Back when I was learning Japanese, I distinctly remember thinking to myself that the Speedo swimsuit company had to be Japanese.
The reason for this was the way all Japanese sounds are based on syllables — for example, you can have sa, shi, su, se and so but never s by itself — which plays […]

Japan is a great country, with a lot to offer both short-term visitors and tourists as well as people like me, who like the place so much we put down permanent roots. But still, Japan is far from perfect, and there are various sources of stress for gaijin living here, for example (if your language […]

Like most countries, the keitai (mobile phone) has become a huge part of life in Japan, and for the younger generation, cell phones seem to be supplanting the personal computer as the primary Internet device of choice.
The newest trend is young people using their phones to access sites called purofu ( “prof,” from the […]

The other day I ate soba noodles for lunch, and I was amused at a sign I saw above my head, which said narubeku kin’en, translatable as “No Smoking As Possible, Please.”
I found it quite amusing for the restaurant owners to ask customers not to smoke “if they can possibly avoid it.” Although smoking […]

When Westerners first began to visit Japan in the mid-1500s they were struck by the refined beauty and quality of the country’s arts and crafts. It was a kind of beauty and quality that they had never seen before.
This special quality of Japanese things was so commonplace that the Japanese themselves did not consider it […]

One of the most important concepts in daily life in Japan is shinyo, which means “trust,” and when Japanese have dealings with individuals or businesses, choosing someone they can trust is extremely important.
Of course, everyone wants to deal with people and companies they believe will do right by them, but in Japanese society the […]

What Japan Thinks has a report on an Internet survey about what Japanese people think are the greatest attributes of Japan and the Japanese people.
The top 10 responses. . .
1. A sense of the four seasons
2. Diligence
3. Kindness
4. Rich food culture
5. Ability to create cutting-edge technology
[…]

Found at a pet shop the other day, sparkling wine for pooches.

The woman in the store confided in me that they do not sell much of the stuff.

These stealthy assassins of yore…what lurks deep in their hearts?

Their whole lives are dedicated to their craft…to stealth, to sabotage, to espionage, to theft, and to assassination.
But what do they dream of when they allow themselves to succumb to sleep’s gentle embrace?
What is it that they secretly yearn to do?
Watch this short documentary or “ninjumentary” […]

The Marmot has a great follow-up post on the Wai Wai Debacle and some attention that it has attracted overseas.
It is their popularity with some Western readers that has especially incensed Japanese bloggers. Many feel their country’s reputation has been “debauched” around the world. “Foreigners who don’t know the truth will believe these stories are […]

JAPUNDIT has become quite the talk of the Japanese Internet, which has been boiling over with anger over the now-defunct Mainichi Wai Wai.
It seems that someone has picked up on this JAPUNDIT post that quotes from a Wai Wai column we found particularly amusing because it was so incredibly outlandish. Of course, we intentionally inserted […]

It can sometimes be near impossible to get a good night’s sleep during Japan’s hot, humid summers. Sleeping under an air conditioner is one option of course, but that often leads to summer colds.
Well, relief may finally be on the way in the form of the Kuchofuku Air-Conditioned Bed.

The Kuchofuku is equipped with […]

From an anonymous reader on Slashdot:
“A recently-introduced law in Japan requires all businesses to have mandatory obesity checks (video link) for all their employees and employees’ family members over the age of 40, CNN reports. If the employee or family member is deemed obese, and does not lose the extra fat soon, their employer […]

Gold & Jewelry Tamaya of Sapporo has started selling an 18-carat gold Hello Kitty mobile phone strap.
Tamaya came out with the mobile phone strap to mark the 10th anniversary of the launch of the series of Hello Kitty products made to commemorate particular places in Japan. The 1.8 gram gold Hello Kitty was made by […]

An Osaka man has been arrested for a string of convenience store hold-ups that netted some 587,000 yen, which he used to feed his two dogs, five cats, five turtles, two snakes, and tropical fish.
Dubbed “The Dogman,” Takaharu Kawata would rob convenience stores at knifepoint while wearing an oversized black-and-white dog mask.
Mr Kawata, who is […]

Dance event mixes the unmixable

Tokyo Decadance was created by Adrien Le Danois of France
Deep underground, a myriad of weird and fantastical shapes move and groove to an eclectic beat and the sway of pulsating strobe lights. It’s Tokyo Decadance an underground (literally!) dance scene that is fast making its presence felt on the surface world.

Tokyo […]

Do you know the story of Toire no Hanako-san, or Miss Hanako of the Toilet?
It’s a Japanese urban legend that can be found at most every elementary school here, and it goes like this: if you go to the fourth stall of a specified girl’s bathroom, usually on the third floor of the school, […]

I used to be pretty amazed to see golfers in Japan imbibing beer, sake, shochu, and whiskey early in the morning before venturing out onto the golf course, but at least the tipplers were getting some exercise in the open air.
But now the latest thing in Tokyo seems to be golf bars, which let you […]

This is old, old footage taken before I had a video camera. I shot these scenes with a digital photo camera so they’re very low-res. So watch it in HQ.
Anyway, these are some scenes from the first day of the Aoba Festival in Sendai which is several hundred miles north of Tokyo in the Tohoku […]