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Name Game: Finding the origin and prevalence of Japanese surnames just got easier

Name Game: Finding the origin and prevalence of Japanese surnames just got easier

I love business cards, because I’ll admit it, I am not good with names. First names, last names, if you tell me, I will probably forget it. (Kirakira names are usually easier to remember though!) The good thing about living in Japan, however, is that despite there being over 100,000 different surnames, a really high percentage of people use only a few really common names.

To make it even easier for me, different areas of Japan often have higher densities of certain names. For instance, there are about 4,700 people in Japan with surname Maru (丸), but more than 50 percent of them live in southern Chiba. So, if you forget someone’s name in southern Chiba, Maru might be a safe guess.

A website and smartphone application called Myoji-Yurai Net allows you to find out the prevalence, origin and other fun information about the top 3,000 surnames in Japan. It’s actually quite fun!

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Six of the “20 Coolest Arcades in the World” are in Japan! Want to know what Japan makes of that?

Six of the “20 Coolest Arcades in the World” are in Japan! Want to know what Japan makes of that?

Mashable recently put out a neat list called ‘The 20 Coolest Arcades in the World’, and Tokyo took more spots than any other place! Well, we wouldn’t expect anything less from the birthplace of the video game industry, really.

Turns out though, Japanese netizens were a bit baffled by Mashable’s choices: “That’s cool??” they spluttered into their keyboards. “That’s not even an arcade!”

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Speak like a samurai with these four antiquated words

The age of the samurai makes one of the best thematic settings for any Japanese movie or TV show. There are so many great historical figures to profile, and even more fictional characters to imagine ourselves as! We might have the look, but how did they talk? What words did they use?

The Japanese language has a word for this “samurai language” called monofu-go. An accidental de gozaru (samurai for “to be”) and a parting katajikenai (samurai for “grateful” or “indebted”) is only the beginning of being “old school” cool. Well fear not, RocketNews24 brings you level two! Here are four more phrases and words that were used back in the day that will help you expand your monofu-go vocabulary!

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Date that deity! Japan picks the top 5 most dateable Buddhas

With the popularity of Saint Young Men, a story about Buddha and Jesus living together in Japan, readers have had the chance to imagine how a god would react to everyday life. Do they live up to their holy ideals? Or are they a little more human? Some avid readers have gone beyond those basics to imagining themselves dating one of these divine deities!

And why limit yourself to the Jesus or Buddha of Saint Young Men, when there is a directory full of other Buddhas to pursue?! We took to the streets of Nara and Kamakura, famous hot spots for Buddhist temples, and polled women on which Buddha they would want to date! 

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Need a change of scenery? 3 Japanese cities now rank in list of world’s most livable cities

Everything has been coming up Tokyo lately. Recently ranked no. 1 on a Trip Advisor survey, Japan’s capital city has now come in at No. 2 on Monocle’s list of most livable cities for 2014. That’s two positions up from their ranking last year!

Cities across the world were ranked based on criteria such as economics, society, functionality, as well as ease of everyday living and happiness of people. But it’s not just Tokyo that’s feeling the love recently – two more Japanese cities made it onto the list of great places to live!

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30 common characteristics of people who fall in love with Japan

Chances are since you’re visiting our site, you probably already have an interest in Japan or other Asian countries. But have you ever had a friend who knows next to nothing about Japan, but you just have a feeling that they would come to love the island country given the right incentive?

If so, you may recognize some characteristic qualities of that friend in the following list written by Japanese blogger and all-around-life expert Madame Riri. This time, she’s come up with some common traits of foreigners who grow to love Japan based on her own observations from time spent abroad. 

Do you find yourself conforming to any of the following patterns?

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Enough already! 10 all-too-common occurrences in Japanese anime

Let’s play a game. I’m going to say a word, and you have to say the first thing that pops into your mind. OK, ready? Here it goes: ANIME!

What was the first thing that you thought of? Maybe the stereotypical big eyes, or common visual aids like sweat drops? Regardless, chances are you weren’t alone in your thinking–even though there are some incredibly original and groundbreaking works of Japanese animation, there are unfortunately just as many series with incredibly clichéd story lines.  

It appears that an article covering this topic from last year on science and science-fiction-themed website i09 has recently been making the rounds online. Translated versions of the piece, titled “10 completely annoying anime cliches,” have just recently popped up on Chinese and Japanese websites under the tagline “10 conventions in anime that foreigners are fed up with.”

We bet you’ll have no problem recognizing them!

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The top 20 most eagerly anticipated anime of summer 2014, as chosen by fans!

Summer is almost here! In Japan, that means it’s almost time for fun summer festivals, wearing cute cotton yukata, chowing down on kakigōri until inducing brain freeze, smashing watermelons on the beach, and just generally lazing about the house with fans on full blast and complaining about the insufferable heat.

In the anime world, summer means a whole new season of shows to look forward to (and the obligatory “boobikinis-at-the-beach-swimsuit-episode”). In fact, popular anime informational website Charapedia asked 10,000 fans to pick their most anticipated anime show of summer 2014, and we’ve got the results.

Which series do you think made the No. 1 spot?

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“Do you have anything to declare?” Here are 15 things banned in certain countries

Does your country have everything you need? If it doesn’t, usually the internet can provide for you. But in some specific cases, there are certain products or contraband that just aren’t allowed in a particular country. Here’s a list of 15 things that are currently not allowed, or weren’t allowed at some point!

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The Five Most Popular Places to Kill Oneself or The Top Five Places to Save a Life

Japan often gets a reputation as a suicide-heavy nation but the social problem of self-destruction is something all parts of the world have to tackle.

The following is a list of five places in the world where suicides have most often occurred. It’s a bittersweet honor in that they are all either places of extreme natural beauty of impressive feats of engineering.

On the other hand, they are also places and countries that clearly do too little to prevent either the mental illness that leads to suicide of the act itself.

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More Countries Join the New List of 100 Busiest Train Stations, Japan Still Claims 82 of Them

A few days after a mysterious list of the 51 busiest train stations in the world emerged on the Internet an expanded version listing the 100 busiest train stations around the globe has shown itself.

Although other countries such as China and Germany made appearances, the densely populated island of Japan still holds 82 of the bustling transport hubs. And while Japan seems full of stations that resemble Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, only the top 10 are really that freakishly large and chaotic.

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