An NTV reporter visits an apartment in Shanghai where every appliance to have been made in Japan:
The family that lives there says they buy Japanese products because they trust the quality of the brands.
Their daughter also really seems to like Japanese stuff. Her mobile phone ringtone is from an Arashi song and she’s got posters of the boy band all over the wall. The narrator says that the spread of the internet has caused an increase in the number of Chinese people who like Japanese pop music.
A Japanese internet user has been officially declared the author of Twitter’s 20 billionth tweet:
The Twitter message was sent at 3:44pm GMT by “GGGGGGo_Lets_Go,” a graphic designer in Tokyo who works at an advertising agency, according to the user profile. The message was part of a conversation that appeared to be a comment about a third party that had come online and onto Twitter.
The precise meaning was difficult to translate due to lack of context, but the user’s reaction to having sent the 20 billionth Twitter message was much easier to understand.
“It looks like I posted the 20 billionth tweet. I’m getting replies from people all over the world. It’s scary. What are the chances? Maybe I’m going to die. Is it more amazing than winning the lottery? I thought it was a joke,” he said in another Twitter message moments later.
If you watched that video of the little boy riding a bullet train by himself and concluded that the “Hajimete no Otsukai” (First Errand) TV show always ends up with such successes, you might want to watch this clip of 5-year-old and 3-year-old sisters going on an errant in Nagano:
They are supposed to go get a new cup for their house’s Buddhist altar. In the course of their trip, they choose to fool around, visiting the playground and buying lots of snacks. They don’t pay attention to how much money they actually have, so on their way back they order ice cream and need to borrow money from a cameraman to pay for it. Upon arriving home, the mother finds that the cup they purchased is broken.
“Nanikore” finds a house in Japan with a scary-looking monster on its front porch:
The monster was created by the owner of the house as his graduation project for art school. It was too damn cool to throw it away, so he brought it home. Unfortunately, there isn’t much space inside the house, so he keeps it outside.
The owner says that after putting the monster by his door, he’s noticed a decrease in door-to-door salesmen.
At 9:30 a.m. on July 30, there were already some 2,100 people waiting in line to enter the museum, which is located next to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Sagamihara campus.
“I want to see the results of workers’ efforts that brought Hayabusa home safely,” said a 39-year-old company employee from the Osaka Prefecture city of Sennan, who was the first in line waiting from 4:30 a.m.
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The museum will hold the exhibition until July 31 (9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., admission free). The capsule will also go on show at JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Center from Aug. 2 to Aug. 6 (The thermal cover to be displayed Aug. 2-Aug. 3 only) and at Tokyo’s Marunouchi Oazo building from Aug. 15 to Aug. 19 (The thermal cover: Aug. 15-Aug. 16 only).
Zynga, the online gaming company best known for its Farmville Facebook game, has received a US$150 million investment from Japanese Internet company Softbank.
The two companies plan to form a joint venture, Zynga Japan, that will develop and distribute social games across Japan, they said in a statement.
Softbank, which holds the iPhone monopoly in Japan, has been beating out competitors in the battle for new subscribers.
On July 28th, Panasonic detailed the “world’s first 3D consumer camcorder[s],” the HDC-TM750 and HDC-TM650, in a series of press releases. The two products are fully functioning standard HD video cameras aimed at normal consumers in Japan, however consumers will be able to buy an attachable 3D conversion lens, the VW-CLT1.
The camera and lens set will cost about $2,000. The Asahi TV news video clip states that you will need to buy a 3D television set if you want to view the fancy 3D images that the camcorder can record.
This 4-year-old kid riding a bullet train to deliver work clothes to his father’s restaurant is probably the most impressive performance I’ve seen on the TV program “Hajimete no Otsukai” (First Errand):
Although the kid believes he is making a solo trip, he probably notices the cameramen following him around everywhere. Also, his mother is actually on the same train, watching him from a distance.
The species in not native to Japan, so it probably found its way into a Japanese pond after being dumped their by an irresponsible pet owner. There have been other sightings of such turtles in the area, so authorities are trying to deal with the situation before the alien species is allowed to further multiply.
Japan’s major beef bowl chains are in the midst of a summer price war:
Sukiya, Yoshinoya, and Matsuya will all be dropping the prices of their beef bowls into the two hundreds. The deal will last for the next week or so, so hurry and get a beef bowl while they last!
Ueno Zoo Will Get New Pandas (And Pay China Millions)
Foreign Nurses & Japan’s Immigration Policy
Badass Japanese Hermit
World’s Smallest Piano & World’s Smallest Drum Kit
Nagasaki Archive: Google Earth + A-bomb Information
Shimbashi Station Gets Whisky Highball Melody
Water Bottle Rocketeer
U.S. / British / French Governments Sending Representatives to Hiroshima Ceremony
Ringing a Giant Temple Bell
Nicolas Cage vs. Japanese Magician Kids
Video: Baby Monkey Plays With Tiger Cubs
72-year-old Resident Evil Badass Shiro Suzuki