reliably be found is on the Yahoo! Japan Auctions site, where they’re still going for over ¥20,000 apiece. With Nintendo’s latest game releases (including a J/E dictionary with the ability to look up kanji by inputting them with the stylus), I’ve actually been considering getting a DS Lite, but due to the fact that I’m an unrepentant tightwad, I absolutely refuse to pay anything above the list price. Oh well, it’s not like I have time these days to play it anyway.

The return of Cool (Biz)
With the arrival of spring, retailers throughout Japan have put Warm Biz to rest and now light blue Cool Biz displays can be found in department stores and clothing shops everywhere. My company finally got around to fixing the broken air conditioning in our office last October, so hopefully I’ll be able to make it through this summer without ending each day in a puddle of my own perspiration.

Well, that’s it for now. . . time to hit the hay. Be sure to tune in next time for even more pointless, incoherent drivel!

I love how pretty much everything in Japan comes with helpful illustrations. Everywhere you go, there are pictures of cutesy characters warning you about various dangers in your midst, everything from closing elevator doors to molesters on the prowl.

Recently, I came across this fire prevention billboard for the Takanawa Fire Station:

I have no idea who the orange alien fella on the right is, but the message is clear:

Battered shrimp + Flame = Fried Shrimp or OMG the house done caught fire!! ?

Cigarette + Flame = Smoking or OMG the house done caught fire!! ?

Great stuff.

Once again, tonight after coming home from work I plopped my fat ass down and watched some TV. I ended up catching the end of a 3-hour special episode of London Hearts, which used to be one of my favorite programs on Japanese TV (meaning that it was one of a few that I could actually stand). These days, the show usually features a regular lineup of woman talents ranking each other based on certain criteria (e.g., ‘Most likely to have sex on a first date’, ‘Least likely to do housework’, etc.) and harshly insulting each other in the process, but tonight’s special was different. Cohost Tamura Atsushi set about to help one of the show’s regulars, former-gravure- idol-turned-short-lived-80s-pop-star Aota Noriko (pictured), achieve her dream of reviving her singing career.

To accomplish this, Tamura went to famed music producer Komuro Tetsuya and received an unproduced single from his back catalogue. He then went to one of Komuro’s most successful acts, pop/ dance group TRF, for help with choreographing. After nearly a month of voice training, dance lessons and intense exercise, Aota — performing under the stage name of Bubble Aota — gave a live concert before 2,500-strong audience, including Japanese impersonators of Madonna, Michael Jackson and Robert De Niro (Teru from comedy duo Doyo).

Sounds pretty uninteresting, right? Well, consider the title of the song: ‘Jesus‘. No, it isn’t a religious hymn praising the Lord and Savior of Christianity or whatever; it’s actually bumping dance track about seduction and the bearded fellow from Nazareth, with a nutty chorus of “I wanna kiss Jesus’ power & soul.”

And no, this isn’t a joke. The single — with album cover featuring Aota’s driver’s license photo, no less — will be released next Wednesday, April 19th. Praise Jesus!

UPDATE: A video of Bubble Aota’s live performance of Jesus at Makuhari Messe can be viewed here [AVI, 40MB] and on YouTube here. Enjoy!

Learning a new language can be an incredibly frustrating experience. You’re forced to suffer through tyrannical instructors, dispiritingly dull textbooks and an excessive focus on things like grammar and verb conjugation, while all you really want to do is go out and use your newly- acquired language skills to swear at people and pick up foreign chicks. If only there was a way to make learning a new language more interesting and, even more importantly, more entertaining.

Well, leave it to the Japanese to come up with the solution. Combining their renowned love of pornography with their reverence for education, some ingenious visionaries have created a way to make learning English fun by making it sexxxy. The result, a video entitled Mina-san no Daisuki na SEX wo Tsuujite Eigo wo Benkyo — roughly Studying English through SEX — not only teaches practical vocabulary that everyone can use, but also provides unintentionally hilarious skits to demonstrate the lesson material.

So what are you waiting for? Take a gander at the most effective English learning tool ever created, starting with Lesson 1: Sexy Words. Let’s Sexy English!!!

[AVI, 15.8MB]
This video can also be found on YouTube here.

- - - - - - -

Note: While the video doesn’t contain any nudity, it probably wouldn’t be considered work-safe. Also, although the beginning is a little slow, be sure not to be miss the ending!

Tokyo is home to many highly exclusive restaurants. The kinds of places that put in place certain measures to keep the riff-raff out: exorbitant “seating charges,” guest lists, entrance through invitation only, that sort of thing

This place is apparently so exclusive that it’s only open for a single hour each day.

I wonder how they manage to stay in business.

I was walking in Ginza a few weeks ago, when I stumbled upon a curious sight:

Tables were set up along the sidewalk and a group was offering free stress tests to anyone who was interested. Perhaps unsurprisingly, interest was indeed high; a crowd had gathered around the tables and people were patiently awaiting their turn.

I suspected that something fishy was going on; there had to be an ulterior motive. And sure enough, there was:

It all became clear: The folks giving the tests were Scientologists and those stress testing machines were actually E-meters, the useless device favored by whackjobs for evaluating their level of whackjobbery.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. These days people don’t seem to shut up about how stressed out they are (yes, I realize the irony of me saying such a thing), and Japanese folks are particularly notorious for this. You can literally see them beaming with pride when they make categorical and oft-repeated statements such as “We Japanese are hardworkers,” “We Japanese are always busy,” “We Japanese have a strong, fighting warrior spirit, unlike you fat, lazy American scum who just love to sit around on your fat asses, being fat. Fatso!!”

In addition, Japanese people are generally quite trusting and tend to be a bit less cyincal and a bit more gullible than their Western counterparts. Combine these two factors and you’ve got a population ripe for the picking by con men and scam artists (religious or otherwise) looking to take advantage of the unsuspecting and make a quick buck.

Well, after getting several nasty looks by the Scientologists for taking photos of their racket selfless service to public, I continued on my way. I suppose an upside to being a cynical and apathetic bastard is that it’s relatively easy to avoid getting caught up in silly things like cults, schemes, politicking or even human relationships, for that matter. Yes, being lukewarm about nearly everything certainly has its advantages.

I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently, often being the last person to leave the office at night. As a result, I’ve been pretty brain-dead for the past two weeks or so, walking around in a daze and hardly taking any notice of my surroundings.

So you can imagine the little jolt I received this morning when I came into work and saw this hanging on the wall:

Yep, it’s the flag of the present-day Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, although it’s perhaps more widely recognized as the flag of the former Imperial Japanese Military and a symbol of Japanese nationalism. So what was it doing hanging up in my office? Well, it seems that today is the anniversary of the establishment of the Japanese Imperial Navy, and my slightly eccentric bucho (who, incidentally, is now my de facto boss) is apparently somewhat of an ardent nationalist and felt the need to celebrate.

I suppose the equivalent in America would be someone decorating his/her office with a Confederate flag, but I doubt that would fly in most workplaces today. Although nearly every visitor to our office gave a startled reaction when walking through the door, most of my coworkers just giggled uncomfortably and played it off as just another one of the bucho’s wacky antics (last autumn he adorned the intercom with several persimmons tied together with twine).

Perhaps the funniest moment of today came when one of the managers from the General Affairs Department upstairs, whom I had never heard speak a word of English, came down to our floor to make some copies, saw the flag, chuckled and then said to me in heavily-accented English, “Remember Pearl Harbor.”

The weather was pretty nice this weekend (considering it’s the middle of February) and so Saturday afternoon Judy and I decided to slide out from under the kotatsu and actually venture outside to take a walk around the neighborhood. Our neighborhood is pretty unexciting for the most part, but every once in a while we encounter something interesting, either as a source of wonder, a chuckle or what have you. Yesterday, it was this:

I love it when Japanese governmental organizations go through the trouble of creating English signs, pamphlets or other materials, conceivably for the benefit of foreign residents living here, without bothering to even double-check whether they make any sense. In this case “No Unauthorized Dumping” becomes “Don’t Waste Garbage.” Classic. They even put up a second sign with a phone number for inquiries, which I can only imagine people call up in order to ask about the meaning of the sign.

Saw this last night in the drug store down the street from my apartment:

It might be a little difficult to discern, but here’s the deal: On the top shelf, individual refill packages of Dove body wash are priced at ¥298 each; on the bottom shelf, special two-package sets are available at a price of ¥598 each — ¥2 more than the cost of purchasing two individual packages(!).

Apparently, in Japan, there are instances where buying in bulk is actually more expensive than buying items individually.

Shop in Japan and watch your savings grow!

In Japan, the knowledge of how to perform a bow in the proper form is absolutely essential for the inevitable and no doubt countless occasions in which Japanese people will be upset with you for a perceived slight ensuing from something you had previously thought to be completely innocuous, such as putting your hands in your pockets or asking what time it is without sufficiently polite inflection.

For that reason, the masters of cultural omniscience who brought us The Japanese Tradition: Sushi also created an insightful instructional video about dogeza, the act of bowing in supplication to ask forgiveness for wrongdoing (likewise handy for facilitating the release of gas from the bowels). Click below to view The Japanese Tradition: Dogeza.

[WMV, 4.92MB]

This piece isn’t to the same level of brilliance of the sushi one, but it’s funny enough. In lieu of subtitles, the video has an additional English audio track, however it’s not of very good quality and it fades in an out and at one point disappears completely. Regardless, I’d say it’s worth a watch for a chuckle and for the opportunity to obtain valuable insight that anyone with relations with Japan will undoubtedly have a need to utilize someday when forced to beg for forgiveness for blowing his or her nose one decibel too loudly.

J-Pop superstar Otsuka Ai released a new album earlier this week. Continuing the theme of her previous releases, Love Punch and Love Jam, the new album is said to be her most personal to date, providing fans with a definitive message of what the singer is truly all about.

Apparently it’s been generating a lot of buzz.

Wow, just when I thought Japan’s kawaii culture couldn’t get any weirder, Jon from Overoften discovered this:

Meet Colon-chan! As friendly playmate to Stomach-kun, the companions enjoy all sorts of wild gastrointestinal adventures together. Her favorite food is bran muffins, she enjoys long sits on the loo and on special occasions she likes to treat herself to a yummy chocolate enema!

We hope you to appreciate the tender friendship harmony of these chums for life!

With the wedding now just over a fortnight away, Judy and I have been scrambling to get everything ready in time. All of the main arrangements have been made, but there are still about a million loose ends to tie up before we hop on the plane in two weeks’ time.

With a “to do” list about 10 pages long, I haven’t had much time to even think about this site, much to my great regret. I’m hoping to put up a few more posts before we leave, but realistically, I’m not sure how that’s going to pan out. Anyway, I’ll do my best.

For today, I thought I’d put up another Smoking Manners sign that I discovered on the platform of Gotanda station a couple of weeks ago. It’s not as poetic or esoteric as the others, but this is one ad to which I wish more Japanese people would take notice.

Personally, I don’t understand the appeal of smoking whilst urinating and/or defecating, but it seems to be quite a common practice around these parts. Telltale cigarette burns can be found on the toilets/walls/floors of just about every public restroom, and many even have ashtrays or similar receptacles available for those wishing to have a puff while pinching one out.

The unpleasant result, of course, is that bathrooms commonly reek of stale cigarette smoke to the extent that one’s eyes burn and it becomes difficult to breathe. That said, however, I suppose one has to consider whether the cigarette smell might actually be somewhat more favorable to what would likely be there otherwise: the overwhelming stench of poo from all of the unsightly splatter surrounding the average squat toilet. But then again, perhaps if people focused more on doing their business instead of trying to get in a few more hits of nicotine, they might be able to get all of their “output” into the proper destination in the first place.

Japan’s cultural obsession with cute characters is known the whole world over. From popular icons like Hello Kitty and Gloomy Bear to lesser-known but equally ubiquitous corporate mascots, the general attitude seems to be: if you want people to look at something, stick a cutesy face on it.

During my recent visit to the hospital for some x-rays, I happened to spot of an example of this that really pushed the limits in terms of the kawaii-ification of something otherwise exceptionally mundane. Meet Stomach-kun:

Okay, I made the name up, but this is a real character found on an instructional poster for a barium x-ray exam (for those lucky bastards allowed to drink the stuff instead of having it forced up their nose). Now, I’ve seen lovable, doe-eyed characters in product instruction manuals, rubbish disposal guidelines and even insurance forms, but this is the first time I’ve witnessed this phenomenon extended to something so patently un-cute. But heck, who says internal organs don’t deserve to be adequately represented in kawaii culture? Now that I know how cute my digestive system can be, I feel much more inclined to take better care of it. I don’t want poor Stomach-kun to suffer!

I was watching a bit of the London Hearts special on TV Asahi last night when I happened to catch a commercial advertising a new line-up of Chinese-style dishes at Mister Donut featuring none other than Lazer Ramon, aka Hard Gay.

Sadly, Hard Gay doesn’t actually appear in the commercial, nor, to my even greater disappointment, is there any thrusting of pelvises in the 15-second spot. The commercial merely features Hard Gay’s notorious “WOOO!!!” accompanying visuals of family members being literally “blown away” by the new menu.

It’s even lamer than it sounds.

However, anyone bored enough to actually want to watch it can simply click below.

[WMV, 595KB]

For the most part, Japanese network television is pretty darn unremarkable. If one were to flip through the channels at any time of day, one would likely find:

• A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless “talents” who are completely and utterly devoid of any actual talent whatsoever
• A cooking program
• A cooking program featuring a roomful of mindless talents who watch food being cooked and then sample it and loudly and repeatedly exclaim “OISHII!!!“
• Some kind of quiz show
• A quiz show featuring a roomful of mindless talents demonstrating just how mindless they truly are
• A sappy documentary about someone somewhere in the world who faces some sort of adversity (e.g., is looking for a job, is living in a brutal war zone, was born without legs, a combination thereof, etc.) and who Tries His/Her Best® to overcome the hardships of their situation
• A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless talents watching a sappy documentary and providing their horribly forced reactions to the hardships (tears) and the overcoming of the hardships (more tears) for the sake of the television viewers at home who have to be instructed how to react since they have neither souls nor a capacity for empathy

Once in a while, however, when you’re mindlessly browsing through the various offerings on each of the eleven channels available to you, something utterly insane and beyond comprehension to the mere non-Japanese mind will catch your eye and you’ll freeze, remote in hand, mouth agape, temporarily incapacitated with both shock and amusement in a profound moment of WTF.

A relatively recent example of this phenomenon is the outlandish TV persona of one Masaki Sumitami, otherwise known as “Razor Ramon HG.” Meet Hard Gay:

Known for his revealing black leather S&M outfit, incessant pelvis-thrusting and frequent exclamations of “WOOO!!!”, Hard Gay made a splash on the talent scene earlier this year and has quickly become the man of the moment on Japanese television. Despite his flamboyant personality and outrageous appearance reminiscent of the biker in the Village People, Hard Gay is not only not an actual homosexual, but his forays on television thus far have primarily been based on the wholesome concept of yonaoshi, or social improvement (although in recent appearances he has begun drifting into other territory involving his newfound celebrity). His TV segments usually feature him walking the streets and attempting to help out those he perceives as being in need whilst making jokes rich with pun and innuendo and thrusting his crotch with abandon, often to the horror and embarrassment of the subject(s) of his attention. While his antics may push the envelope at times, Hard Gay’s controversial moniker and appearance belie his good humor and affability.

There is absolutely no doubt that Hard Gay would never even make it onto television in the United States or any other nation of religious fanatics, however he’ right at home here in Japan, where most aspiring talents resort to adopting unique gimmicks — ridiculous outfits, silly catch phrases, stupid haircuts, etc. — in order to distinguish themselves from the competition. Hard Gay might be at the top now, but it’s debatable whether he will be able to stick around for long. While it’s undeniably difficult to resist imitating his pelvic thrusts and loud whoops (my exasperated fiancée can certainly attest to my own fondness for doing so way too often), basing one’s celebrity on a single gimmick can surely only last so long (can anyone say “GETS!“?).

For anyone interested in seeing Hard Gay in action , I’ve collected a number of clips from his appearances on the TBS program Daibakuten and they are linked below. Additional clips can be found on this Japanese site, however they take approximately forever to download. Alternatively, a torrent file of many of his clips (including the ones linked below) can be found here, courtesy of some guy who originally posted the link here. Enjoy!

	Hard Gay lending a hand to those in need [WMV, 5.50 MB]
	Hard Gay running a ramen shop (part 1) [WMV, 2.19 MB]
	Hard Gay running a ramen shop (part 2) [WMV, 1.56 MB]
	Hard Gay working at a gasoline stand [FLASH, 19.7 MB]
	Hard Gay drying a child’s tears [FLASH, 17.8 MB]
	Hard Gay cooking for kids (part 1) [FLASH, 35.2 MB]
	Hard Gay cooking for kids (part 2) [FLASH, 16.1 MB]
	Hard Gay cooking for kids (part 3) [FLASH, 21.2 MB]
	Hard Gay at Yahoo! Japan [MOV, 31.1 MB]

Let’s killing my bandwidth, WOOO!!!

From the Fabricated News Dept.:

Japanese Gov’t to Abandon ‘Cool Biz’ in Favor of Sweaters, Long Underwear

TOKYO - Following a rash of reports of complaints and lawsuits stemming from the failed “Cool Biz” campaign, which aimed to reduce energy consumption by encouraging business people to forego suit jackets and neckties, the Environment Ministry announced on Monday that it was summarily abandoning the summertime initiative, and would launch a new campaign for the autumn and winter months, dubbed “Warm Biz,” on October 1.

Environment Minister Yuriko Koike announces the termination of the “Cool Biz” campaign.

“It is regrettable that the ‘Cool Biz’ campaign, which held considerable promise for the reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, must be terminated at this time due to the failure by certain individuals to exercise proper moral judgment and self-control,” stated Environment Minister Yuriko Koike. “As pleased as I am that central government offices were able to successfully reduce electricity usage by 0.5% during the months of June and July, the increasing uninhibited exposure of bare skin — especially by the middle-aged male population — led to the creation of uncomfortable working environments nationwide.”

Both the public and private sectors saw a sharp increase in the number of indecency and sexual harassment complaints following the introduction of the “Cool Biz” campaign in June, leading many firms to abruptly discontinue the initiative and reinstate previous strict company guidelines for employee dress. Toshihiro Tanaka, president of a Tokyo-based architectural firm, said that although the campaign initially got off to a good start, “As the weeks went by, employees became more and more relaxed in their choice of clothing,” resulting in several instances of disciplinary action against those who took their casual attire too far. “There’s a difference between not wearing a necktie and not wearing pants.”

Even some women in Japan have gone as far as to work topless for the sake of keeping cool.

Hitomi Sato, a 28-year-old office assistant told of similar circumstances at the Yokohama Internet services company where she works. “At first, the men in my office started wearing short-sleeved dress shirts, then it was T-shirts, and eventually they just started going without shirts altogether,” she said with frustration. “After a while, they began to pressure us women to start doing the same; I didn’t think it was appropriate, but several of my female coworkers had no problem with going topless in the office.”

Under the Environment Ministry’s new “Warm Biz” campaign to be introduced in October, office workers will be encouraged to wear layers of clothing including long underwear, sweaters and headwear in order to reduce the use of heaters, especially electric and kerosene space heaters, which are used widely throughout Japan due to a lack of proper insulation and adequate heating systems in most of the country’s commercial and residential buildings. The Japanese government is confident that the new campaign will be far less problematic than its predecessor and is optimistic that it will lead to a significant reduction in energy consumption.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi models an example of “Warm Biz” attire to show his support for the new campaign.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was once a strong and vocal proponent of “Cool Biz,” told reports at an outdoor press conference Tuesday that he fully supports the new campaign and will faithfully follow the new dress code recommendations. “You can expect to see me dressed like this every day in a few months,” he joked, while visibly perspiring in head-to-toe heavy winter attire, including a down jacket, gloves and snow boots. “Yes, as soon as the first of October arrives, all of my Cabinet ministers and I will bundle up in thick wool knits and flannel-lined trousers, regardless of the actual temperature outside, in order to demonstrate Japan’s strong commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.”

Following the press conference, Koizumi was rushed to the University of Tokyo Hospital where he received treatment for severe dehydration and heat stroke. He is expected to be discharged and return to official duties next week.

Any ladies out there looking for a job in Tokyo?

I stumbled upon this little doozy today on the Jobs in Japan website:

We are looking for some female staff who does not mind being lightly sexually harassed during working hours. Our team is composed of male and female in equal proportion. We are located in central Tokyo. Duties: net surfing. Part-time ok.

Gee, I can only imagine the sheer number of women who must be lining up around the block for the chance to fill that position.

In a way, though, I suppose that company deserves some credit at least for laying its cards on the table and being honest about what it’s looking for. I think I’d like to see more of that:

Leading market research firm seeks professional, highly motivated executive assistant. Candidates must have a minimum of five (5) years relevant experience, perky breasts and a willingness to provide sexual services to members of the executive team. Competitive salary and generous benefits package provided.

Just kidding (sort of).

Anyway, for any women out there who might be interested in getting paid to surf the net, and who don’t mind being “lightly sexually harassed” while doing so, this just may be the job for you!

Today while browsing through Tower Records in Shibuya, I happened to pick up a copy of Metropolis magazine. Metropolis is a local English-language weekly featuring passable content such as film and restaurant reviews, as well as a large classifieds section containing a mass of personal ads from sleazy foreign men seeking skanky Japanese women for “casual encounters,” lonely 30-something Japanese women searching for foreign partners in a last-ditch effort to avoid dying alone, and African men looking to meet Japanese women with big butts (I’m as perplexed as you are about that one).

The main feature of this week’s issue is a series of profiles of several young non-Japanese women who participate gothic lolita scene in Tokyo. The women’s bland responses to the markedly unprobing interview questions, which touched on topics such as their preferred reading material (Harry Potter is a favorite), the cost of their silly costumes striking ensembles (all over US$200) and their impressions of Tokyo, all substantiated the obvious truth that members of the goth crowd, despite their claims of being “unique” and their “like, so cooler than you” attitude, are just as vapid and image-conscious as everyone else (if not considerably more so).

However, what really caught my eye was a quote attributed to the 21-year-old Taiwanese- American lass pictured above (nicknamed “Tiny”), who had this to say about her opinion of Tokyo:

“I like the Tokyo night life, food and fashion but I hate the muggy pollution and I’ve seen too many male genitals in public.”

Hmm, it certainly makes one wonder how that young lady spends her free time. . . .

At lunchtime today, I headed out to get something to eat and happened to come across a homeless man peeing on the street near my office. Of course, that in itself is hardly worth mentioning; one can find homeless men peeing on streets in every city of the world. What struck me about the situation this afternoon was the realization that it was the very first time that I had seen a public urinator in Japan who was actually homeless. Up until today, in the nearly weekly occurrence of seeing old men relieving themselves on sidewalks and in doorways in plain view of everyone passing by, all of the perpetrators have been relatively normal-looking guys!

The practice of public urination is called tachishoben in Japanese (literally: “standing urination”) and seems to be the unofficial pastime among the nation’s sizable population of sleazy old men. While the activity is frowned-upon by the general populace, not once in any instance of witnessing men openly spatter the contents of their bladders on the street have I ever seen someone admonish the offenders, let alone offer a disapproving “tsk” in the direction of the individual with his penis in his hand, unabashedly directing the stream of his urine towards a nearby surface.

Now, while it is obviously an objectionable practice, I don’t wish to condemn tachishoben — (what man among us is innocent of ever covertly dampening a darkened alley during an evening spent partaking in spirituous refreshment?) — I am merely undertaking a therapeutic exercise in writing about my unsettling experience in order to cleanse my psyche of any lingering detrimental effects of the memory of being presented with the sight of crusty homeless man penis while on my way to satiate my hunger with a mid-day collation.

Of course, the only thing worse than observing the flagrant depravity of a public urinator is to bear witness to the wanton turpitude of his reprobate cohort, the public masturbator. While I personally have yet to encounter this detestable creature, Judy, alas, has not been so fortunate. An occasion about two years ago saw her fleeing in a panic after happening upon a gentlemen “hard at work,” so to speak, on the side of the road at six o’clock in the morning on a fine winter’s day. Oddly enough, he was standing astride a bicycle at the time. . . .

It’s pretty amazing how much traffic the Smoking Manners gallery continues to draw. Last Saturday showed 15,000 (!) unique visitors, which is a bit more than usual to this humble site.

Since many of the people who visit conbinibento.com don’t speaka ‘da Japanese, I thought I’d mention that the Japan Tobacco website has a Smoking Manners screensaver available for download. It’s a continuous montage of many of the ads and will no doubt bring you loads of success with the opposite sex. Enjoy!

Sushi, with its aesthetic fusion of exotic tradition and simple sophistication, may be considered to be the quintessence of Japanese cuisine.

These days, it seems as though nearly everyone has at least heard of sushi and many have even enjoyed first-hand its culinary delights. However, how much do people outside of Japan really know about this paragon of haute Japanese fare? Click the image below for a rare opportunity to learn everything you could ever possibly hope to know about the time-honored practice of visiting a sushi restaurant in Japan, courtesy of a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek instructional video entitled The Japanese Tradition: Sushi.

(Japanese with English subtitles; WMV, 30.4MB)
A torrent of this video is also available here.

Naruhodo, samurai no kuni desu ne.

- - - - - - -

UPDATE: For anyone who might be interested, The Japanese Tradition: Dogeza can be found here.

Judy’s been talking about possibly getting a new cell phone recently, so this afternoon while out running some errands we stopped in a Vodafone shop to check out their selection.

Vodafone acquired the Japanese mobile company J-Phone a few years ago, and has since done little more than repeatedly demonstrate their utter lack of understanding of the unique Japanese market. While rivals DoCoMo and au have been constantly putting out a diverse range of new models with various designs, sizes and features to keep up with the fickle whims the rapidly changing market, Vodafone seems to be content releasing only a couple of new models each season and focusing their main energies on promoting their 3G technology in Japan, regardless of the fact that the infrastructure is spotty at best, and market demand nearly nonexistent. Although consumers are hungry for increasingly smaller and lighter handsets with sleek designs, Vodafone models are only getting clunkier, heavier and, quiet frankly, uglier, which makes it no surprise that their sales are steadily declining and their customer base rapidly shrinking.

Under these circumstances, Judy and I were certainly amused today to see Vodafone’s latest attempt to try to attract customers: the kigurumi-keitai, featuring a selection of twelve creatively-designed “costumes” for the new V501T model made by Toshiba, which was released this month. Here’s the line-up:

While some of the covers are admittedly pretty neat (especially the bull one), the V501T handset itself is exceptionally large (even larger than my TV remote!) and boasts no notable advancements in terms of features or technology.

While this latest gimmick may attract a few customers drawn to the kawaii factor of some of the “costumes,” I have sincere doubts whether it will do much to pull Vodafone out of its slump. The reason why most foreign companies fail miserably when trying to enter the lucrative Japanese market is their complete failure to understand the driving forces behind it. While American consumers may be interested in “super-sizing” and getting more bang for their buck, Japanese consumers place far greater importance on design and functionality and have few reservations about dropping loads of cash on something that suits their fancy. The companies that take the time to try to grasp the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese market in order to appeal to it stand a fair chance of success, however those that think that they can simply barge in and set up shop based on their standing overseas will face enormous challenges, as Vodafone is no doubt learning.

Well, it’s getting late, so before this senseless blather starts sounding any more like a retarded thesis, I think it’s time that I shut up and head to bed. . . .

How many Japanese people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

↓ CLICK ↓
(more…)

Earlier this week, Japundit reported that Miyoko Kawahara, the 58-year-old Nara woman who harassed her 64-year-old neighbor with incessant shouting and loud music day and night for nearly three years, recently pleaded not guilty to the charges of inflicting violence and injury on her neighbor.

Trouble started when Kawahara developed a grudge against her neighbor in 1989 after the older woman’s family moved in but did not come over to greet her, as is often the custom in Japan. A light that was reportedly too bright, a car that was parked the wrong way, and other incidents Kawahara perceived as slights added fuel to the feud over the years, apparently driving Kawahara over the edge and firmly into the realm of battydom.

Kawahara’s antics really have to be seen to fully appreciate her utter insanity. A video (WMV, 16MB) can be downloaded by clicking below. Enjoy!

- - - - - - -

By the way, for anyone who is unfamiliar with Japundit, I highly recommend checking out their site. Quality content, frequent updates, and a big ol’ rising sun logo. What more could anyone possibly want?

Well, it seems that innovation just doesn’t stop over at SolidAlliance, the makers of the wonderfully appetizing SushiDisk USB drives. They’ve taken their unique designs to the next level with the creation of a new, thumb-shaped drive called the “YayDrive”:

According the company, the inspiration for the design was the apparent practice in the West of referring to USB drives as “thumb drives,” something that results in frequent confusion for Japanese businessmen when interacting with their Westerner counterparts. The YayDrive was created to help eliminate this purportedly common communication problem and also to give Japanese people a clear image of why Westerners use the term “thumb drive.”

As for the name of the product, it appears to be based on SolidAlliance’s humorous suggestion for how one should respond when asked for a “thumb drive” by a foreign colleague:

Foreign person: “Do you have a Thumb Drive?”
Japanese person: [whips out the device] “Yay~!”

Uh. . . yeah.

The YayDrive is definitely much cooler than the cheap-o looking ones that were selling on eBay last year. Modeled after a real thumb, not only does it look neat when plugged into a computer, but it can also be decorated to one’s liking as well as used for silly magic tricks. Can you do that with your USB drive?

LINK

Something I’ve never fully understood is the phenomenon of the sex doll. What a person could possibly find sexually arousing about a “woman” with a fixed vapid expression, plastic breasts and a hairless minge, I do not know (and yes, I am aware that I also just described the average American porn “actress,” but I don’t see how anyone could find them attractive either). It would seem to me that the only people who would be interested in pounding away at an inanimate object with the anotomical appearance of a woman would be 12-year-old boys (since, frankly, most would probably hump a mound of warm mud given the opportunity), however most kids that age don’t have the thousands of dollars necessary to buy a sex doll.

As one would likely imagine, Japan seems to have a relatively large market for sex dolls (which the natives call “Dutch wives”) even to the extent that there are companies offering sex doll rental services (ew). Recently, while browsing the ol’ interweb, I happened upon what is probably one of the strangest examples of a sex doll that I’ve ever seen. Behold, possibly the world’s first headless, armless sex doll:

Called the seikan kusshon (erogenous cushion) in Japanese, but also possessing the English moniker “Baby Doll,” the doll is composed of 90% powder beads and 10% cotton, all housed within a skin made out of waterproof “wetsuit material” (talk about sexxxy). The doll features independently posable legs, bean bag tits and a drawstring pussy (which has got to be one of the funniest combinations of words ever), and when purchased, arrives packaged in a manguri-gaeshi pose, somewhat resembling the headless hooker I found in a cardboard box behind a dumpster on my eight birthday (yes, I’m kidding).

Variations of the Baby Doll include an underage schoolgirl version, complete with flat chest, white panties and smaller labia; an entirely limbless torso-only version, also marketed as a sleep companion; as well as a version consisting only of a cushion with orifices, which, according to the website, has a fairly large buttocks, allowing for “violent fuck” (hageshii fakku). Prices run about US$550 for the basic model, $400 for the underage, $230 for the torso and a mere $100 for the orifice cushion.

To anyone with a fetish for making sweet love to headless stuffed animals, this is the doll for you.

Remember that “Smoking Manners” campaign that Japan Tobacco launched about a year ago? Well, I happened to stop by the JT website today and noticed that there are a few new advertisements up, so I ganked them and put them in the gallery in the interest of preserving this great campaign that will eventually some day be discontinued and forgotten.

Here are the new ads in all of their Engrish glory:

I think I like the ski one the best.

This past week, the Japanese government kicked off its new “Cool Biz” campaign to encourage central government officials to shed their suit jackets and neckties during the summer months. The campaign, launched this past Wednesday, was designed to help employees work comfortably following new air conditioning restrictions put in place to reduce electricity consumption and carbon dioxide emissions to aid in the fight against global warming.

Despite strong support from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the public response to the campaign thus far has been somewhat lukewarm, especially among the more traditionalist members of the population. Most Japanese businessmen feel that suits and ties should be worn at all times — even during the hot and humid summer months — and that casual business attire reeks of unprofessionalism and poor manners. In addition, many still carry bad memories from the fashion nightmare that was the short-sleeved suit, which arrived on the scene following the 1979 oil crisis and was promoted heavily by former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata.

While I definitely agree that it’s beyond ridiculous to have to wear suits during the stifling Japanese summer, unfortunately I don’t see the “Cool Biz” campaign gaining widespread support, especially in the private sector. In a society rooted firmly in ceremony and tradition, in which every member must wear a uniform (literal or symbolic) to identify their status in order for social interaction to be possible, it’s going to take more than a government initiative to get people to change. I would imagine that even if the ozone layer depleted to the point that the sun’s rays literally scorched the earth, Japanese business men still would not leave their post-apocalyptic subterranean dwellings without first donning navy blue jackets and paisley neckties over their radiation suits.

In my office today, the thermostat was set at a cool 22°C (72°F) and all employees (myself included) were wearing suits and ties as usual, as we will be for the rest of the summer. Even if we underlings were to take it upon ourselves to dress in a manner appropriate for the heat, a swift admonishment from our superiors would no doubt follow, and all of our ludicrous notions of comfort and a perspirationless-free work environment would be immediately abandoned.

I swear, it would likely take an act of almighty Godzilla himself — the total destruction of all formal business attire in Japan (perhaps through collaboration with Mothra) — to get Japanese salarymen to even consider changing their dress habits. Oh well, at least they look passably presentable most of the time; I suppose that’s all that matters (to them).

Last week, my company installed a time card reader in the office where I work, effectively allowing The Man to monitor my every move (those goddamned fascists!). Lame jokes aside, the introduction of the use of time cards has allowed me to bear witness to a certain curious behavior that I had seen in previous offices here in Japan, but had completely forgotten about: people getting up out of their desks at the official end of working hours, swiping their time cards, and then sitting back down and continuing on with their work.

You see, ever since I’ve been working here, the powers that be in the upper echelons of my company have been trying to reduce the sheer amount of overtime that is racked up each month. The continued stagnation of the Japanese economy has left nearly all firms looking for ways to reduce costs, and with labor costs being most companies’ largest expenses, they are the primary target. However, the catch is that while employers are eager to reduce the amount of overtime wages they pay, they don’t want their employees to actually work any less.

The result is what is known as saabisu zangyo — “service” or voluntary unpaid overtime. Japanese law forbids companies from not giving compensation for overtime work, however despite the fact that the average employee works anywhere from 2-5 hours of overtime each day, companies don’t want to have to pay for it. Thus, the employees, demonstrating their fierce loyalty to the company and reflecting the comprehensive conditioning they underwent during their formative years, take it upon themselves to limit their documented work hours, all the while working far beyond the conditions stated in their contracts. It may sound utterly ridiculous to the average Westerner, but to the employee of a Japanese company, the benefits of such behavior (being seen as a team player, a higher likelihood of promotion, good comradery with colleagues, etc.) far outweigh the downsides (less contact with family members, increased stress, reduced personal time, etc.).

Of course, none of this actually applies to me, since I’m only a keiyaku shain (contract employee) and thus my contract is similar to that of a manager (i.e., the work must get done no matter what), meaning that all of my overtime is saabisu. However, the positive side of my situation is that I exist somewhat outside of the standard company organization, so unlike everyone else, I don’t have to dedicate my entire life to the company. It sure would be nice to get paid for the full amount of work that I do, but on the other hand, I have a life outside the office, which is more than I can say for most of my colleagues.

Anyhow, it’s the end of the week and I’m beat. Too much zangyo, once again. To anyone who’s interested in reading more, here’s an article about unpaid overtime in Japan, as well as one about what it’s like as a foreigner to work for a Japanese company. Fun stuff.

Love food? Love naked women? Well, if you’re looking to combine the two for an exceptionally titillating dining experience, don’t go to China:

China’s State Administration of Industry and Commerce issued a notice this weekend banning meals served on naked bodies, officially canceling the service offered by a restaurant in southwestern China that served sushi on unclothed female university students, a Beijing newspaper reported Sunday. [LINK]

The practice of eating raw fish off the body of an unclad woman is called nyotaimori in Japanese, and despite the fact that it’s apparently a rich Japanese tradition, opportunities to partake in this lovely cultural marvel are now quite scarce. I certainly haven’t had the good fortune of dining off the succulent bare flesh of a ravishing young nymph — actually, the closest I’ve ever come has been dining on the succulent bear flesh of a ravaging young cub (*rimshot*). Most likely, just like no-pan shabu-shabu, the few remaining establishments have gone underground, and one must have the contacts and the moolah (both of which I am sorely lacking) to indulge in their services.

Here’s one of the few articles about nyotaimori that I could find in English (although I imagine most of it is blatantly made up), and here’s a Japanese site with a veritible shopping list of what one needs to partake in such a feast as well as some diagrams detailing how to aesthetically arrange the food on a woman’s body.

It’s a shame that the Chinese government had to go and ruin all the fun. “Insults people’s moral quality,” blah blah blah. I honestly don’t see the harm, as long as all parties are willing participants and proper hygiene is observed. Stupid commies.

If there is any one thing for which Japan can be said to be the most abundant nation in the world, it is surely old people. No matter where you go in this country — from the busiest train station in Tokyo to the smallest village in the most remote countryside — you are bound to see droves of elderly citizens wearily shuffling about, their hunched frames and bow legs a harrowing reminder of what inevitably lies in store for all of us (well, those of us who subsist on a substandard diet, anyhow).

Naturally, as people age and their bodies wither and their minds deteriorate, many often come to require assistance from professional caregivers. The challenge therein lies in the fact that most people eager to establish a career in geriatric support services have little practical experience with the responsibilities involved, such as touching weird old people skin, listening to stories about life in the days before the invention of the automobile, and cleaning up “accidents.”

Thankfully, Sakamoto Model, one of Japan’s leading providers of medical training equipment, has a unique product that allows individuals studying to be caregivers the opportunity for hands-on experience without having to interact with actual old people. Say hello to Koharu-san:

According to the manufacturer, the doll, which features a highly realistic detailed appearance, composition and range of movement, was designed “to help people understand the necessity of tenderness and affection when nursing.” Of course, to individuals such as myself with the maturity level of grade school children, the most amusing aspect of Koharu-san is the following highly-advanced feature:

It is possible to practice not only assistance in excretion using a stool or toilet, but also in removing excrement from the anus.

Tee hee.

The full details and specifications of this wonderful training apparatus can be found here.

Sadly, having intimate knowledge of the truly abysmal depths of the depravity of human nature, I have no doubt that someone, somewhere is putting Koharu-san’s “durable yet easy-to-handle skin material,” Kung-Fu grip, and widely opening hip joints to use in a manner other than the one intended. A “mature” love doll, if you will.

Ew.

Now let’s all share a collective shudder and do our best to erase any images that may have developed in our mind during the reading of the paragraph above.

I’ve been a bit short on time the past few days and I’m not feeling particularly loquacious at this late hour, so I think I’m going to forgo the usual poppycock tonight and just post a photo.

Here is the headquarters of Asahi Breweries, located across the Sumida River from Asakusa:

The taller building on the left is the Asahi Beer Azumabashi Building, and was designed to resemble a glass of beer complete with a nice head of foam. (Don’t see it? Me neither.) The low black building beside the glass of beer is the Super Dry Hall, built to commemorate Asahi’s best-selling product, the semi-palatable Super Dry Beer. Of course, more so than the actual hall itself, the first thing that most people see when they first encounter this sight is the unique, WTF-inspiring structure resting atop it.

Designed by French architect Philippe Starck, the Flame d’Or (Golden Flame), as it is officially known, was created to represent the fighting spirit of Asahi employees, whose introduction of the Super Dry brew in 1987 was a smashing success when the product quickly became the company’s top seller (as it remains to this day).

Clearly Mr. Starck had consumed a few too many of Asahi’s fine products when he set to work to design the structure, as the enormous golden squiggle is said by many to more closely resemble a gilded piece of excrement than a burning flame. In fact, many Tokyoites affectionately refer to the object as the Ogon no Unko, or The Golden Turd. However, regardless of whatever the sculpture can be said to more closely resemble, it certainly holds a special place in the Tokyo metropolitan area, where it sits beside the banks of the Sumida River like a small bit of feces being subjected to the gentle current of a bidet.

And, with that appallingly atrocious simile, I’m off to bed for some much-needed sleep. Good night, folks!

The other night I was watching TV for the first time in ages and happened to catch a pair of car ads that gave me a bit of a chuckle. Apparently, in February of this year, Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third-largest automaker, launched a new ad campaign to promote the excellence and design of their model line and encourage people to visit their neighborhood showrooms to experience for themselves the fine quality and the feel of the materials used in each Nissan vehicle.

Staying true to the common practice by Japanese car companies of using English slogans in advertisements, Nissan created the following tagline for the new campaign:

(Wait for it. . .)

“Touch your NISSAN”

That’s right, seemingly innocuous yet potentially teetering on the edge of risqué (depending on how dirty one’s mind is), Nissan has provided the world with another Engrish gem. While it’s possible that no one at Nissan recognized the giggle-potential of their tagline, it certainly caused me to do a double-take, and I somewhat doubt that I was the only one.

Touch your NISSAN is actually strongly reminiscent of the Nintendo DS Touch! campaign that has been ongoing since October of last year. (Nintendo has recently taken the pun one step further with their new “My First Touch!” promotion featuring video clips of people’s first experiences playing the DS.) I, for one, would love to see the explosion of a trend featuring the use of double entendres in ad copy. Perhaps other automotive companies can follow suit with similar suggestive slogans of their own. Wouldn’t be great to flip through a magazine and see ads featuring lines like these?:

Feel your Mazda
Caress your Mercedes Benz
Squeeze your Suzuki
Pet your Volkswagen
Fondle your Honda
Stroke your Toyota
Rub your Mitsubishi
Palpate your Oldsmobile
Spank your Jaguar

Okay, I admit that those are incredibly lame, but I think the world definitely needs more of this. But, then again, I am the guy who was admonished by the teacher in my grade 12 Economics class for creating an ad for a fictional top-of-the-line luxury pen featuring a scantily-clad model above the tagline “I love a man with a big pen,” so perhaps it’s best that I not be listened to.

Ever since the advent of the computer age, the unyielding speed of technological advancement has been nothing short of astounding. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before this progress extended to the world of smut (about five minutes, to be exact), where prospective applications stand to provide endless benefit to the world’s awkward and perverted. Geeky losers who would never have a chance of achieving physical contact with actual members of the fairer sex are hard at work on the development of computer-generated women, with the goal of one day realizing their ultimate dream of the creation of a virtual sexual experience where a willing human partner becomes redundant.

With a society that inexplicably breeds an inordinate number of socially inept men, Japan continues to lead the world in the development of advanced virtual sexual technology in an attempt to bring to life ideas conceivable only in the wildest imaginations. MetaDoll.com is a prime example of just how far this technology has come within the past few years alone. The site features images of nubile CG beauties in a variety of outfits and poses, as well as a number of animations and interactive games. Access to most of the content requires a membership, however there are a few select features accessible without one, including this great Shockwave game jovially titled “Play with My Boobs!” [hint: keep clicking for additional options].

As the innovation of this progressive technology continues, one can only imagine the potential applications when it will be inevitably combined with Japan’s advanced wanking technology. The possibilities are endless!

- - - - - - -

Psst ↓ ↓ ↓

username: vip08
password: A01-4415-0822

Google is your friend.

I think it goes without saying that Japan is a nation obsessed with breasts. From titty mags displayed at children’s eye level in convenience stores to women nonchalantly sizing each other up on TV, breasts can be found everywhere (even on actual women!). Forget about the rising sun, Japan is the land of perky, bouncy, delectable boobies.

Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. Despite the fascination with all things mammary in this country, Japanese women are unfortunately known for having rather less-than- ample bust sizes. In this environment, as any economist will tell you, the shortage in supply of big knockers combined with the insatiable demand for them only increases the value of this precious, precious commodity. As a result, even if a woman has the talent and the personality of a pile of rocks, if she happens to be blessed with a bountiful bosom, she has the potential to become a famous celebrity simply due to the size of her “assets”. Conversely, the abundant supply of tiny ta-ta’s and the accompanying low demand leave many women with smaller chest sizes feeling inadequate.

Well, if there’s anything that unites women worldwide above and beyond having vaginas and going through a menstrual cycle and and all that, it’s undoubtedly an unfounded insecurity about their bodies. Japan is, of course, no exception, however rather than implants or other surgical methods of augmentation, Japanese women tend to rely on more “natural” methods in their attempts to enhance their busts, the most common of which are usually excessive padding and push-up bras.

However, as it is human nature to never be fully satisfied with anything, Japanese women continue to search for other ways in which to not simply make their breasts look bigger, but actually grow bigger. Naturally, enterprising companies are more than happy to capitalize on this desperate desire by offering a wide range of “enhancement” products with promises of bigger, fuller breasts in minimal time.

Just last week, various Western media outlets reported on one such product, which is advertised as being able to help enhance the size, shape and tone of women’s breasts. What is it? Why, it’s chewing gum! That’s right, B2UP, the makers of Bust-Up Gum, claim their product not only will provide a bigger bust, but also improved circulation, reduced stress levels and anti-aging effects. The product has grown so popular with significant interest from outside of Japan that B2UP has recently announced plans on its website to set up online shopping (in both Japanese and English) to try to meet the demand. Of course, larger, firmer breasts don’t come cheap. A single bottle containing 50 pieces runs about ¥5800 (US$55).

As odd as it may seem, Bust-Up Gum is actually only one example of many products on the large and ever-increasing “bust up” market. Swindlers Health product companies are offering everything from breast-enhancing capsules and rub-on gels to bras that supposedly utilize atmospheric infrared radiation and ultrasonic waves to increase the size of the wearer’s tits. Do any of these products work? I don’t know, and I seriously doubt it. However, if anyone has ever tried them, I call on you to kindly submit before and after photos for the purpose of, um, further research into the matter.

Together we can help make a difference in the fight against flat-chestedness.

What’s worse than having to work on a national holiday?

How about having to work late on a national holiday?

Yes, while most people in Japan were off enjoying the first day of spring, yours truly was stuck in the office with the rest of the worker drones until the late hours of the night. Even the slave drivers who share a building with my company and whose employees never seem to go home had the day off today (the lucky bastards). My colleagues, of course, toiled on, silently patting themselves on the back for being “hard workers” for working on a national holiday. I, however, could not enjoy the same smug satisfaction, as I don’t subscribe to the typical Japanese belief that working longer = working harder.

Anyway. . . the weather was pretty nice last Saturday, so I headed over to Asakusa to play the part of a tourist and do a bit of sightseeing. I took way too many crappy photos, and I’ll probably put a few of them up later this week (consider yourselves forewarned).

In the meantime, here’s a photo of a tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) shop in my neighborhood that, through a humorous example of poor planning, appears to share neon sign space with a soapland offering bath play for ¥10,000 (about US$95) plus a discount for early morning customers (doors open at 7:00am).

[For anyone who doesn’t read Japanese, the two red portions read ソープランド (= soapland) and とんかつ (= tonkatsu).]

Nothing much going on today except that it’s still cold and wintry, and everyone I know is feeling miserable (stupid Seasonal Affective Disorder).

Anyway, here’s a bathroom sign that gave me a bit of a chuckle when I saw it in a department store a little while back:

If that doesn’t cheer you up, then maybe some Japanese vacuum porn will (or, conversely, make you even more horribly depressed. . .).

It’s been long established that Japan is a nation of sexual perverts. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, as it certainly makes things more interesting. However, there is one genre of sexual imagery here for which even I have been unable to gain an appreciation: tentacle rape porn (or shokushu in Japanese).

How anyone could get any kind of arousal from watching doe-eyed cartoon characters being furiously violated by slimy alien tentacles is beyond me. My assumption had always been that the reasoning behind the creation of this particularly peculiar genre of anime was to attempt to bypass Japanese censorship laws that forbid the depiction of genitalia, however, it appears there is a historical precedent for this kind of artwork.

Behold, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife (1814) by renowned ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (left) and Abalone Fisherwoman with Octopus (c. 1880 – 1890) by an unknown artist (right):

Who knew that tentacle porn had such a long and storied history?

For the sake of comparison, here are two examples of modern shokushu found via a Google image search:

Hot stuff, eh?

Anyone interested in reading more about tentacle porn can find more information than you would ever want to know here.

When you’re a kid, every bit of information you hear on the schoolyard is considered unquestionable and undisputable fact. Way back when I was (slightly less) naive and impressionable, the things that I heard about from my friends and classmates about Japan never failed to awe me, such as: the women are all sex-crazed goddesses with a penchant for housework and the culinary arts; the men are all geniuses and don’t need to do any physical labor because they’ve created highly advanced robots to do it for them; and there is absolutely no crime because police officers are all bad-ass martial arts experts who lay down the law by dispensing justice indiscriminately and without mercy.

Now, while the first example turned out to be true (and how!), the same unfortunately cannot be said for the other two. While automation might be slightly more advanced here compared to the West, the mental superiority hypothesis quickly died the moment I first heard a Japanese person espouse the oddly ubiquitous assertion that Japan is the only country in the world that has four distinct seasons. As for the Japanese keisatsu (police force). . . well, let’s just say that they’re not quite the ruthless, uncompromising badasses that I had envisioned in my youth. In fact, in reality, Japanese police officers seem more adept at sitting in the koban (police box) sipping tea and occasionally giving directions than at fighting crime and catching bad guys.

Take, for example, an incident that occurred earlier this week when Tokyo police arrived at a scene in which vehicle had slammed into a building in the Daiba waterfront district. When the police approached the vehicle, the driver emerged brandishing a metal club, at which point the officers reacted like little girls and promptly ran away as fast as they could (!). The police finally managed to capture the assailant when he tried to flee in a police vehicle, the keys of which had been left in the ignition.

The incident caused quite a stir in the media after the prime minister himself commented that it was “embarrassing” and called for increased training for the national police. Of course, had the episode taken place in the US, the driver would have likely been shot the moment he charged in the officers’ direction.

Anyway, video of the incident is available here and is definitely worth a look for comic value.

Of course, this recent incident is only one in an endless series of embarrassing and criminal acts perpetrated by Japan’s finest. From drunkenly assaulting shop employees to taking photos up schoolgirls’ skirts to forcing women to touch their naughty bits, these men in blue have firmly secured their position as the laughingstock of the world’s police forces. Way to go, guys!

Tonight when I passed through Shibuya station on my way home, I looked up and noticed this new advertising gimmick by Levi’s Jeans:

Yes, those are real pairs of jeans hanging from the ceiling. This is kind of campaign is something that would never work in the US; within minutes, all of the pants would be gone and the homeless guys who sleep in the station would all be sporting new 501s.

Japan is widely known as a land of somewhat “unique” sexual practices and perversions. From bukkake to severe bondage to wild costume fetishes, no matter how extreme or absurb a sexual feat you try to imagine, there are likely thousands of Japanese people engaging in said act at this very moment. Of course, Japan has not always been so sexually advanced; back in simpler times, relations between the sexes were far more innocent and generally quite akwkard. Whenever a young man and a woman would first get together to express their affection for one another in a physical manner, the activity would generally only progress as far as a handshake and pat on the back before the couple would break into a fit of giggles and give up.

In order to get young people acquainted with the physical characteristics of members of the opposite sex as well as the technicalities involved in intimate relations, the leading minds of the day came together to create the quintessential guide to the art of lovemaking. With pens and clipboards in hand, they spent countless hours examining reel after reel of nature films depicting reproductive practices in the animal kingdom (because observing actual humans would be obscene) and toiled night and day in order to compile detailed instructions for every aspect of sexual behavior, from courtship to copulation. Thus, the Wakai Hito no Seiten, or Sex Manual for Young People, was delivered unto the citizens of Japan with great fanfare.

Not only does the comprehensive guide cover the basics, including hand holding and breast fondling, it also details other more, er, unusual practices, such as grooming, test tube handling and ways to simulate intercourse with posable wooden manikins. A virtual treasure trove of valuable information all contained within the pages of a single book, colorfully decorated with a photograph of a woman proudly displaying her unshaven armpit.

Thankfully, unlike an old man’s ability to achieve an erection, this incredible document has not been lost to time. Thanks to Tokyo Damage Report, a wonderful selection of pages from this classic text are available for your viewing pleasure here. Enjoy!

Like the countless other bastardized generic Western traditions, at one point in time the Japanese adopted the holiday known as Valentine’s Day and made it their own. No longer is it a day for a man to spend ridiculous amounts of hard-earned money on flowers and chocolate for his special lady in hopes of getting some good lovin’ in return in order to express his heartfelt feelings — instead, the Japanese took it upon themselves to combine the made-up day of buying stupid crap in the name of love with the eternal playground favorite “opposite day” and created a day in which women give gifts to men.

Great idea, isn’t it? Women in western countries are spoiled silly — birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Valentine’s Day — if you don’t spring for something nice on each occasion, there’s no guarantee your sweetheart won’t walk out the door and never return. Not once is the shoe ever on the other foot, so to speak, and we men receive unreciprocated gifts from the women in our lives. However, here in Japan, the 14th of February is a day especially for women to indulge men. From store-bought chocolate to home-made goodies, women throughout the country take the time to do something sweet for the ones dear to them.

And then there’s giri choco — combining the bitterness of obligation (giri) with the sweetness of fermented, roasted, and ground cacao seeds combined with a sweetening agent, giri choco is what Japanese women give to the men in their lives (friends, coworkers, etc.) out of nothing other than pure, unadulterated social obligation. Sure, it sounds silly and completely unnecessary, but then again, so are most social customs. Whether people like it or dislike it, all that matters is that they buy chocolate and make the chocolate barons even richer.

Of course, in Japan, obligation isn’t truly obligation unless it’s mutual and never-ending. Thus, the confectioners in Japan created a completely new holiday in order to keep up the indebtedness cycle, and White Day was born. Exactly one month after Valentine’s Day, men who were lucky enough to receive gifts on Valentine’s day (giri or otherwise) now have to give gifts in return, at often two or three times the value. In other words, White Day is a terrible, terrible holiday, and I’m lucky that no one likes me enough to give me giri choco in the first place.

Now excuse me while I go cry myself to sleep.

- - - - - - -

Yesterday while browsing through the prepared food section of my local department store, I saw this and just had to get it. Behold, Valentine’s Day themed sushi:

There was a humorous article on the Japan Today website yesterday about what Sanyo Electric is doing in response to financial losses suffered this year:

Sanyo asks employees to buy company products to cut losses

OSAKA — Sanyo Electric Co has asked all domestic group employees to buy Sanyo products of up to 2 million yen per person by the end of March to help reduce losses stemming mainly from damage caused by earthquakes that struck Niigata Prefecture last year, company sources said Saturday.

Division chiefs at the home appliance maker were asked to buy up to 500,000 yen and rank-and-file employees 200,000 yen, they said. If each Sanyo group employee satisfies the company’s target, the group will boost its sales by about 16 billion yen, they said.

For anyone not hip to the foreign exchange market, the amount that Sanyo is “asking” (read: forcing) each employee to spend is roughly US$2000 ($5000 for managers). I can only imagine what it must be like to be a member of the Sanyo group right now. . . big posters up in every office declaring “Let’s buying Sanyo goods!,” daily reminders announced every morning, a chart on the wall tracking which employee has shown the most “dedication to the company” by dropping the most cash. . . madness.

Sure, it sounds like an incredibly ridiculous business plan, but is it really that crazy? I suppose the question is: would you rather be laid off, or receive what is effectively a two-grand salary cut? At least this way everyone gets to keep their jobs AND gets a houseful of new appliances to boot. Plus, they might even be able to make a little cash back by selling off their old appliances to the local Hard Off.

The food replica business is thriving in Japan — a visit to nearly any restaurant in any region will confirm this. In the front window you will likely find highly detailed replicas of a sampling of the shop’s dishes intricately made out of plastic or wax . Of course, food replicas aren’t limited only to storefront displays; one can find a wide range of objects, from keychains to rubber erasers, faithfully crafted to resemble popular food items.

Well, it appears that it was inevitable that this trend would be taken one step further to see the melding of the replication of culinary delights with state-of-the-art technology. Solid Alliance, a Yokohama-based company, has done the incredible and created a line of USB memory drives hand-made in the form of popular types of sushi. Never before has a portable disk drive looked so darn tasty.

Solid Alliance also makes rubber ducky USB drive as well.

Sure, it’s nearly February, but for anyone still without a 2005 calendar, fret no more. The folks at the Engrish-laden guide to oddball tourist attractions in Japan, How to walk of Japan, have given the world a glorious gift in the form of the 2005 “Love Position of Animal” calendar!

That’s right, 12 months of CorelDraw-produced images of various animals engaging in the magnificent act of procreation! While I’m not an expert on the intricacies of animal mating practices, I can say with near certainty that most of the depictions of animals coupling in the calendar appear to be physiologically accurate! (Except for the kangaroos, who, as this infamous photo has taught us, don’t hump face-to-face.)

The calendar is available for free download, so there’s no excuse not to have this stunning work of art hanging in your bedroom or office cubicle. Proudly display your love of nature and fondness for gettin’ freaky together with this one-of-a-kind calendar. You’ll be the envy of all your peers!

Pure class.

That’s what I strive for with every personal and professional endeavor I undertake in my life, as well as what this site is all about. That is why I feel it is my pleasure — nay, duty — to share with you a site that I stumbled upon by means of a completely innocent Google search:

Märchen Kingdom

Now, seeing as it is not my intention to offend anyone, I think I’ll refrain from posting any samples of the work created by the highly talented and clearly mentally disturbed artist who runs that site. However, if drawings of young girls defecated profusely or sporting raging erections are your kind of thing, I would definitely recommend a visit.

Class of the highest calibre, indeed.

- - - - - - -

WTF? Redux

Many people are aware of Japan’s love for excessive packaging.

Behold a particularly ridiculous example that Judy picked up at the supermarket the other day:

Some people seriously have way too much free time on their hands.

Meet the latest and greatest example of superior Japanese ingenuity — the Men’s Som!

No longer is it necessary to expend excessive amounts of energy in order to bring yourself to climax by manual stimulation — simply insert your member into the patented Kung-Fu Grip sheath and sit back to enjoy the smooth adjustable-speed wanking motion of the Men’s Som!

Now you can revel in the rapturous delight of self-pleasure without having to break a sweat or divert your eyes from your pornographic material of choice. Moreover, the Men’s Som completely eliminates the risk of damage to your favorite adult magazines because it leaves your hands free and clean to turn the pages at will. Never again will you suffer from annoying slimy fingers or painful “pincher’s wrist!”

Order your Men’s Som today and discover the incredible sensation of sexual contact with another human being! (Well, almost.)

Operators are standing by!

Only ¥35,800 plus shipping & handling.
Warning: As with any electrical device, there is a risk of electrical shock when using the Men’s Som.
Robo-Wank, Inc. is not liable for injury or disfigurement resulting from the misuse of this product.

You make the call.

The evidence for consideration: this video of a Japanese game show in which contestants play rock-paper-scissors and the winner tries to douse the loser with a bucketful of hot wax.

Words simply fail me.

Merry Chrithmas!!

Despite nearly constant exposure to it, one aspect of Japanese popular culture that I have been unable to gain any appreciation for is J-pop. To say that I can’t stand the crap is a gross understatement; words simply cannot describe my extreme loathing of this genre of so-called “music.” In fact, the only thing that I could do to adequately express my feelings about this scourge on the earth would be to systematically smash in the faces of each and every talentless, squeaky J-pop “singer” on the planet.

However, the full brunt of my hatred of J-pop is reserved for one particularly annoying wench by the name of Otsuka Ai. Her whiny, nasally voice and her “Ooo~ watch me tilt my head and make a pouty face — aren’t I so cute?” poses inspire such a murderous rage inside of me that just the sight of her makes me soil myself.

Or maybe that’s an unrelated bowel problem — I can never be sure.

Anyway, on Monday night I was walking through Shibuya after work, and while stopped at a crosswalk I glanced up and saw a large billboard advertising a new Otsuka Ai album that was released a couple of weeks ago. Curiously entitled Love Jam, the album cover depicts Otsuka Ai’s face covered in what appears to be strawberry jam, evoking images of the fine Japanese tradition of the bukkake special.

Pure class. I’ve definitely got to give a pat on the back to whomever came up with the idea for that one.

There is an extreme overabundance of pointless jobs in Japan. Outmoded and reduntant occupations such as “women who press the buttons in elevators,” “old men who wave cars into parking lots,” and “construction workers well past their prime who stand outside of construction sites and bow to passers-by.” Apparently the Japanese government would rather have a low unemployment rate and high cost of living than a lower cost of living with a higher unemployment rate. It makes sense, I suppose, but it certainly seems rather inefficient [said the guy with a degree in economics].

I saw another fine example of this last weekend while hanging out at Minato Mirai in Yokohama. This man’s job was to hold a sign advertising model rooms open for viewing at a new housing development nearby:

Working very hard, as you can see.

A pair of cinder blocks would do a much better job for free and wouldn’t even need to take bathroom breaks.

Working 12-hour days suck.

I was at the office until after 9:00 last night and then later stayed up until 2:30 in the morning making golf clubs out of cardboard boxes for Judy’s students (don’t ask). Today again, I worked until 9:30.

My brain stopped functioning long ago, and I think I may have soiled myself some time around 8:00 or so.

Okay, this isn’t the latest I’ve ever worked by far, but TGIF, you know what I mean?

I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. Why don’t you celebrate by watching Japanese girls bitchslap one another? Amateur vs. Actress!

Last night, instead of going to sleep at a relatively reasonable hour like I should have, I stayed up to see if anything interesting was on TV. Lo and behold, among the plethora of programs featuring celebrities eating and badly dubbed American infomercials, I discovered yet another example of WTF-to-the-MAXXX!

On Tuesday nights on TBS there’s a variety show called Dragon & Ball Hour starring the combined members of the comedy duos Drunk Dragon and Football Hour. I hadn’t seen it before, but it seemed to be pretty standard fare as far as Japanese comedy shows go — bad wigs, cross-dressing, corny jokes and a peculiar fondness for smacking people over the head — except for one segment.

Unfortunately, I only caught the last few minutes of it, but it basically seemed to go something like this: a group of 20 or so women were standing on a stage, and each comedian was given a chance to make a guess about some criteria the women might possess (for example, one comedian asked if any of the women owned garter belts). If there were any women among the group who met the criteria, they would remain standing while those who didn’t meet the criteria would sit down. The next comedian would then get a chance to make a guess about the remaining women standing. In the end, if one comedian narrowed the group down to one last woman, he would win a kiss.

. . . Or something like that. I apologize for the shoddy description, but I’m sure you get the idea.

Anyhow, in the last round, only two women remained standing. The comedians made their guesses, but one-by-one, they failed. Their fate: The Punishment Game. What, pray tell, is The Punishment Game? Please allow me to illustrate with the following images:

(Yes, I had my camera handy while watching TV. Yes, I know that’s pathetic.)

Here, Tsukaji Muga of Drunk Dragon (bottom left) makes his guess. [BTW, I have no idea why the woman on the right is wearing a crown and robe.] Unfortunately, I didn’t hear what Muga said (I had the volume turned down because Judy was in the next room sleeping), but whatever guess he ventured was FALSE!

The sound of the buzzer brought the arrival of. . .

Three ripped black guys in briefs!

What followed next was madness. The three guys proceeded to strip Muga of his clothes, spread his legs in the air and slap him around like a little bitch. Observe:

Um. . . yeah, that pretty much left me speechless.

After a long week at work, it’s finally Friday evening and all I want to do is go home and sleep. Hooray for working life.

Here’s a photo of the infamous Godzilla statue in Ginza:

Apparently people have gone through great lengths to find it, but I happened to just stumble upon it by accident a few months ago while wandering around the area (the statue is tucked away near the Toho Twin Tower Building, not far from JR Yurakucho station).

The statue itself is only about a meter or so tall, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Definitely something I would love to decorate my living room with, had I the necessary heavy lifting equipment and a band of stealthy larcenists at my call.

This week has seriously been The Week That Would Not End!

Last night I got home from work ridiculously late (as usual), and after eating dinner, I sat down in front of the TV to veg out a little before going to bed. Not surprisingly, there was another one of those bikini-clad-women-engaging-in physical-challenges shows on, but this one had a unique title that nearly made me forget for just a moment about my miserable existence. The name of the show?

Pooh!

Absolutely fecking brilliant, if you ask me. I wasn’t able to decipher why exactly the program was named after excrement (or the lovable bear who’s stuffed with fluff), but apparently last night’s program was the very last episode, so unfortunately it is likely that I will never know. It’s a shame I didn’t discover this wondrous show earlier, especially since according to the website, the theme on Monday nights is “girls.” How can you go wrong with that?

I guess I should watch late night television more often, eh? Who knows what I’m missing.

- - - - - - -

Anyway, here are some photos of the Tokyo Tower — Tokyo’s “famous” (in Japan only) reproduction of Eiffel Tower.

To follow up on last Friday’s post (and to drag this site even further into the gutter). . .

On Saturday night I was up late, flipping through the channels on TV, when I happened to stumble upon a program featuring the aforementioned “bikini-clad models competing in physical challenges.”

In the particular challenge that was being shown, an inflatable water slide had been placed in a swimming pool and women were racing up the slide in pairs to try to grab a small flag perched at the top. Sounds innocent enough, right? However — for a reason my inferior non-Japanese mind was unable to fathom — after obtaining the flag, both contestants then went on to affix a pair of giant pink nipples to their swimsuit tops.

Yes, you read that correctly. I couldn’t make this stuff up, folks.

Fortunately, I had my camera handy and was able to take a few photos. The quality is expectedly poor, but I’m sure someone will get a kick out of the sheer absurdity of it all.

Last night I was wasting time on online (what else do you really do on the internet?), when I stumbled across this picture and nearly had an aneurysm as my brain struggled to comprehend what I was seeing:

Menstrual Dreamer by Magical Designer Mari-Chan

“WTF?” indeed.

Now, before you start thinking me to be some kind of sick degenerate who spends his evenings scouring the internet for pictures of menstruating cartoon characters, I assure you that the discovery was completely unintentional. A click here, a link followed there, and the next thing I know, the image of a nude wide-eyed nymph with multiple body piercings violently spewing forth a torrent of menstrual demons from her hairless gash is being burned into my retinas.

Only a Japanese person could come up with something as utterly-disturbing-yet-undeniably-cute as this. Gloomy Bear is another fine example of this phenomenon. If you aren’t familiar with that particular character, check out the animations here, here and here. A tad disconcerting, no? (I actually have a keychain of this one [pic here], although a numbing fear of loss of street cred’ has prevented me from using it thus far).

Say what you will about the unusual aspects of Japanese culture, it certainly can be fun!

Proving once again that I have the maturity level of an 8-year-old . . .

hee hee

As annoying as it may be for a non-smoker like me, in Japan the smell of cigarette smoke is as ubiquitous as bespectacled salarymen, sushi, karaoke, Godzilla, tentacle porn and all of the other things that people elsewhere associate with this country (although ninjas are sadly very scare). Having grown up in California, where smoking cigarettes is about as uncouth as knocking up your grandmother, it was a bit of an adjustment getting accustomed to spending nearly every waking hour enshrouded in a cloud cigarette smoke, but I am now depressingly used to it.

Surprisingly (to me, at least), Japanese people regard smoking as little more than a bad habit and there is essentially no education here regarding the many health risks associated with it. Thus, while cigarette packaging in other developed countries contains warnings labels such as “SMOKING WILL MAKE YOUR DICK SHRIVEL UP AND DIE”, in Japan the labels merely say, “There may be a risk of damage to your health, so be careful not too smoke too much.” Why doesn’t the government require stronger warnings? Well, that would be bad for business, seeing as the Japanese government is the largest shareholder in Japan Tobacco (!).

However, feeling pressure from anti-smoking activists and foreign governments alike, Japan Tobacco has implemented a campaign to increase public awareness of the dangers of smoking. Recently, I happened to see one of their new advertisements in the train during my commute:

“WTF?” you ask? Yes, in the typical Japanese “path of least resistance” manner, Japan Tobacco has chosen to focus on the “manners” aspect of smoking, rather than the harmful health risks (”Forget about cancer and birth defects, YOU MIGHT POKE SOMEONE’S EYE OUT!!”). This began a few years ago, with such campaigns as “Smoking Clean” and “Are you a good smoker?” which all focused on educating smokers on proper smoking etiquette. The slogan of the new campaign is “Anata ga kizukeba, manaa ha kawaru” (roughly “If you take notice, your manners will change”).

Um . . . yeah.

I tried to snap a photo of the ad, but unfortunately with the rocking of the train and the stares of everyone else in the carriage wondering why the crazy foreigner was taking pictures of a smoking advertisement, the photo didn’t turn out very well. So instead, I went over to the Japan Tobacco website and found several brilliant examples that are each works of art unto themselves. I promptly stole them and have set up a gallery on this site in order to preserve them for all time. Let the hilarity ensue.