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Through the eyes of a child — Five-year-old girl takes her mother to see local “Martian”

Meg Murphy
Nov 6, 2015
Tweet

Looking up into the vastness of space, it’s only natural for one to wonder if we’re really all alone here. There are reports of contact with alien life all the time, sometimes even with photographic material to support them. Some of them are undoubtedly hokey, but others make you pause and wonder…

Like this photo, of a martian living on a lone street in a Japanese neighborhood. A young five-year-old had seen the martian many times before she took her mother along to see. The mother then snapped a photo of the encounter and posted it on Twitter for the world to see…

Japan
(aliens • cute • kids • martians • twitter)

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

Master Blaster
Nov 5, 2015

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.

Japan, W Asia
(business • Daisuki Nippon • Nepal • Pradhan Vikas • Restaurant • twitter)

Cute Levi imposter wins over Japanese Twitter

Jamie Koide
Nov 3, 2015

Attack on Titan fans who pre-ordered the new Levi figure by Good Smile were no doubt super-excited when orders started shipping last month. But one buyer, who goes by the username @Levi_Eren_Karin on Twitter, couldn’t help but tweet about her surprise when the contents inside weren’t quite what she had been expecting…

Internet, Japan
(Attack on Titan • cats • cosplay • cute • funny • pets • twitter)

Umbrella decides it’s had enough of the rain, flies off handle【Video】

Krista Rogers
Oct 28, 2015

We’ve all experienced this frustrating situation–it’s a rainy day, and as if to add insult to injury, your umbrella suddenly decides to break in what has to be an act of sheer defiance against you.

Net users sympathized with the following clip posted by one such unlucky soul. It certainly looks like the umbrella is doing nothing but mocking him, since it only decides to open after flying clean off the handle!

Japan
(frustrating • rain • twitter • umbrella • video)

【Monday Kickstart】Guinea pigs heading home for the night are delightfully darling

Krista Rogers
Oct 26, 2015

The children’s petting zoo section of Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo is home to a variety of fluffy, domesticated critters that visitors can get up close and personal with. Among the perennial favorites is a group of guinea pigs which have an impressive routine for when it comes time to (literally) hit the hay.

We bet you never thought that a group of rodents could be as well-behaved as these furry little guys!

Japan
(animals • cute • guinea pigs • twitter • ueno zoo • video)

Japan’s biggest yakuza organization tweets to announce that Halloween is cancelled this year

Scott Wilson
Oct 23, 2015

Ah Halloween. After Christmas, it’s easily the best time of the year to be a kid. You get to dress up, scare people with your friends, and then best of all… go to your local organized crime branch to get a giant bag of candy.

Such has been the annual tradition on Halloween for children who visit the headquarters of the Japanese yakuza group Yamaguchi-gumi in Kobe. But this year, Halloween has had an “unfortunate accident” and been cancelled, meaning the mob will be handing out no candy.

Wait… what? Japanese mafia? Halloween candy? What do these things have in common? Read on to find out!

Japan
(candy • halloween • Halloween in Japan • Kobe • Organized crime • twitter • yakuza)

Determined cat tries to get inside all the things, occasionally succeeds【Videos】

Preston Phro
Oct 16, 2015

The old saying is that curiosity killed the cat. We’re not sure which cat they were talking about, but it’s definitely true that cats are downright nosy and always getting into everything.

But some cats are a bit better at “getting into everything” than others, like this much-loved feline who demonstrates a single-minded dedication to opening all the things!

Internet, Japan
(cat • cute • twitter • video)

This high school girl is incredibly popular online, but can you guess what her secret is?【Photos】

Preston Phro
Oct 14, 2015

We’ve seen a lot of Japanese high school girls who have become popular online for various reasons, from being funny to being silly to be pretty. But this girl has been getting a ton of attention online all because of a little secret that is now out of the bag. Can you guess what it is?

Internet, Japan
(high school girls • photos • twitter)

Second-year Japanese high school student creates amazingly realistic dioramas

Jamie Koide
Oct 9, 2015

When I was in high school I thought I was pretty good at drawing, only to take a look at some of my work 10 years later and realize how hideous most of it looked. In fact, it’s more than a little embarrassing how proud I was back then over a couple of notebooks of ugly doodles.

But unlike myself, there are some really creative young artists out there producing top-notch work in between classes and studying. One recent example currently circulating the Japanese web is a collection of intricate dioramas put together by a second-year high school student.

Internet, Japan
(art • cool • dioramas • high school • miniatures • twitter)

Get ready for the weekend by reading Japanese Twitter users’ funniest train stories

Preston Phro
Oct 9, 2015

For most people in the country, the trains in Japan are relatively pleasant outside of rush hour, though they’re generally not exactly entertaining. Which is probably a good thing, because an entertaining train would probably be an annoying train! But if you ride them long enough, there’s a good chance you’ll accumulate a few funny stories.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be in Japan to hear the good ones—Twitter users are happy to share them online! Below, we’ve gathered a few of our favorites to give you a good laugh. So hop aboard as we take a look at some of the funniest train-related stories found on Twitter.

Internet, Japan
(funny • trains • twitter)

Kid faithfully emulates classic arcade game Xevious out of paper in arts and crafts class

Master Blaster
Oct 8, 2015

In these days of modern video games, people seem to be losing sight of what gaming is all about. In all the glitz and glamour of motion control and Hollywood actors lending their voices and likeness to games, it sometimes feels like we’ve forgotten that games are meant to be incredibly difficult, repetitive tasks performed for an arbitrary and intangible reward system of “points.”

This is incredibly valuable experience to prepare young minds for entering the workforce, but thanks to free-roaming environments and checkpoints-a-plenty, we’ve gone from a generation of Mr. Do!‘s to bunch of Mr. Don’t!‘s.

But this nine-year-old kid, whose art class project based on a classic arcade shooter is shown above, gets it. And mark my words, he will become the future leader of this nation.

Japan
(art • children • twitter • video games • Xevious)

Marutaro the hedgehog is still as cute as a button, and now he’s a family hedgehog! 【Pics】

Preston Phro
Oct 8, 2015

When we first met Marutaro the hedgehog last year, he was just about the cutest thing we’d seen in months. Now, over 12 months later, we have to say that’s still the case! And it looks like the adorable little spike ball is only getting more and more popular—popularity that we’d say is well deserved.

In case you haven’t been following Marutaro on Twitter, we’ve decided to round up a few of our new favorite photos and videos of the little guy being adorable, as well as some family photos. Get your fill of loveable cuteness below!

Internet, Japan
(adorable • cute • hedgehog • Marutaro • twitter • Vine)

High school students’ teacup ride blows up online, looks more fun than the Disneyland one

Preston Phro
Oct 6, 2015

For many of our readers, the “culture festivals” held at high schools and colleges will already be familiar thanks to their prevalence in anime and TV dramas produced in Japan. Even if you’ve never been to Japan yourself, you probably already know that the classes turn their rooms into fun little shops, offering food and entertainment for their families, friends, alumni fellow students and teachers.

While most of them aren’t particularly elaborate, every now and then, a class with will show up with a project that goes above and beyond. This year, one of those projects exploded online, capturing the attention of thousands of Twitter users. The idea? The students made their own “tea cup” ride! It’s just like what you’d see at Disneyland, but entirely mechanical and way, way more awesome!

Internet, Japan
(bunkasai • culture festival • high school • tea cup ride • twitter • video)

10 stories of Japanese high school girls and their puzzling, laughable behaviors

Krista Rogers
Oct 5, 2015

High school girls. In all seriousness, are they aliens??

Japanese Twitter users delight in sharing the perplexing, nonsensical, contradictory, or downright outrageous behaviors that they observe high school girls engaging in around the country. Below, we’ve gathered together a sampling of some such anecdotes for your reading pleasure. What strange escapades are the girls up to now?

Japan
(crazy • funny • high school girls • joshikosei • twitter)

Parental advice not always as astute as we’d like to believe: Japanese netizens share

Audrey Akcasu
Oct 5, 2015

Often, in hard times, kids turn to their parents for guidance and advice. While we’d like to believe that our parents are always full of wisdom, sometimes the advice we get is not quite what we were seeking.

Thanks to the Internet, people can share the great (or not so great) advice they receive from their parents with the rest of the world. Today we bring you a collection of Japanese parental advice with varying degrees of usefulness and entertainment.

Japan
(advice • parents • twitter)

Japanese high school teacher’s scathing, two-foot-long note to students is nothing short of epic

Meg Murphy
Oct 3, 2015

Being a teacher is one of the most rewarding yet difficult jobs one can do; on the one hand, you’re helping to shape the next generation, and you get to help kids learn and grow. On the other hand, though, kids will be kids, and you’ll always have those one or two students who really know how to get under your skin.

Even the most patient teacher has their limit—they’re still human after all. Like this Japanese high school teacher, who apparently had it “up to here” with students spitting their gum out on the floor. So what did he do? Wrote a scathing note of epic proportions and pinned it to the wall for all to see.

Japan
(angry notes • education • funny • high school • teaching • twitter)

Chocolate thief writes adorable apology note to sister after failed attempt to cover up his crime

Mike
Oct 3, 2015

A cautionary tale as old as time unfolded into an epic saga of crime and redemption in the Japanese Twitterverse recently, when a young boy’s inability to control himself around his sister’s chocolate stash ended in the kid embarking on a heist-like caper to replace the chocolate bar he couldn’t help but munch on before his sister noticed.

When the boy’s less-than-masterful plan failed, though, he resorted to writing this adorable apology letter.

Japan
(chocolate • cute • kids • Meiji • twitter)

Cooking pizza in a burning cardboard box, and other unconventional recipes

Jamie Koide
Oct 2, 2015

Cookpad is easily the largest community cooking website for getting new Japanese recipes to try out in the kitchen. Started in 1997, it grew to be so popular that two years ago it expanded its user base by launching an English version.

It goes without saying that you can find a dish for pretty much anything you have lying around in your kitchen, but because most of the recipes are posted by amateurs, you might have to weed some of the stranger ones out by taking a look at their reviews.

Fortunately there seems to be a whole crew of users willing and waiting to take a hit for the team and try out the latest recipe, including a recently posted recipe for making pizza that requires putting the uncooked crust and toppings inside a box and setting the box on fire. How does it measure up? One net user decided to photograph and review the process.

Internet, Japan
(camping • cooking • Cookpad • LOL • meat • pizza • recipes • twitter • wtf)

Attack on Titan fans left “waiting”, start tweeting, as subtitles freeze during first screenings

Philip Kendall
Oct 1, 2015

With part one of the live-action movie adaptation released for the first time outside Japan on Wednesday this week, fans of the hugely successful manga and anime series Attack on Titan were no doubt incredibly excited to see their favourite giant-slaying characters brought to life by living, breathing Japanese actors.

Little did then know, however, that when one of the English subtitles added to the movie for its North American release would appear on-screen, **it would remain there—for a full 20 minutes—**while the action continued behind it.

Japan, USA
(Attack on Titan • error • I've been waiting for this day! • Live action • movie • subtitle • twitter)

“Cute-but-ugly” photos of hamsters trending as Twitter users celebrate their quirky pets【Photos】

Preston Phro
Sep 29, 2015

We just love hamsters—from their adorable butts to the way they look napping, they never fail to put a smile on our collective faces. But we suppose we’d be lying if we saidthat hamsters are always cute. After all, not many people look “pretty” when eating! And sometimes hamsters just look so weird in a way that we can’t quite explain. Basically, they’re 90 percent “totes adorbs” and 10 percent “WTF, mate?!”

But even at their ugliest, hamsters still manage to be cute, as the popular Twitter hashtag #AllJapanCuteButUglyHamsterChampionshipSeries so ably demonstrates. Check out some of the best photos below and prepare to go “Awwww!” at all sorts of silly-looking hammies!