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Statue of comedian Ken Shimura erected a year after death from COVID-19
A tribute to his contributions to Japanese comedy and culture. One of the most high-profile casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan was comedian Ken Shimura. A member of the famous music and...
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World Record? Japanese trainer holds gym for 1,422 days and counting in...
We hear the tragic tale of a Blissey sent to fight overseas for nearly four years. Long time readers of the site are probably aware that our writer P.K. Sanjun has fully immersed himself in Pokémon...
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Japanese politician Skull Reaper A-ji sues city for refusing to show his...
Oita City Councilman’s struggle to wear his masks with pride has grown into a hellacious slobberknocker of litigation. With COVID-19 having changed the very face of society around the world, there’s...
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Giant “mini” shumai full of normal shumai dumplings sold at Kiyoken
We heard you like shumai…. There is often a lot of talk about Japan’s take on the Chinese jiaozi dumplings called gyoza, but we should never forget its lesser celebrated cousin shumai. Based on a...
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Ibaraki woman arrested for attacking Olympic torch with water gun
And not just any water gun; it was a Fancy & Toy Tonari. It’s getting hard to believe that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are only a few weeks away – mainly because it’s 2021 now. But despite a global...
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Nagoya man driving stolen Lexus RX steals Lexus LX
Brand loyalty among thieves. While there’s been a dramatic decline in car thefts over the past decade by nearly 50 percent, it remains a problem in Japan, and for at least the past three years one of...
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Hokkaido senior secretly gets four doses of COVID-19 vaccine
The refreshing taste of the COVID-19 vaccine kept him coming back for more. Although it took a while, Japan’s vaccination program has gained a bit of momentum over the past month and is now slightly...
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Ocean’s 11: heist of over 2M yen in sea cucumbers thwarted by Japanese coast...
Like they always say, stealing sea cucumbers doesn’t pay. A surprisingly growing problem in Japan has been the poaching of those gelatinous-looking echinoderms sea cucumbers. While they may not be...
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Seiji and the spirit of Yngwie Malmsteen barge into Young Guitar magazine
When you’re Yngwie Malmsteen, you don’t need an invitation… even if you aren’t him. Young guitarists these days have no idea how good they have it. The plethora of free videos on YouTube giving...
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Super Crazy Kun’s election win deemed invalid a second time
The super crazy nail that sticks up gets hammered down. After a hard-fought election win last January, 2021 was gearing up to the year of Councilman Super Crazy Kun. Despite his unorthodox fashion for...
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South Korean university develops toilet that converts poop to power and pays...
Quite possibly the greatest invention ever. Our poop is a marvelous concoction of chemicals that must have worth on some level, and yet we simply flush that potential store of value away because it...
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Traditional Japanese ceramics given new life in AR, delivered straight to...
Add a touch of class to your home or video game. Hasami-yaki is a type of porcelain crafted in the town of Hasami in Nagasaki Prefecture which draws on techniques from China and Korea that migrated...
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Saga Prefecture celebrates SaGa Frontier Remastered with SaGa Bath campaign
It makes more sense in Japanese. Back in the early days when Final Fantasy was steadily growing in popularity, it gradually began to focus more on story-driven game experiences and less on the...
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How many rare coins are in our pile of 100,000 one-yen coins?
One-in-100,000 to find a rare coin seem like reasonable odds. It was New Year’s 2018. A plucky young start-up named The Walt Disney Company had just bought out 20th Century Fox, and thus completed...
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Drunk droning arrest first of its kind in Aichi Prefecture
Friends don’t let friends fly tiny helicopters drunk. With the wide range of models and increasingly affordable pricing, drone flying has become an extremely fun hobby for many. However, as I always...
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Cornelius resigns from Olympics, suddenly pulled from Sony webpage and NHK...
It must have been something he said. Just when I was thinking it’s been a while since someone involved with the Olympics got caught doing something horribly out of character for it, along comes...
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Guilt-free snacking with 129-calorie bags of faux fried pork Innocent Tonkatsu
Your mouth will never be lonely again. In Japanese there is a term “kuchisabishii” which means “lonely mouth” and refers to those times when you’re not really hungry but still feel like eating...
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Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee to review opening ceremony…that’s scheduled...
This doesn’t bode well. Mere days before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were set to kick off on 23 July, musician Keigo Oyamada’s shady past made the news and resulted in his resignation from the opening...
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Olympic media dismayed by their subpar and overpriced food and drink
Let the price gouging begin! With all the talk of scandals and Sailor Moon, it is often overlooked that this Olympic and Paralympic Games is also on-track to be one of, if not the most costly event of...
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Booze Hack: One Cup Ozeki sake lids make perfect beer can covers
An ironic commonality between two rival drinks. In Japan, beer and sake have a bit of a contentious relationship. Since ancient times sake has been THE alcoholic drink in Japan. However, around the...
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