It’s not uncommon for Japan’s amateur manga artists to create works of fan fiction starring their favorite characters from mainstream comics. The owners of copyrights usually look the other way in such cases, even allowing fan fiction comics to be sold on a limited scale at markets and in small comic stores. However, [...]

Looks like the Yasukuni Shrine is back in the news:
Former president Lee Teng-hui yesterday said he would like to visit the Yasukuni shrine, a controversial memorial to war dead where his elder brother is enshrined.
Lee’s elder brother served in the Japanese navy and died while on duty in February 1945 in the Philippines.

“I have not [...]

Game Shows are now the No. 1 cause of death in Japan, according to the Onion Radio News [listen]. The Onion, as you most likely know by now, is a fine bastion of accurate, up to the date information about events all over the globe. However, the Japan Today news service has [...]

Update: The new server is live: Enjoy!
If you’ve tried visiting this site in the last few days, you’ll notice that it has either been very slow, or has been down for you. Japan Probe’s current shared host cannot handle over 2000 visitors an hour, so we will be moving to a new server. Effectively [...]

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

Hakuho officially became the 69th yokozuna Wednesday after the directors of the Japan Sumo Association voted unanimously to promote the winner of the last two Emperor’s Cups. [Link]
Nineteen out of Japan’s 47 prefectures will likely experience at least a 20 percent drop in population in 2035 as the birthrate plunges [...]

A classic video of a performance from the mobile suits of the original Mobile Suit Gundam:

Poor Guntank. They needed to push him off the stage because he couldn’t leave under his own power…

A video report about the theft of a pretty much unguarded gold bathtub that had been stolen from a hotel in Chiba Prefecture:

A bathtub made of gold, worth 120m yen ($1m; £500,000), has disappeared from a Japanese resort hotel in circumstances that remain unclear, police said.
Staff reported the tub was missing on Wednesday at the [...]

Japanese netizens have been taking http://www.clickclickclick.com/, a site where users from different countries click a button to increase their country’s total points, quite seriously. After discovering the site sometime in its 2nd round, Japan’s 2-channelers took the game by storm, destroying the competition and easily winning first place for their nation. However, it [...]

Here’s a video from the the “How to make people angry” series, in which a Japanese grandma demonstrates the “Zidane” technique:

A video that reveals the 1978 Japanese song that put lyrics to the Star Wars theme:

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

Farm Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka wrote eight suicide notes apologizing for causing trouble to those close to him, it has been revealed. [Link]
A former executive of a forerunner to the semi-governmental Japan Green Resources Agency, which is now involved in a bid-rigging scandal, was found lying on the ground of a [...]

Yes, that’s right. Riyo Mori, who represented Japan at the Miss Universe Contest, has just been named the winner of the pagent:
Mori, 20, the 56th winner of the title, was given her $250,000 (U.S.) diamond-and-pearl crown by last year’s winner, Zuleyka Rivera of Puerto Rico, watched by a live audience of 10,000 and some [...]