SoraNews24 —Japan News—

Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.

RocketNews24 Japanese

Featured

Master Blaster

Writer / Translator

Master Blaster is the two-man translating team of Canada’s Steven Le Blanc and Japan’s Masami M, a pair who in addition to writing work are in English education and created the StudyNow app for Japanese students of English.

Together they have written somewhere around 1,500 articles for RocketNews24 covering such diverse topics as Chinese men selling sanitary napkins to each other and a Japanese guy dragging an ear of corn around the Tokyo train system. A few of these were actually good, but don’t take our word for it! Here’s what our beloved readers had to say:

“One isn't always in the mood for bold tastes. But when I'm in the mood for bold flavor I turn to you.”
“Stupid article. Who cares what the Japanese think it's cool. You don't call a monkey, "gorilla".”
“You know, this is about the most cogent explanation of how a turbocharger works that I have ever seen in the non-motorsports world.”
“Thanks for the article peter!”
“It's people like you who make exploitation possible.”
“It looks yummy and the story was great. Thank you for the smile.”

StudyNow App

Twitter RSS

Posted by Master Blaster (Page 139)

Costco Japan wants all English speakers to know they’re holding a “Tuna Roadshow”

Costco Japan wants all English speakers to know they’re holding a “Tuna Roadshow”

Yes sir! A much beloved Tuna Roadshow was scheduled to be held at Costco on 7 November according to the English on their advertisement. It would seem that the English was designed to attract foreigners who might not be familiar with the concept of Tuna Roadshows, which we imagine would include…everyone.

I’m guessing it’s a show where people dust off that old fish lying in their attic and take it to tuna experts to see how much money they’re worth. Either that or someone did a half-assed job on the translation.

Read More

Dhalsim’s “Yoga Rap” isn’t rap, but it is impossible to get out of your head 【Video】

Dhalsim’s “Yoga Rap” isn’t rap, but it is impossible to get out of your head 【Video】

As one of the original Street Fighter II characters, it’s hard not to feel a spot of nostalgic fondness for Dhalsim. Thanks to him I’ve been practicing yoga every day in the hopes that I might one day be able to kick people in the face from 10 yards away. I think that comes on the brink of enlightenment, however, as I still have to get pretty close to people to do any serious damage.

But now my meditation just got a lot easier with the release of the “Yoga Rap” on YouTube. It’s a quick song, but not when you play it on a continuous loop as I have thanks to its infectious chants of “yoga fire” and “yoga flame” over and over and over again.

Read More

First, possibly most ironic, underwater ruins discovered in Japan’s largest lake

On 4 November, Ei Nakayama of The University of Shiga Prefecture made a historic announcement that eight man-made pillars had been found standing upright at the bottom of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture.

Despite the country’s long history and relatively changeable landscape due to seismic and volcanic activity, this is actually the first time ruins have ever been found underwater in Japan.

Read More

Japan’s rags-to-riches Nepalese restaurant “Daisuki Nippon” closes doors after five years

November marks five years since Vikas Pradhan sent out his first tweets in broken Japanese describing the hardships of starting a restaurant. In response and a heartwarming show of support, the Twitter community rallied behind Pradhan not only online but in actual paid visits to his Nepalese cuisine restaurant Daisuki Nippon, putting it firmly in the black.

However, in a rather sudden turn of events, Pradhan tweeted that as of 31 October the original Daisuki Nippon had closed down.

Read More

Superdry: The “Japanese” fashion brand that most Japanese people have never even heard of

Recently, our Japanese writer P.K. Sanjun was visiting Australia on official RocketNews24 business when he noticed something odd. Every now and then, he would spot a person with a T-shirt or bag with incomprehensible Japanese written on it.

Originally thinking this was just the work of some bootleggers working a local flea market, P.K. was shocked to later learn that Superdry was a fashion brand that sells all over the world…all over except for Japan, that is.

Read More

When in Nara be sure to stop by the cockroach memorial statue

Sono & Sons is a building maintenance company that also specializes in pest control. Their SEARCH (We Safeguard our Environment with Alpha Roach Control Helper) system promises to leave any roach intruding on the sanctity of your home dead as Dillinger.

Despite their cold efficiency as slaughtering cockroaches, Sono & Sons also owe them a debt of gratitude. After all, roaches played a large role in building the company. So out of respect, they commissioned a memorial statue for all the cockroaches who have succumbed to their poisons and filled the company’s bank account as a result. They spared no expense either because everyone online is agreeing that it’s one cool statue.

Read More

Our reporters search for the spirit of Halloween in Shibuya and make some new friends

It’s been months of events and marketing in the making, and Halloween has finally arrived in Japan. Our own Mr. Sato and P.K. Sanjun decided to hit the streets of Shibuya in costume to  report on the festivities at hand.

Well actually, they went a day early, but as we’ll soon see, October 31st ain’t nothing but an ordinal number assigned to anachronistically named month, because in Japan, Halloween comes whenever you want it to.

Read More

The internet’s latest culinary masterpiece: Cup Noodle Steamed Egg【Taste Test】

Although the internet has revolutionized our lives in countless ways, one of the most appreciated is the simple yet outside-the-box recipes that appear on it from time to time. Where else can we discover that a rice cooker can be used to make mind-blowing pancakes or crème caramel on top of instant ramen makes for a delicious flavor boost?

Now, a Twitter user going by the handle of @rea941 has unveiled a new way to enjoy Japan’s favorite instant food, Cup Noodle. With the leftover soup you can make a delicious chawanmushi egg custard. It’s so easy the entire recipe could fit in a single tweet!

With easy, delicious, and cheap being the trifecta of RocketNews24 gourmet bliss, we couldn’t help but make some for ourselves.

Read More

Japanese kids’ show a big hit overseas for strangely moving Rube Goldberg machine story【Video】

I often enjoy watching the educational programming of NHK’s E-Tele in the mornings with my family while we get ready for the day. It’s full of fun and educational shows that teach everything from English to geography, and Pitagora Switch (Japanese pronunciation of “Pythagora Switch”) is a big crowd favorite. It showcases cute little machines similar to Rube Goldberg devices where a ball travels along an array of painstakingly arranged cups, springs, ramps, pulleys and whatever else they can cram in to get to the other end.

My two-year-old daughter always gets a kick out of its blend of physics and fun, and now apparently so does much of the Western world after a segment of the show posted onto YouTube has received rave reviews on Reddit for its unique combination of story-telling and Rube Goldberg machinations.

Read More

Group of exercisers in China are loving it on all fours, doctor approves (Video)

In any park in China you’re bound to see people exercising, whether it’s by jogging, dancing, tai chi, or downing unmanned aircraft. But just when you think you’ve seen it all, a whole new way of working out gets born. The basic philosophy is “Why walk on only two legs, when you have two perfectly good arms as well?”

And so, recreational crawling was born. At the moment it seems to be practiced mainly by a small band of people in Henan Province, but numbers are growing. It’s also said to have health benefits beyond that of regular bipedal walking.

Read More

Breaking Fujoshi: Twitter user tries to unlock the code to girls who grow up “rotten”

The fujoshi  (“rotten girl”) subculture is well-established in Japan with its sizable population of girls and women who enjoy the past time of homoerotic fan art. Its members are often a contentious presence on the internet for their particular passion of sometimes corrupting young men’s adolescent heroes into love interests. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not to say Goku and Vegeta cuddling and making out itself isn’t right. It’s just not right for them.

Depending on your own parenting aims you may want to steer your young girl away from drawing pictures of unrealistically well-groomed samurai lying naked beneath the sheets together, or you may find it a relatively harmless pastime compared to something like airplane glue sniffing and thus want to encourage fujoshi tendencies in your young one.

Either way, one Twitter user claims to have unlocked the environmental conditions (seven in total) that make a young girl go fujoshi and presented it for peer evaluation on Twitter. But do they hold up to the scrutiny?

Read More

Tochigi hot spring pyramid first in the world to let you bathe in cosmic energy as well as water

The Egyptian pyramids stand strong in the scorching heat of the desert, as they have for over 4,500 years. It is said that the techniques that went into building them were well beyond those of human civilization at the time. They are mysteries wrapped inside of enigmas that continue to fascinate us from afar.

And apparently there is also a pyramid in Tochigi Prefecture, which really cuts down on the travel expenses for those of us in Japan wanting to bask in their wonder. One such spendthrift adventurer was RocketNews24’s own Masanuki Sunakoma, who went to investigate.

Read More

We visit “world’s largest” Buddha in Fukuoka, puts Sagat’s to shame

Fukuoka Prefecture is a major tourist destination in Japan, drawing people form all over the country all year round. But what’s unusual about the prefecture is that, despite its great many visitors, it doesn’t have any particularly famous sightseeing spots. Most people come for the food alone—a fact which should give you an indication of how good it is.

That’s why our reporter, Takashi Harada went in search of something worth gawking at in the otherwise wonderful land of Fukuoka and came across something that every visitor ought to see: the “World’s Largest Buddha statue” nestled deep in its mountains.

Read More

Sumo sprinting really ought to be the next evolution in track and field【Video】

Let’s face it, something needs to be done about track and field. Although it could be considered human athleticism in its purest form, surely the art of running in a straight line is nearing our maximum potential as a species.

It’s time to take events such as sprinting to the next level. Luckily a small group of sumo wrestlers may have stumbled upon a way to bring another dimension to the sport, and another chin or two as well.

Read More

“Don’t thinking! Just swing!” Munenori Kawasaki is our favorite thing about baseball【Videos】

It’s turning out to be an interesting post-season in Major League Baseball. In the American league we have the Toronto Blue Jays coming off a stellar late regular season and into their first real World Series attempt since the 90s. Meanwhile, over in the National League the Cubs are inching closer to a possible first World Series win in over a century, made even more eerie by its prediction in Back to the Future II (minus the Miami Gators).

As an added bonus, more games for Toronto means more interviews with infielder Munenori Kawasaki. Charged up by their victory over Texas in the AL Division series, Munerin was in rare form.

Read More

Asahi Shimbun’s app featuring moe school-girl broadcasters is a deceptively good study tool

As in any country, a Japanese newspaper’s credibility often rests on a very fine political line. If their reporting leans even a little left or right, they run the risk of being called a stack of toilet paper scribbled on by talentless hacks by half the population. It’s a precarious position, and one in which releasing an app wherein you dress up school girls as a reward for current event awareness only seems to provide fuel for your detractors.

And yet on October 14 one of Japan’s leading newspapers, Asahi Shimbun, released just such an app called Kikasete Tensei Jingo. It features several moe girls reading from selected editions of the paper’s long-running Tensei Jingo editorial column. However, as pointless as it may appear on the surface there is some heavy language practice potential buried in there.

Read More

Why deer are drawn to train tracks, and how Japan is solving the problem with this simple block

Recently Nippon Steel & Sumikin Metal Products unveiled a new type of deer bait that is not only highly effective, but also works exclusively on deer. It’s called a Yukuru and as you can see in the picture above, it’s pretty much just a regular salt lick but it contains one very important ingredient: iron.

That’s right, deer apparently go crazy for the great taste of the metal. It’s a fact that went widely overlooked until now.

Read More

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe wins China’s Confucius Peace Prize

 

It’s that time of year again. The time when the world waits with bated breath to see who was voted as Earth’s greatest contributor to peace and receives what may be the highest honor a human can receive. I’m talking, of course, about the Confucius Peace Prize.

The Confucius Peace Prize is an annual award given to those who work towards peace as seen “from an Eastern perspective”, with past laureates including Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro. This year, the selection committee announced that the Confucius Peace Prize will go to none other than Zimbabwe President, Chairperson of the African Union, and one of Forbes’ “10 Worst Dictators” in the world: Robert Mugabe.

Read More

This autumn’s “Sunset Panda” endangered by cloud cover, still pulls in the crowds 【Video】

Two days each year, once in the autumn and again in spring, the setting sun passes behind an NTT antenna tower in the Taruyamachi area of Akashi City, Hyogo. Due to the arrangement of dishes and other receivers, as the sun moves behind them, for the briefest of moments the face of a giant cartoon panda appears, like some benevolent forest god looking down on the town below.

This autumn, on 12 October at 5:28pm, people all over Akashi City gathered to witness the biannual moment of celestial cuteness—an event which has come to be known as the Sunset Panda. However, with cloudy skies and light drizzle it became unclear whether the roly-poly sun bear would come out to play this time…

Read More

Newly established Japan Ninja Council promises to be your one-stop website for all things ninja

When you think of “cool Japan,” it’s hard to overlook ninjas, those stealthy spies and assassins with more tricks up their sleeve than a magician in a parka. And yet it seems these timeless icons of Japanese culture have largely been overlooked by the national government’s Cool Japan in favor of AKB48 spin-offs and abacuses.

So instead, a band of 11 Japanese governors and mayors have assembled to create the Japan Ninja Council (JNC) with the sole aim of reminding everyone how cool ninjas are. Having officially launched on 9 October they aim to collect every bit of information on ninjas, including their history and culture, and provide it to anyone who wants to learn more about these elusive figures.

Read More

  1. « Prev
  2. 1
  3. ...
  4. 136
  5. 137
  6. 138
  7. 139
  8. 140
  9. 141
  10. 142
  11. ...
  12. 205
  13. Next »

© SoraNews24 —Japan News— / SOCIO CORPORATION

Powered by WordPress VIP