Archive for November, 2007

Super Fat Cat is Back!

Remember Papi, the gigantic cat blogged about on Japan Probe back in April? He’s back, and he’s still super fat:

In this update on Papi, we find that he is currently 12.06 kilograms, down from the 12.5kg he weighed back in April. His owner is trying to put Papi on a diet, and has been trying various methods to give Papi some exercise. (Billy’s Bootcamp doesn’t work for cats, apparently.)

American Cars in Japan

There aren’t a lot of American cars in Japan, but that doesn’t mean they’re not readily available to Japanese consumers. A small number of General Motors vehicles are marketed and sold by Suzuki in Japan, and some of them even get nationwide television commercial campaigns.

I was not fully aware of this situation until this week, when I happened to catch the following commercial for the Chevrolet MW, featuring popular model Izumi Mori (who happens to be half-Japanese, half-American):

Think that commercial is going to get many Japanese to buy American cars?

The Confabulator

Here’s a very amusing short film in which “a man living overseas tells it how it isn’t,” found on An Englishman in Osaka‘s YouTube channel:

More Human Tetris (w/ Choi Hong Man)

Yet another segment of the now world famous “human tetris” wall game aired on tonight’s Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Deshita, and Korean K-1 fighter Choi Hong Man was the guest (as he was back in May). Here’s the video:

And another video showing highlights of the new Russian version of this program, which has chosen to stay loyal to the original by having it’s contestants wear the same wacky uniforms the Japanese wear (only instead of male comedians, they’ve got attractive young women):

They also mention that versions of the show have started in France, Italy, and Indonesia!

Greenpeace Attacks Nintendo

Greenpeace has released scorecards on the Eco-friendliness of electronics companies, and they have given Nintendo a zero:

Adding the four companies to its quarterly environmental rankings, Greenpeace listed all the newcomers at the bottom of the list of 18, with Nintendo becoming the first company to score zero out of a possible 10 points.

The most nature-friendly companies under the criteria were Sony Ericsson and Samsung, each scoring 7.7 points.

Greenpeace punished Nokia, the former leader, and Motorola for failing to live up to their pledges to take back used hardware in five of six countries where it conducted spot checks.

Since Greenpeace launched its scorecard in August 2006, some companies have complained of unfairness, but few have ignored the ranking.

Note: As pointed out by a commenter, if Greenpeace could not find the information it requested about certain companies’ environmental practices, it automatically gave that company a zero. In many cases, spokesmen for the companies didn’t have information on hand to give an adequate response, so their companies suffered in the rankings.

Bazooka vs. Bulletproof Glass

A Hey! Spring of Trivia special aired on Japanese TV last night, performing crazy experiments in the field of trivia. Perhaps the coolest segment from last night’s show was a test to determine if bulletproof glass could stop a bazooka.

The show’s producers were able to find both a bulletproof glass company and an army willing to participate in the experiment. The only catch was that the show could not reveal the name of the glass company or the name of the country whose military had consented to the test. While their names are not directly revealed in the video, there was no attempt made to hide the identities of the individuals or the languages they spoke, so it really wouldn’t be difficult to find the names of the company and country in question.

Instead of a WW2 era bazooka, a modern rocket launcher was used: the Soviet-build RPG-7. A firing team was positioned 100 meters from the target, which was a panel of bulletproof glass 5-centimeters thick. Here is the result:

Result: The rocket punched a hole in the glass, tearing off the arm of the dummy in the process. Looks like bulletproof glass ain’t rocket-proof glass.

But wait! The glass company’s general manager was prepared for just such an event, so he brought another, stronger sheet of bulletproof glass with him. This one was 10-centimeters thick, doubled the thickness of the glass that failed the first test. Let’s see how this one works:

Result: The RPG round fails to penetrate the glass and the glass company is declared the winner. (However, if you plan on using this glass, don’t stand too close to it. The shock of the rocket hitting the glass was enough to rip the dummy’s arm off.)