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 [...]

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 [...]

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:

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Just thought people may like the heads up that Arudou Debito, known for championing foreigners rights, is speculatively organizing an association of permanent residents and nationalized citizens in Japan. People who have lived here long enough (about 5 years) to get over their guestism, and that want to band together to make their voices [...]

An Al Jazeera report about ethnic Koreans in Japan:

The report focuses on how Zainichi Koreans suffer discrimination and racism, particularly in situations such as applying for a job or searching for housing. North Korean schools in Japan are depicted as positing for their role in helping preserve the ethnic identity of Zainichi Koreans, and [...]

Smog levels are on the increase in Japan, and according to the Japan Times, many think that China is the blame:
Toshimasa Ohara, a chief researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, said, “It’s quite possible this is cross-border pollution from the Asian continent.”
Last June, Fukuoka Gov. Wataru Aso told then Environment Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi [...]

The guided missile destroyer Shenzhen arrived in Tokyo today, marking the first visit of a Chinese naval vessel to Japan since the end of World War II. Here’s a news report about it from Fuji TV:

Aside from showing footage of the the destroyer, the report also mentions the arrival of the USS Kitty Hawk [...]

You don’t see one of these every day:

TANEGASHIMA, Kagoshima — A two-headed Japanese ratsnake has been found here and is currently being kept at Tanegashima Municipal Government Hall, town officials said.
The 27-centimeter long snake with heads that each extend about 2 centimeters in length was found last week in a Tanegashima man’s garden and is [...]

Some McDonald’s franchises in Tokyo are in trouble for selling salads that were more than 12 hours old:
McDonald’s Co. (Japan) Ltd. said Tuesday it has sold salads with false dates of production at four of its hamburger outlets in Tokyo after employees stuck the labels on unsold products so that they could be sold the [...]