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8 things we learned from Nintendo’s Q&A video with Shigeru Miyamoto 【Video】
- Jamie Koide
Sep 17, 2015 - Tweet
Perhaps the best thing to come out of the 30th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. is the all-new Super Mario Maker. Released just last week on September 11, the game aims to bring the original level-making tool used by programmers at Nintendo to all audiences.
Not only has the new release encouraged Shigeru Miyamoto, the mastermind behind Mario, to speak about how the beginning of the original NES game was created, it’s also given fans the opportunity to hear Miyamoto answer questions about the Mario world fans have been dying to know for 30 years.
- Internet, Japan
- (nintendo • Shigeru Miyamoto • Super Mario Bros. • video • video games • YouTube)
This group of Japanese kids tear up the dance floor at the World of Dance competition 【Video】
- Meg Murphy
Sep 5, 2015
There was an overflow of talent, skilled dancers, and amazing performances at the World of Dance competition held in Los Angeles last month, but this boy’s dance group from Japan made a particularly strong impression on the audience. Not only were their moves awe-inspiring and beautifully synchronized, but the fact that everyone in the group was of high school age or younger made their dance all the more incredible.
Watch the full video below and be blown away by the high-flying flips, spins, and awesome soundtrack!
- Global, Japan
- (awesome • break dancing • video • World of Dance • YouTube)
Japanese ad promoting Miyazaki Prefecture shows how foreign its own dialects can be 【Video】
- Meg Murphy
Sep 3, 2015
In an attempt to draw more visitors, Kobayashi City in Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture has released a video to promote the natural beauty and appeal of the town. The ad features a French man, talking about the quirky yet charming nature of the locals and the beautiful environment the city has to offer. As he speaks, Japanese subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen, allowing those who don’t understand French to know what the man is saying.
But the last line of the ad is throwing many Japanese viewers for a loop, as it dawns on them that the man is not actually speaking French at all, but a local Miyazaki dialect.
Cosmetic mishap leaves girl in China realizing it’s not easy being green 【Video】
- Meg Murphy
Sep 1, 2015
Everyone’s favorite Muppet frog once sang about the difficulties of being green, but there were a few points he left out: being dumped by your boyfriend, for example, or **being mistaken for a green traffic light and in turn getting hit by a car—**both things this poor girl from China claims happened to her after a facial mask she used turned her face a glowing, fluorescent green.
A video of the interview with the unfortunate young lady has gone viral across Chinese social networking sites, with many just as skeptical of the wild story as you probably are this very minute…
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.
Relive the 90s as seen from China, thank the stars you didn’t live in China back then
- KK Miller
May 23, 2015
For anyone who has seen the VH1 show I Love the ’90s, they know it’s a fantastic way of remembering just how ridiculous the times were back then and seeing visually how much has changed since. There was Nirvana, Friends, grunge fashion and some of the most beloved video games including Pokémon and Final Fantasy VII. Well it’s 2015 and everyone is streaming Friends on Netflix, there’s going to be a new album featuring Kurt Cobain, and Pokémon and Final Fantasy titles continue to dominate the sales charts. So has anything changed?
Maybe not for the West, but China, which was recovering from the strict ruling of Mao Zedong, really started to find itself in the ’90s. Their impoverished nation was beginning to discover fashion and entertainment and experience what the rest of the world was experiencing. And now that the Internet has taken over the world, how has China changed from the ’90s to now? Watch an amazing video after the jump to find out.
- China
- (90s • Mamahuhu • then vs now • YouTube)
This Dragon Ball tribute is a great way to refresh your memory of the classic series
- Preston Phro
May 4, 2015
With a new Dragon Ball show announced for July, now is just about the perfect time to take a quick refresher on the original series! While you could spend a couple of hours browsing through recaps of all the old episodes, or even try rewatching the whole series before July, we have an easier way to remind yourself of all the animated fun.
Check out this awesome animated YouTube video, complete with authentic music clips from the show!
Youth in toothpick prank videos sent to juvenile correctional facility
- Japan Today
Apr 3, 2015
A 19-year-old youth who uploaded a series of prank videos on YouTube in January, including one in which he inserted a toothpick into a snack food in a supermarket, was sent to a moderate security juvenile correctional facility.
North Korean officials, Gaddafi and more get the heavy metal treatment from talented guitarist
- ANDRES OLIVER
Feb 27, 2015
A while back, Japanese politician Ryutaro Nonomura captured the world’s attention after a surreal outburst at a press conference regarding his alleged misuse of taxpayers’ money. No doubt seeing fertile ground for comedy, one creative musician then made Nonomura the stuff of Internet legend by setting the man’s sobs to a guitar track.
Guitarist Felix Martin and his talented collaborators operate under a similar concept, setting guitar, drums, and bass to speeches from North Korean officials, Hugo Chavez, and others. This project isn’t for laughs, though. With an ear for the rhythm and pitch of the spoken word, not to mention masterful heavy metal stylings, Martin and company elevate the aptly named Human Transcription project to the realm of art. Politics and propaganda have never sounded so good.
The first videos ever shared on YouTube & Niconico leave us feeling rather… confused? 【Videos】
- Meg Murphy
Jan 30, 2015
If the internet is a part of your everyday life, as it is for billions of others around the globe, then you are probably no stranger to video-sharing giant YouTube. There you can find videos of pretty much anything that interests you, watch news and events from around the world, take a peek at other people’s lives through their vlogs, learn new skills through how-to videos, or squee over countless cute animal videos. If you’re bored, nothing passes the time quite like getting lost in a YouTube black hole, where one interesting video leads to another, and another, and yet another…
Not quite as well-known, but still very successful in its own right, is Niconico (formerly NicoNico Douga), essentially the Japanese version of YouTube, though the website is also available in English and Taiwanese. What is unique about Niconico is the ability it gives users to add comments which are then overlaid directly on the video and synced to a specific playback time, which often become as entertaining as the video itself.
Both sites have billions of videos for a lifetime’s worth of entertainment, but have you seen the oldest videos of them all?
‘Rassun Gorerai: English version’ is even more oddball than the original 【Video】
- Fran W
Jan 30, 2015
Humour can be so dependent on the language and culture of its country of origin, that it easily gets lost in translation. But what happens when you try to translate nonsense? That’s what Satoshi Castro has tried to do with his English version of comedy duo 8.6sec Bazooka’s ‘Rassun Gorerai’, the hit chanting-dance routine that’s racked up 9 million views on YouTube so far.
If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out what that title rassun gorerai means, you’re in luck – it doesn’t mean anything! So how will this catchy Japanese comedy song work in English? Join us after the jump to find out!
- Japan
- (8.6sec Bazooka • comedy • funny • Rassun Gorerai • Satoshi Castro • video • wtf • YouTube)
Unreal “animation dancer” makes Japanese salarymen breakdance with the power of magic sunglasses
- Scott Wilson
Jan 26, 2015
If you’re a fan of the internet, then chances are you saw this YouTube video a few years back of Marquese Scott, otherwise known as NONSTOP, performing his mesmerizing “animation” style of dance. It may look like fancy camera tricks, but nope, he can actually just dance like he has no bones.
Thanks to that video, NONSTOP is now world famous, and he recently traveled to Japan to do a collaboration with the entertainment group Team Black Starz. Together they created something beautiful: a video of NONSTOP going around Japan, inspiring salarymen, old dudes, and homeless people to breakdance with the power of his magic sunglasses.
- Japan
- (breakdance • dance • dubstep • NONSTOP • Team Black Starz • YouTube)
People from around the world share surprising quirks of their country in enlightening video
- Mike
Jan 24, 2015
Did you know that in the United States, you can buy an apple, literally eat it all the way down to the core, and then return the core for a refund? It’s like free apples every day.
Okay, so that’s a little far-fetched; pretty much everybody in the US would go out of business if you could just return everything when you were done using it. But it’s true that, comparatively speaking, return policies stateside can heavily favor the consumer. With the exception of certain goods, you can return most things still in decent condition as long as you remembered to keep the receipt.
And that’s just one of the quirks about various countries of the world revealed in this adorably peppy Taiwanese video:
Mari-chan the sensational Shiba Inu actress is back and cute as ever
- Scott Wilson
Jan 21, 2015
Mari-chan might be “the meanest dog in Japan,” but we still can’t help but love her. We’ve seen her before “helping” her master study by spraying him with water, comically refusing his desperate advances for doggie kisses, and even going so far as to nonchalantly knock away his crutches and life preserver rope.
But now Mari-chan has decided to move on: she’s gotten a real job, as a construction worker. Her latest YouTube video shows her first ten days as the newbie at work, learning the ropes and causing plenty of adorable mischief.
Fan parody of Ghostbusters set in Tokyo is totally “crossing the streams”【Video】
- KK Miller
Jan 17, 2015
Genre streams that is! There isn’t an ’80s movie that is more perfectly matched for an anime makeover than Ghostbusters. The story is flawless, the ghosts would feel right at home, plus all the crazy special effects could be easily accomplished through animation. The fact that they were able to do all of that in a live-action movie is part of what makes it such a classic.
This parody simply nails the movie, but you don’t have to take our word for it, you can see for yourself after the jump.
Man detained for 2013 Hakata Station threats now filming himself sticking toothpicks into snacks
- Scott Wilson
Jan 15, 2015
Back in June 2013, RocketNews24 ran an article about the threats of attack on Fukuoka’s Hakata Station. The perpetrator was subsequently caught and sent to a juvenile detention center, but now less than two years later, he’s back to making YouTube videos of himself stealing from stores and destroying merchandise.
His latest “prank” video shows him sticking a toothpick inside some unsuspecting customer’s snack and is currently under investigation by Tokyo police.
Guys in China weigh up the sh*t their girlfriends say in “Chinese Girlfriends: North VS South” 【Video】
- Fran W
Jan 9, 2015
Pranksters and sketch-makers TMD Shanghai are back with another look at relationships in China – and this time, it’s the girls getting sent up. TMD, formerly known as Monkey Kingz, are the team that brought us that ‘Single Chinese Guy vs Single White Guy’ skit. As we might expect from a comedy video playing on ethnic stereotypes, that provoked some decent debate online. Is it ok to make generalisations based on race? Does the comedic context make it more, or less acceptable?
So after watching TMD’s new video ‘Chinese Girlfriends: North VS South’ video, we immediately jumped to the YouTube comments, expecting the usual cries of stereotyping and “WTF man you couldn’t be more wrong.” But we were surprised to discover that, well, everybody loves it!
- China
- (Chinese girls • relationships • TMD Shanghai • video • YouTube)
Anime cover band Inheres has us rocking out to Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk and more…in Spanish!
- Fran W
Jan 7, 2015
Cover versions are tricky to get right. Sound too different from the original and you risk alienating those who prefer the original; mimic the original version and you’re not bringing anything new to the table. And covers in a different language are a whole different kettle of pescado.
So we’re seriously impressed by these tracks from Inheres, a three-piece rock band hailing from Valparaíso, Chile, who specialise in covers of anime themes. Join us after the jump to hear anime themes as you’ve never heard them before, from Detective Conan to Saint Seiya.
Japan’s premier beatboxer sets YouTube ablaze, annoys fans with lack of beatboxing
- Preston Phro
Dec 22, 2014
We’ve talked about Japanese YouTubers before, and there certainly are a lot of awesome ones out there! One of the most famous is the beatboxing Hikakin, who was even featured in YouTube’s 2014 Rewind video. His musical skills have even caught the attention of the world at large, and Hikakin has performed with (and wowed) foreign artists, like Ariana Grande. There are plenty of folks around the world who are fans of the bespectacled YouTube star’s skills, but it looks like some of them are losing patience with his seeming lack of actual beatboxing.
As if he’d heard all of those complaints directly, Hikakin just released a new video with none other than Ne-Yo! Click below to check out the two artists make beautiful music with nothing more than their sexy mouths!
This crazy 4-minute clip is the most epic fan-made anime tribute we’ve seen this year
- Joan Coello
Dec 13, 2014
I thought I watched a lot of anime, or at least the number of times someone told me to “stop spending so much time watching anime” put me under such an impression. Apparently I wasn’t viewing anime as extensively as I had imagined, a realization I came to after encountering Anime 404, an incredibly bizarre mash-up video of various anime, songs and trend references. It’s pretty difficult to describe this crazy clip in words, but to put it simply, I think it is what I would call “chicken soup for the anime lover’s soul”. If you like anime, you’ve got to see this!
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