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Fran W

Fran grew up on a farm in Northumberland, England’s most northern and least populated county. She relocated to Nagoya in 2011 to teach English and find better edamame beans. On arriving in Japan, she enthusiastically abandoned a lifetime of vegetarianism and now spends her weekends on the trail of the perfect miso katsu. When not attempting to sing k-pop at karaoke, Fran can often be found loitering in old camera shops, or on a hike wishing the manual camera in her backpack wasn’t so heavy.

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Posted by Fran W (Page 7)

Osaka’s JK parlours rebranding as cafes with new concept: girls sitting in ‘taiiku-zuwari’

Osaka’s JK parlours rebranding as cafes with new concept: girls sitting in ‘taiiku-zuwari’

Earlier this year, police in Tokyo and Osaka began a major crackdown on joshi kosei (high-school girl) “reflexology” massage parlours. As well as massage, the uniformed girls would offer male customers a range of unconventional services such as ear-cleaning, palm-reading and hiza-makura (using the girl’s lap as a pillow).

In place of the old JK parlours, however, a new type of establishment has begun springing up: the taiiku-zuwari cafe. These new cafes ostensibly don’t offer any services involving physical contact, nor do they serve food or drinks. What they do offer is the chance to watch girls sitting like they do in gym class.

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Three reasons cats like to bring us dead things, according to Japanese site MyNavi

Three reasons cats like to bring us dead things, according to Japanese site MyNavi

It may come as no surprise to learn that here at RocketNews24 we are big fans of cats. Whether they’re perched on top of model sushi or roaming the mean streets of Japan, there’s little they can do that doesn’t bring us out in a “awwwwwwwww”.

But just occasionally, even our beloved feline friends can do things that perplex us and make us sad. Like when they break our treasured possessions and show no remorse. Or, when they bring home a still-twitching little creature and expect us to be happy about it. But why do cats do this? It’s often said to be a “gift”, as your kitty shows you they love and adore you. But Japanese site MyNavi News says there’s more to this oddball behaviour than meets the eye…

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There’s going to be a Tetris movie! And it’s going to be a “sci-fi epic”!

It might not be the most obvious choice for a Hollywood blockbuster, but ’80s classic Tetris will be getting a movie adaptation “sometime in the near future”, the Wall Street Journal reports. And Larry Kasanoff, chief executive of Threshold Entertainment, says the film will be a “sci-fi epic”!

Threshold Entertainment is the movie company behind Mortal Kombat, and they’ll be working together with The Tetris Company to develop a sci-fi film based on the classic game. “Everyone knows that Tetris is one of the best known, most beloved brands in the world,” Kasanoff said. “What everyone doesn’t know yet is this epic sci-fi story that we’re going to tell. That’s what’s really exciting.”

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To handwrite, or not to handwrite? Recruiter lays into ‘laziness’ of young Japanese job hunters

Traditionally, Japanese resumes are handwritten on a special form. Recently, however, typed resumes are becoming more common – and one recruiter is not happy about this. Writing anonymously on Japanese website Hatelabo, the blogger, who works for a chain restaurant in Japan and is involved in recruitment, sets out his reasons for why an applicant who submits a typewritten resume should be the first to find their application on the “no” pile.

“You young people, don’t you have any common sense?” he asks of applicants with the typed resumes. “Are you crazy? In my day, this would have been unimaginable!” Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the handwritten CV.

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Plus-size idol group “la BIG 3” made a music video, and they do a lot of eating in it【Video】

Japanese idol group la BIG 3 are the latest manifestation of this year’s chubby trend, which has seen the phrase “marshmallow girl” embraced (by some, anyway) as an alternative to other, less complimentary names for bigger girls. The trio released their first music video last week, an upbeat little number called “Pochative ~ Body mo Heart mo Glamorous”, a celebration of chubbiness that encourages women everywhere to – wait for it – “be positive!”

It’d be nice if the video wasn’t all about food, though. Was it really necessary for them to be gazing at fried chicken, and using ice-cream cones and sausages as microphones?!

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Is it another creepy Japanese iPhone case? No, it’s a multicoloured hermaphrodite lobster!

You have to feel sorry for the uglier animals of this world. While kittens and bunnies inspire a universal chorus of “awwwwwww”, if you’re unlucky enough to be born a crustacean or insect, chances are people don’t think you’re so cute.

The Japanese spiny lobster, or Ise-ebi, is a bumpy, spooky-looking creature at the best of times. This one, which was caught off Tōshi-jima in Ise Bay this week, is a gynandromorph – one side of its body is male, the other half is female. Mainichi Shimbun reports that the creature is truly one in a million!

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Tokyo’s moe temple is now selling Buddhist goddess anime figures

A few years ago, a temple called Ryohoji in Tokyo’s Hachioji district started to use moe girls – cute-sexy adolescent anime characters – to promote the temple. They put up a new sign at the entrance with moe girls explaining the temple grounds. The temple has become a minor tourist destination for pilgrimaging otaku, and is commonly known as moe-dera (“moe temple”).

Until the moe temple came along, people interested in both Buddhist iconography and youthful cartoon girls had to enjoy their two hobbies separately. But now, the clever people at Ryohoji have come up with this official moe figure of Benzaiten. Maybe they thought the goddess needed a little anime improvement…

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On living in Japan: Five essential essays from the internet, the greatest library on earth

Ten years ago, I used to read a lot of books. Now, I read a lot of content, which is to say, blogs and online articles. But when I read something that sticks with me, even for a fleeting moment, I still want to reach for a highlighter and shade the words fluorescent yellow, so I can find that part again later. And I’m not alone in my instinctive response to treat the digital word in the same way I do printed material. There’s a reason browsers still call it a “bookmark” when we save a webpage.

There are all kinds of great English-language blogs about Japan out there. But there are also a number of stand-alone articles that, over the years, I’ve read again and again – and they still make me want to grab my highlighter and start collecting quotes. I’ve put them together into this short list, which we may think of as a small (highly subjective) **foreigners-**living-in-Japan canon: seminal pieces of writing from around the internet.

Some of these are very long. Some are controversial. All of them have stayed with me for some reason or another, and maybe they’ll stick with you too.

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Weird disappearing picture fades to nothing, leaves us with existential angst

This “disappearing picture” is a neat optical illusion we’ve never seen before. If you stare at it long enough, it disappears! Now to me, that sounds suspiciously like the time during my first year of middle school when the teacher sent gullible little me to ask the teacher next door for a “long stand”. (Incidentally, did you know the l’s are silent? The correct pronunciation is goo-ible.)

But I digress. This disappearing picture trick is pretty cool, and it really does work! All you need is your eyes and a little patience.

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Chinese university gets hot new Japanese teacher; internet goes crazy

Ask any group of students why they like a particular class and you’ll probably get a range of sincere-sounding answers professing love of learning and enthusiasm for the subject matter. While those things may well be true, in real life our reasons for making even the most crucial of life decisions aren’t always particularly noble or earnest.

When a beautiful young female teacher named Ms. Du took charge of Japanese language classes at one Chinese university this year, so many students turned up that she had to move to a larger classroom. Now, the stunning sensei at China’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics has even become an internet sensation after photos of her were posted online.

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From Kyoto: The bicycle you can ride while wearing a kimono

There are many things to love about the kimono, the elegant traditional robe that just screams “Japan”. But beautiful and steeped in tradition as it is, the kimono is not without its accompanying inconveniences: its long skirt, which stays pencil-straight right down to the floor, provides almost no wiggle-room and prevents the wearer from running…or even walking particularly fast, unless in comically short strides. Riding a bicycle, too, has long been out of the question – until now.

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Ghibli fans show their devotion by making live-action prequel to Princess Mononoke【Video】

The move from animation to live-action can be a challenge, especially in fan-made works. Animation necessarily requires us as viewers to suspend our disbelief, and so there’s more space for imagination. Compared to a richly drawn visual world, then, a live-action remake can look a bit flat – especially if the anime on everyone’s mind is a much-loved Studio Ghibli classic.

Although some fan-made material manages both to pay homage to the original and to stand up as a piece of work in its own right – this year’s Assassin’s Fist remake being a good example – more often than not, there’s something just, well, a bit “off” about most fan-films. Like this Princess Mononoke prequel, for instance…

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Perfume announce re-release of LEVEL3 in time for world tour in November

Perfume have announced an autumn release date for a new bonus edition of their album LEVEL3. The worldwide release in October will come just before the Japanese girl group make their US concert debut in early November. LEVEL3 was released in Japan last year, and the worldwide re-release will be via label Astralwerks.

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School textbook is withdrawn after “teacher” on the front is recognized as Japanese adult video star

Gone are the days when schoolbooks were made up of pages and pages of text. Today’s textbooks are just as likely to be filled with glossy, colourful images to engage and entertain students. This Thai textbook publisher, however, has come under fire for apparently sourcing an image from the internet to use on a book’s front cover – which turned out to be a photo of a Japanese adult video star.

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Live out your secret idol fantasies with Dolly Kanon for 3DS

We’ve seen plenty about virtual girlfriends, fun little apps that provide you with all the charms of an attractive girl (well, almost all) without the inconvenience of having to deal with a real person. Well, what if you’ve been waiting for the crossdressing male version…?!

In Dolly Kanon, the newly announced Nintendo 3DS game from Happinet, you can take on the role of musical producer as you manage your secret cross-dressing boyfriend’s career as a music idol!

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These wacky traditional dancers know how to put the fun in fundoshi! 【Video】

Here at RocketNews24 there’s nothing we like more on a man (or indeed a woman) than a dashing fundoshi. While we believe the traditional Japanese underwear that’s part-apron, part-loincloth is suitable for any occasion, we’re prepared to accept that they’re mainly seen at matsuri (festivals) these days.

So when we found this wondrous video of a group of men doing a special festival bird-catching dance in fundoshi, we knew we were in for a treat. Join us after the jump for some very genki dancing men having a lot of body-slappin’ good fun!

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Ryoko Shinohara’s smouldering lingerie ad is a Triumph【Video】

As we saw last week, Japan has some marvellously eccentric ads. But sometimes it’s best not to mess with an old tried-and-tested formula. So while lingerie company Triumph International does its bit for the “WTF Japan” cause by occasionally launching concept bras with solar panels and detachable chopsticks, they also pride themselves on making (regular, non-weird) gorgeous lingerie! Hurrah!

And with this ad for the ‘Tenshi no bra’, a 50th anniversary design from Triumph, they haven’t gone far off the underwear commercial beaten track. That’s right, reader: it’s a beautiful woman in her underwear.

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Kansai scraps “power off” mobile phone ban on trains; Kantō won’t budge

There are seemingly endless things one is not allowed to do on Japanese trains: eat or drink, put on makeup, talk on the phone, take up too much room. Most of these are sensible if strict, making life more pleasant for everybody in a jam-packed carriage. There’s one rule that’s a bit more unusual, though, and that’s the requirement that you switch your phone off near the priority seats.

Mobile phones can interfere with pacemakers, ran the conventional wisdom. So to give passengers with medical equipment a safe haven from electronic interference, most train companies asked passengers to switch phones off completely in certain areas. This summer, rail companies in Kansai more or less ditched that policy, saying it’s no longer necessary. Tokyo, meanwhile, shows no signs of changing the rules. Read More

Why panty liners for men are (probably) here to stay

At first glance, the sleek packaging of these pantie liners for men looks like a mocked-up image that could have been made as a joke. It looks almost identical to the packaging of some (women’s) liners, except that the branding is silver and dark navy. The product is real and can be purchased in Japan. And unlike bras and panties for men, the market it’s targeting isn’t niche.

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Real-life Fruit Ninja! Watch Isao Machii slice up flying fruit like a boss 【Video】

They call him ‘The Modern-Day Samurai’. Master swordsman Isao Machii can slice a BB gun pellet in mid-air. He holds four World Records for swordsmanship – so what’s he doing slicing up fruit in this ad for Toaster Strudels?

It’s still a cool video, though, as he slices his way through watermelons and pineapples at lightning speed. Join us after the jump for a look at this “live action fruit ninja” vid. What would Gretchen Weiners’s father think?

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