• Japanese Robot walking from Tokyo to Kyoto
    September 24th, 2010By Category: Culture
    We all remember the Duracell bunny and the series of ads that ran on TV, pointing out that the fluffy, little guy with a heart of copper could go on and on and on...... and on. Panasonic, however, has taken the concept and put its own unique (Japanese) spin on things ... » Continue Reading
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    Capoeira as a cross-training tool
    September 22nd, 2010By Category: Culture
    Not too long ago, I was responding to a comment made in a previous entry I had written about correlations between Capoeira and Break dancing. The writer had mentioned that he was a jiu-jitsu student and that he thought that studying Capoeira would be great for his gam ... » Continue Reading
  • Akihabara morphing into a Sextoys ‘R’ Us
    September 21st, 2010By Category: Culture
    Shops hawking sex toys, inflatable dolls and such SM goods as whips and dominatrix costumes, are what you’d typically expect to find in raunchy drinking areas like Kabukicho. But increasingly, reports Japanese magazine SAPIO (Sept 29), such outlets have been springing ... » Continue Reading
  • Love Exposure vs. Battle Royale
    September 17th, 2010By Category: Culture
    Why had I not heard about this movie? Not Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル) - I picked up that DVD a few years ago (in Australia) and it remains one of my favourites. I'm talking about Love Exposure (愛のむきだし), a 4-hour 2008 romp directed by poet/filmmaker Sion Sono that I wa ... » Continue Reading
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    Japanese Crime
    September 13th, 2010By Category: Culture
    Flipping through recent crime reports, the Japanese magazine Spa! noticed a strange thing. A disproportionate number of perpetrators seemed to be in their 30s. So it proved, on closer examination. In the past three months, among 296 crimes serious enough to draw media ... » Continue Reading
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    Ocean Sustainability: From Taiji to the World
    September 9th, 2010By Category: Culture, Photography
    The photo depicts a peaceful inlet of coastal water in Taiji, a little known whaling town on the Pacific coast of Japan's Kii Peninsula in Wakayama Prefecture. Taiji is on the tail end of a larger area known as Kumano, which boasts an impressive array of world heritage ... » Continue Reading
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    2.7 billion yen – the price tag for cool Japan
    September 9th, 2010By Category: Culture
    Late last month, Asahi News reported that the government ministries involved in promoting the image of 'Cool Japan' around the world have requested a budget of 2.7 billion yen (32 million USD) for next year. That's the money used to help promote food, manga, fashion ... » Continue Reading
  • More Western movies being dubbed as Japanese tire of subtitles
    September 7th, 2010By Category: Culture
    The number of Western movies subtitled in Japanese is rapidly declining as 3D movies become more common and viewers grow more averse to reading text on screen. Instead, many cinemas in Japan are opting to show films dubbed in Japanese. That's the story coming out of ... » Continue Reading
  • Tokyo Gloss
    September 7th, 2010By Category: Culture, Photography
    You want something. But you don’t know what it is. She is there for you. Swathed in concrete and electric light, sublime and feral, frenetically interconnected in ways neural synapses are jealous of, she can provide anything you can imagine. Prowling the back-alleys and ... » Continue Reading
  • Money Worship
    August 31st, 2010By Category: Culture
    We took a look at his business background previously and now Japan Trends is reporting on a new move by Takafumi Horie, the former CEO of Livedoor who dropped out of Tokyo University and tried to take over one of the biggest media companies in Japan. That move? Into ... » Continue Reading