I caught this amazingly talented guy on an NHK special yesterday and was totally blown away. Get ready to hear the ukelele as you probably have never heard it before.

For a bit of balance, and following on from our article on blue bees the other day, let’s take a look at the other end of apiological scale.
If those gentle, quiet blue bees were old ladies on trundling mamachari, then vespa mandarinia would be helicopter gunships.
For vespa mandarinia is the giant asian hornet, […]

Magibon
Magibon is an internet personality on the video-sharing website YouTube.
As of August 8, 2008, Magibon leads YouTube Japan’s All time top list. Magibon is also a member of the Youtube Partner Program.
Magibon has been invited and flown to Japan by a Japanese Internet TV Station GYAO for a media appearance. She has been interviewed twice […]

Nature-lovers, you might have caught a story in last week’s Asahi Shimbun about a rare and unusual kind of bee to be found buzzing around Japan, and in particular at the Aso Highland Museum Park, in Kumamoto prefecture.
Though the article seemed to downplay the chances of finding any, we decided to make the trip up […]

And are all of these offensive?
Here is a pizza flavored pretzel commercial from Japanese TV, which uses the Italian word bongiorno, so I guess it insults the honor of two nations with one stone.

Click here to read more. . . »
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Mrs Overoften uncovered this KitKat in a local shop, and knowing I have a passing interest in these matters, brought it home.
This KitKat gives you a vocabulary lesson in various ben (dialects) around Kyushu.

For example, starting in the north, you can see that those folks in Fukuoka say すいとう for 好きだ (suki da), which will […]

Here’s a trilogy of videos on Japanese beer - one on beer vending machines in Kyoto, another one on a draft beer vending machine in Tokyo, and a final one on historical beers - beers with labels of famous people in Japanese history with short bios.
This first video is from BusanKevin in Kyoto talking about […]

When is a graveyard likely to be filled with tourists snapping pictures?
When it’s a gaijin bochi, or “foreigners’ graveyard,” which you can see in several old Japanese cities that have had Westerners living there for a long time, like Yokohama, Kobe and Hakodate.
Japanese burial rites involve cremation and placing the bones and ashes […]

Take a dip into the surreal and the avant-garde with the Taiwanese performance group - the Eyeball Love Globe group.
The Eyeball Love Globe performed at the Tokyo Design Festa this past May and have done so a few other times before being one of the popular re-occuring performances at the exhibition.
Eyeball Love Globe
the music for […]

Here’s a small slice of the music scene in Tokyo.
This vid is brief snippets of three bands I caught at Tokyo Design Festa.
Mimi-Unagi
Luxury
Tsubaki
Crazy Angel Company

Here’s a bit of a big band I caught at Tokyo Design Festa called Crazy Angel Company.
They have a lot of energy and it shows in their performance.

Crazy Angel Company

Do you know the Japanese Pinky Promise?
It’s a similar to the “Make a promise/Hope to die/Stick a needle in your eye” song I learned while growing up. Hook your pinky with someone else’s and chant the song, which goes, “Pinky Promise, if you lie, I will make you swallow 1000 needles.” (If you want […]

Though I never have run across this myself, I definitely would be willing to give it a try and find out exactly what a chocolate covered salty dog tastes like. . .

Via Noodles and Rice

What’s your favourite ice cream flavour? A quick poll I took of Japanese kids revealed banira (vanilla) to be the undisputed champion. Which surprised me. In English slang, after all, vanilla-flavoured has come to mean boring. Anyway, what do kids know. Chocolate is obviously the best flavour.
I didn’t find out […]

Courtesy of Quirky Japan Photos

Heard this on an oldies program this evening, and it reminded me just how great Ozaki Kiyohiko’s music sounds, even though this super hit (Mata Au Hi Made) is already 30 years old.

Neat video that captures pretty well that which is Tokyo.

Now all we need is a little Lego soy sauce.
Via UniqueDaily

A restaurant located at the Naokata City, Fukuoka prefecture government office building has added a new Oppai Lunch (Breast Lunch) to their menu to mark the release of the movie Oppai Volley (Breast Volleyball), which was shot in the city.
The Oppai Lunch consists of two cups of breast-shaped chicken rice with strategically placed green peas, […]

Last night my girlfriend and I had some friends over and we made okonomiyaki. I had never had it before, but had heard about it from various Japanese friends, and was excited to try it for the first time. It’s sort of like a Japanese pancake, but mixed with various goodies and topped with sauces […]

From the Essential Skills Department. . .

Via Ramen Students