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We say goodbye to our Japan Wish winner and look back on her time in Japan【Video】
- Cara Clegg
Aug 11, 2015 - Tweet
Ashley is now safely back in the US after her exciting adventure here in Japan, so it’s time for a wrap-up post!
Our Japan Wish competition winner’s time with us was a whirlwind of fun, food, and typhoons as her dream of coming to Japan became a reality. Go ahead and watch the video below for a glimpse at just some of the amazing things Japan has to offer for a visitor, as well as to see Ashley’s emotional goodbye.
- Japan
- (Japan tourism • Japan Wish • Kyoto • Tokyo • video)
Real-life Ghibli clouds appear as awesome thunderhead forms in the Tokyo skies 【Videos】
- Casey Baseel
Aug 7, 2015
If you’ve ever spent the summer in Japan, you know that it’s not the heat, but the humidity that makes many people want to take refuge indoors with the air conditioning blasting. But the silver lining to this cloud is the clouds themselves, as all that moisture in the air can turn Japan’s summer skies into a stunning puffy white landscape.
On the evening of August 5, skywatchers in the Tokyo/Yokohama area that turned their eyes to the west saw a towering, lightning-spitting thundercloud so powerfully majestic it immediately drew comparisons to one of Studio Ghibli’s most beloved anime.
- Japan
- (anime • awesome • beautiful • Hayao Miyazaki • Laputa • nature • Studio Ghibli • video)
Let the rejoicing begin: Someone has made a sumo musical and the trailer is amazing! 【Video】
- Preston Phro
Aug 6, 2015
Adding “musical” to the end of any idea is an easy but effective way to come up with concepts for new creative properties. Foul-mouthed muppets plus musicals gave us Avenue Q and anime plus musical has given us a surprising number of stage productions! But one combination we’d never even dreamed of has now seen the light of day: A sumo musical.
Titled Dosu Koi Musical, this sumo musical isn’t actually a stage production, but it does star none other than Taiwanese singer Lin Yu-chun, whom you might remember killing it on America’s Got Talent in 2010. Maybe if we’re all good boys and girls, this will be turned into the next Broadway hit starring Lin and Neil Patrick Harris!
Smoking food and sword juggling at Kyoto’s Ninja Labyrinth restaurant【Video】
- Cara Clegg
Aug 3, 2015
Time to rewatch Naruto and brush up on your ninjutsu, folks! We took our Japan wish competition winner to experience a modern twist on an ancient part of Japanese culture. Come and take a look at the spectacle inside Kyoto’s mysterious and shadowy ninja restaurant.
- Japan
- (Japan Wish • Kyoto • Ninja • ninja restaurant • shinobi • video)
Can our Japanese writers guess what this pink soy sauce is by taste alone?【Video】
- Preston Phro
Aug 1, 2015
Soy sauce is delicious, and it’s by far one of our favorite condiments. It can enhance all manner of foods and make even something as boring as plain tofu delicious. But even as much as we love it, how well do we really know it? For example, could our gourmand Japanese writers figure out they were eating soy sauce even if it didn’t look like soy sauce?
This might seem like a silly question – and it definitely is! But it’s also a legitimate question thanks to the clever food processing skills of a company that also makes pink curry. So, do you think our food-loving writers will be able to identify pink soy sauce? Or will we have the last laugh? Find out below!
- Japan
- (food • Hanakifujin • pink soy sauce • soy sauce • video)
How many Mentos can the human body handle with a gulp of cola? We experiment 【Video】
- Casey Baseel
Jul 31, 2015
There are some food and beverage pairings pretty much everyone finds complementary. Wine and red meat. Milk and cookies. Draft beer and edamame soybeans.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are certain combinations we’ve learned to stay away from. Soda and Mentos, for example, are well-known to produce a volatile reaction if consumed together. But just where exactly is the human body’s threshold for these two incompatible mouth-mates?
Or, more specifically, where is RocketNews24 reporter P.K.’s body’s threshold?
How to make Japan’s coolest summer snack: Onigirazu! 【Recipe & Video】
- Evie Nyan
Jul 31, 2015
Everyone knows and loves onigiri, or rice balls. They’re the perfect portable snack, available in every conbini with a wide range of different fillings. But some of us have grown tired of the same old snack. Thus, the “onigirazu” was born! We’ll show you how to make it right here!
The fastest way to open an onigiri will only take one second 【Video】
- KK Miller
Jul 30, 2015
There isn’t enough praise we can give to Japanese convenience stores because they provide exactly what their name suggests, convenience. They stock all sorts of snack foods, expertly pre-prepared meals, and a wide selection of delicious rice balls. Those tasty onigiri are the perfect snack, portable, tasty and with very little waste.
But sometimes you are just so hungry that you need to be eating that onigiri right then and there. You try to quickly open the package, but it all just gets mangled instead. Fear not! RocketNews24 will show you how to open an onigiri in only one second. You won’t want to miss this video after the jump.
- Japan
- (convenience stores • funny • onigiri • rice balls • video)
Star Wars rice paddy art grows in Aomori Prefecture
- Anime News Network
Jul 29, 2015
The village of Inakadate, Aomori Prefecture is hoping to drive tourism with a Star Wars-themed rice paddy. The image of R2-D2, C-3PO, and the newly introduced BB-8 take up a 1-hectare field. The varying colors are created using 11 varieties of rice.
- Japan
- (Anime News Network • art • cool • rice paddy • Star Wars • video)
Franco-German artist is making a torii gate made of speakers
- Anime News Network
Jul 29, 2015
A Franco-German artist is tasked reinterpreting an iconic symbol of Japanese culture. The torii gate is usually seen outside of Shinto shrines as a marker designating an entrance into a sacred space. Benoît Maubrey is creating a more interactive version than the traditional red ones found throughout Japan.
Meriken Park in Kobe will be the site of a torii made entirely out of 300 recycled speakers. The sculpture is functional and includes a four-way channel so visitors can speak to one another through the gate using a microphone or their smartphones. When it’s not in use, the gate will emit varying kinds of white noise.
Add a bit of adventure to your tour of Asakusa with a ninja experience!
- Preston Phro
Jul 29, 2015
There are many things that draw people to Japan, from pop culture to the traditional tea ceremony. One of the highest on that list is probably those mysterious masters of stealth, the ninja, who have left and indelible impression on millions of people around the world.
While most of us will never get to actually be ninja, it’d be nice if we could at least try it out for a day, right? Obviously, to get the full ninja experience, you’d need to head out to a place like Iga, but if you’re just hanging out in Tokyo for a quick trip, we have a fun compromise for you! Next time you’re sightseeing in Asakusa, try stopping by the Ninja Taiken Dojo.
- Japan
- (Asakusa • Ninja • Ninja Experience • video)
Faster than a speeding bullet! Ride the Tokyo to Kyoto “Nozomi” Shinkansen with us! 【Video】
- Evie Nyan
Jul 28, 2015
Even if you’re not exactly a trainspotting otaku, chances are you still find the idea of riding a Japanese bullet train seriously appealing. After all, those things get up to some crazy speeds, and the whole process runs like smooth, scientifically adjusted clockwork. Even the cleaning crew get their job done, making the trains absolutely spotless, in seven minutes max!
But if you haven’t quite made it to Japan yet, then we invite you to take a Shinkansen ride with us and our Japan Wish competition winner Ashley. Strap yourself in and feel those G-forces!
- Japan, USA
- (bullet train • Ekiben • Japan Wish • Kyoto • shinkansen • Tokyo • trains • video)
Japanese baseball player shows us the craziest batting warmup we’ve ever seen 【Video】
- Casey Baseel
Jul 25, 2015
In Japanese high schools, it’s customary for the band to accompany the baseball team to important games. Saitama’s Namegawa Sogo High even mixes in some modern musical stylings, as Queen’s “We Will Rock You” showed up on their set list for a recent contest in the prefectural championship tournament.
Of course, such a bombastic tune coming from the stands requires equal flamboyance from the players, and one student athlete responded with the craziest batter’s box warmup we’ve ever seen.
New fried take on Yoshinoya’s original beef bowl really hits the spot! 【Recipe】
- Jamie Koide
Jul 21, 2015
For those looking for a quick and cheap meal in Japan, beef bowls, or gyudon, from fast food chains like Yoshinoya are a great option for both your stomach and your wallet**.** While in the past we’ve shown you how to make your own Yoshinoya-style beef bowl, odds are if you’re a regular patron of the famous chain or others like it, you probably aren’t that handy in the kitchen.
Still, every now and then people like a change of pace, or they find themselves trying to impress guests with a home-cooked meal. Luckily we have a fried Yoshinoya beef bowl recipe that fits that bill, and best of all it doesn’t require much of your effort or time, granted you have a Yoshinoya nearby**.**
Hilarious house cat meets its match as it gets snuck up on by…a cucumber?!? 【Video】
- Casey Baseel
Jul 9, 2015
While cats are definitely cute, I’m not sure I really buy into the whole idea that they’re still skilled predators. Sure, house cats are much more likely to bag game than many other popular pets, such as hamsters or goldfish, but I think centuries of domestication have bred out a lot of the instincts that came from their shared ancestry with lions and tigers.
As proof, I offer this video of a cat in Japan, in which the “hunter” becomes the hunted and meets its match when, defying all logic, a cucumber sneaks up on it.
New K-pop video features dance number with hilarious, unintentional Attack on Titan reference
- Mike
Jul 9, 2015
Attack on Titan and K-pop are both making huge cultural waves in Japan right now. Attack on Titan, presumably, because of its inherent badassness (plus its currently screening and upcoming movies), and K-pop because men and women alike find the melodies extremely catchy and, let’s face it, the girls and guys in the videos extremely pleasing to the eye.
So it was, of course, only a matter of time before these two pop cultural, ahem, titans clashed in one way or another. And while we were expecting, eventually, some kind of official collaboration between the anime franchise and, say, KARA – the K-pop band largely credited with kicking off Japan’s current K-pop boom – it turns out the first piece of Internet ephemera to, accidentally, hilariously, combine the two is just so, so much better.
Hanoi man lets dog drive motorbike, police say “Bad boy!”【Video】
- Jessica
Jul 8, 2015
The SPCA has taught me that dogs can technically drive. But that doesn’t mean we should be handing them the keys and making them designated driver for Katy’s hen do. I mean, besides the fact they don’t even have thumbs, lovably distractable dogs are likely to veer off the road in pursuit of squirrels, other dogs’ butts, a weird shadow and pretty much anything they can put in their mouths. They’re clearly a hazard to other drivers.
And that’s why the police in Hanoi are looking for a man filmed speeding down the road at night letting his dog steer the bike.
New music video by LADYBABY here to rock your world (in more ways than one) 【Video】
- Jamie Koide
Jul 7, 2015
Few could have imagined that a bearded man dressed in a girl’s school uniform would prove to be big a hit. Even fewer perhaps would have guessed that putting said individual in a J-pop group alongside a couple of Japanese teens would be something people would actually want to watch, but watch they do, and LADYBABY is currently taking Japan by storm.
In the music video for their first upcoming single release, “Tokyo Manju”, Japan’s most curious trio takes to the streets of Tokyo to show you all the wonderful things we love about Japanese culture.
When Gackt said the Cool Japan campaign needed a revamp, I don’t think this is quite what he had in mind…
“It’s just like Disneyland!” Our Japanese reporter visits the love hotel where dreams are made
- Fran W
Jul 2, 2015
If Japan’s love hotels range from cheap ‘n’ cheerful to downright bizarre, Sky Paradise Rakuen must rank as one of the most marvellously ridiculous. While enjoying a discreet tryst with your partner of choice, you can also take a ride on a gondola under a sparkling jewel-encrusted sky and gaze from your balcony out over theme park-style attractions.
Disney don’t do love hotels, but if they did they’d probably look like this!
Naturally, our Japanese reporter couldn’t resist heading down to Sky Paradise to check in and check it out. Just for research, of course.
Video from India shows fast way to load construction equipment…or die, whichever comes first
- Master Blaster
Jun 17, 2015
If you were charged with the task of putting a mini excavator like to one pictured above onto a flatbed truck in under two minutes, what would you do? If you’re like most people you’d probably find a ramp of some sort.
Or, if you have just that right balance of gutsiness and lack of self-preservation instinct, you might do what these guys in India did. Luckily, they recorded it on video for our enjoyment and as evidence preventing any lawsuit against the makers of the excavator.
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