Japanese News & Blog Aggregator

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Man arrested for illegally keeping 51 poisonous snakes in his apartment: A man has been arrested in Tokyo for illegally keeping 51 poisonous snakes as pets. Here’s a news video showing police removing some of the snakes from his apartment: His collection consisted of black mambas, green mambas, cobras, rhinoceros vipers, and other very poisonous snakes. There were also a lot ...; Posted on August 27, 2008 at 10:44 PM

Japanese study finds whales are losing blubber: A new study released by Japanese scientists suggests that whales are losing their blubber: Measurements taken from more than 4,500 minke whales slaughtered since the late 1980s reveal the animals have lost significant amounts of blubber, and are getting thinner at a worrying speed. The team says its study offers ...; Posted on August 27, 2008 at 5:51 AM

Kinnikuman Premium Edition: Oricon reports that a special Premium Kinnikuman toy will go on sale on August 29th (Kinnikuman Day). The figure will be made out of gold, and will be sold along with a crystal display case. It will be sold online and for a price of around 49,350 yen ($450). They ...; Posted on August 27, 2008 at 12:18 AM

The dying art of public bath house painting: The above report from Fuji TV follows a young woman named Mizuki Tanaka who is studying the art of public bath house painting under painter Morio Nakajima. Public bath houses (sento) were once a fixture of everyday life in Japan, but they faded away as Japan became a rich nation, ...; Posted on August 26, 2008 at 10:47 PM

Kenyan gold medalist speaks about marathon training in Japan: Samuel Wansiru, the Kenyan marathon runner that won a gold medal on the last day of the Beijing Olympics, took some time to speak to the Japanese press in Japanese after completing the race on Sunday: Wansiru moved to Japan from his native Kenya and studied at Sendai Ikuei High ...; Posted on August 26, 2008 at 10:46 PM

Would you like a fake rolex with that Olympic t-shirt?: For those that missed their report on fake brand goods that aired before the Beijing Olympics, Fuji TV has aired a new report on fake Olympic t-shirts being sold on the streets the day after the Olympics ended: The t-shirts are being sold along with other popular counterfeit brand goods, ...; Posted on August 26, 2008 at 11:49 AM

Japanese government says it has taken “every conceivable measure to fight against racial discrimination”: The Japan Times has an article up about a report on racial discrimination Japan has submitted to the United Nations. According to the article, Japan responds to previous criticism by stating it has made “every conceivable” effort to deal with problems of discrimination: Human rights groups and Doudou Diene, the ...; Posted on August 26, 2008 at 8:31 AM

Facial Yoga Commercial: An expert demonstrates the secrets of facial yoga: Watch the video at this site, or on NicoNico Douga (login required). [via Zaeega]; Posted on August 26, 2008 at 5:14 AM

‘Bullying’ in the SDF: Court rules that superior’s insults caused sailor’s suicide: In the old Imperial Navy, it was not uncommon for sailors to be beaten by their superiors as a form of discipline. In today’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces, corporal punishment is out of the question. But what about the use of harsh words to discipline sailors? The Fukuoka High Court ruled ...; Posted on August 25, 2008 at 11:17 PM

Man arrested for net threat, cops take apart his computer and display it: I can understand it when police put seized weapons, drugs, and other illegal items on display for the media, but I don’t really see the point in this: The video report is about the arrest of a man who made posted a message on an online bulletin board in June ...; Posted on August 25, 2008 at 7:26 AM

Criticism removed from Debito Arudou Wikipedia entry: Activist Debito Arudou, who was last featured on this blog in an editorial entitled “Is Debito still relevant?“, recently began demanding through is blog that the Wikipedia entry about him be edited to remove “slanted depictions” of his activities. Debito’s complaints included: The inclusion of a “criticism” section means that ...; Posted on August 25, 2008 at 6:54 AM

Detained Sri Lankan man given wrong medicine: Asahi’s English edition reports on an incident in which an officer at an immigration facility in Osaka gave a sick Sri Lankan man an anti-itch steroid lotion instead of a laxative: Soon after the 30-year-old Sri Lankan man drank the liquid, he complained of chest pains and vomited, they said. ...; Posted on August 24, 2008 at 10:49 PM

Japanese comedian fails to win third straight world air guitar title: The World Air Guitar Championship was held in Finland over the weekend, and Japanese comedian Ochi Yosuke (pictured above) lost to an American performer with the stage name of Hot Lixx Hulahan: Wearing tight black pants, satin shirt and elaborate armbands, Hulahan — real name Craig Billmeier — crushed his ...; Posted on August 24, 2008 at 10:36 PM

British bank makes ‘culturally insensitive’ advertisement: The Observer reports that some people in Great Britain are offended by an bank advertisement featuring a white guy who has been “cosmetically enhanced” to look like a sumo wrestler: A spokesman for the Japan Society, a charity that seeks to provide a better mutual understanding between the UK and ...; Posted on August 24, 2008 at 10:36 PM

Beautiful Chinese girls at the Beijing Olympics: The Olympics are ending tonight, so let’s find out who is the most beautiful Chinese woman doing Olympic-related work in Beijing! The following clip was from the same Japanese TV show that looked for the most beautiful girl in Italy, Colombia, France, and Taiwan. As in the previous cases, the ...; Posted on August 24, 2008 at 11:20 AM

DNA testing finds sushi mislabled as more expensive fish: Some DNA testing of fish from various sources in America, including sushi restaurants, has found that consumers may not be getting the fish they’re paying for: The results showed that 25 percent of the girls’ samples were mislabeled: half of the restaurant samples and six out of 10 grocery store ...; Posted on August 24, 2008 at 1:17 AM

Video: Kappa sighting in Aomori: Pretty fake-looking, but amusing nonetheless: (From a Japanese television show originally aired in 2006); Posted on August 24, 2008 at 1:07 AM

National Diet Library bans public from viewing documents on trials of U.S. servicemen: Journalist Takao Saito recently tried to view some government documents stating how U.S. soldiers should be treated when they commit crimes in Japan, but his request was denied because the government doesn’t think the public has a right to see such material: National Diet Library officials said that there was ...; Posted on August 23, 2008 at 12:36 AM

Half man, half billboard: Hange.jp, a mobile phone gaming site that’s been running some pretty cool ads on trains lately, seems to have a pretty cool ad up in Shibuya: People walk past a half-body statue in Shibuya, Tokyo’s main shopping area, on August 22. Online Game Company NHN Japan has set up a ...; Posted on August 23, 2008 at 12:13 AM

Car blown apart at Tokyo premiere of “Hancock”: There was a bit of unexpected chaos the other day at the Tokyo premiere of “Hancock,” reports Japan Zone: For the red carpet walk, producers had set up a mock up car that Smith was supposed to use his “super powers” to send flying into the air. But the car ...; Posted on August 23, 2008 at 12:06 AM

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