Yesterday, an online paper called World Hum published an article called ‘How To Stay At A Love Hotel in Japan‘ in which they looked at the unique service’s popularity phenomenon and offered valuable tips on how to use the facility properly. (I’m aware of how creepy ‘use the facility’ sounds but it’s hard to word this!) Today I’m going to evaluate the article and perhaps offer a few tips for those still unsure. I mean, how can that possibly be creepy?

Read the rest of this entry »

So the BBC decided to interview two British teenagers about their hobby of dressing up in ‘Manba‘ style. Needless to say the videos are hilarious and well worth watching. I guess everyone needs a hobby. Anyway, I took it upon myself to remix the comments in the videos and the videos themselves to create an audiovisual extravaganza. I’ve also included a link to allow you to leave your own commentary on the video, if you don’t just end your life upon hearing my awful, awful music…

The Video – Prepare yourself.

The Video & Subtitle Editor – Go here to embed your thoughts into my video! (Requires a free Youtube account)

The Manba MP3 – If for some bizarre reason you want to listen to the song again (and if you do, seek medical help), you can download it.

So yeah, enjoy it. If ‘enjoy’ is really the word for it…

So the Japan Times are reporting that a new film about the life of the brave dog Hachiko is to be made. A Hollywood blockbuster, no less, and starring Richard Gere! (No really!) But the real question is will Hollywood, famous for totally ignoring (or as they call it ‘selectively using’) historical facts, tell a story accurate to the real life of Japan’s favourite little hound, or will they go off the rails? Because I am a big fan of dogs big and small, today I will look at some of the potential plots for the film. Don’t worry after those I will make some sense.

Read the rest of this entry »

From Daily Contributor:

Coca-Cola Japan has announced that it will be launching a green tea-flavored Coke for the Japanese market next week. The drink contains antioxidants called catechins, making the new Coke a good choice for health-conscious younger women.

That’s right, Coke have turned to saving women of the world from drinking Coke that’s actually bad for you! Today I’m going to try to guess where Pepsi are going next with these awful sounding drinks.

Read the rest of this entry »

For those not in the know, Spotify is an amazing service which allows you to stream music through the net for free, in exchange for listening to a 30 second advert every 30 mins or so. It’s a fantastic program which is pretty much flawless, and it’s allowed me to discover and enjoy new music a lot quicker than navigating horrible band Myspace pages to listen to a grainy 30 second sample. But why is there no Japanese music on it?

Not only that, but the program has a huge database of music – in it’s most recent update at time of writing,
nearly 69,000 tracks were added. I keep testing it with more obscure bands, and so far it hasn’t failed to impress me. Ok, you’re going to be disappointed if you’re looking for electro-death-hip-trance-core from the Bermuda Triangle.

Read the rest of this entry »