Just a reminder to all you pirates out there:
TOKYO — Japan’s anti-camcording law went into effect on Thursday, making it illegal to record pics in theaters.

The law was passed late in May, with a sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to Y10 million ($86,960) or both for violators.
Industry [...]

Suntory and Square Enix are teaming up to release a special canned edition of their Final Fantasy VII potion drink. The cans, which go on sale October 23rd, will have 16 different versions, each depicting a character from Final Fantasy VII. the potions will be priced at 191 yen a can, which is [...]

Wednesday night’s The Best House aired a very cool segment showing what it deemed to be the “Top 3 Amazing Printing Technologies”. Here they are:

1. The 3D Printer

The printer shown in this clip it Z Corporation’s ZPrinter 450. The Z450 can take a model on a computer and print it out in [...]

The Wall Street Journal has interviewed professional eater Takeru Kobayashi to find out five of his favorite foods. Here’s the list:

Cold tofu
Yogurt
Bagels with cream cheese and lox
Royal milk tea
Vietnamese spring rolls

Read the full article here!

[via Eat Feats]

The Japanese media is spending a great deal of its effort covering the Asashoryu sumo scandal, but they have found time to report on the latest Chinese product scare:

Details on the same story shown in the above video in English, from the India Times:
On Wednesday (August 29).. worms and moths crawled out of a [...]

Fuji Television’s Mezamashi TV did a report this morning on Sega Toys’ “Yume Neko Smile” [Dream Cat Smile], which hits stores across Japan today. Here’s the video [what's with the weird-bearded old guy?]:

This commercial for the robo cat also shows off its two main emotions ["meow" and "angry sound"] and amazing ability [...]

Sumo Grand Champion Asashoryu, currently suspended because of he faked an injury to take a vacation, flew back to Mongolia yesterday. Given the amount of media coverage Asashoryu’s scandal has been getting, one shouldn’t have been surprised to see his flight home turn into a media circus. Not only did the media wait [...]

After having made buckets of money during a short promotional trip to Japan a couple months ago, fitness guru Billy Blanks has announced that he will once again visit Japan. This time Blanks will be holding a series of Billy’s Bootcamp Japan Tour 2007 events in Yokohoma, Kobe, Nagoya, and Tokyo.
Hopefully we’ll [...]

They just don’t make hotel commercials like they used to:

[via Zaeega]

Author Tim Ferriss demonstrates 5 pen tricks he picked up from his days as an exchange student in Japan:

The pen tricks he shows in the video, with numbers indicating their difficulty (higher number=harder):
The Helicopter (2)
The Pincher (4)
The Wheel (1)
The Drummer (3)
The Flip (5)

YouTuber shyguy96786 has uploaded this amusing video of a pastry-eating contest in which Japanese women compete to win 1,000,000 yen [subtitled in English]:

Watch the video at this link!
[via EatFeats]

Here’s a cool video of Masi Oka, who plays Hiro Nakamura on the hit American TV drama Heroes, appearing on Fuji TV’s Mezamashi TV morning show:

In the interview Oka reveals that he is actively involved in the translation of Japanese lines on the show, and that his famous “yatta!” scene was actually written as “bonsai!!” [...]