American enka singer Jero’s first single has gone on sale, and it’s popular:

American “enka” singer Jero set records on Oricon’s weekly music charts, coming in fourth with his runaway hit debut single “Umiyuki,” according to results released on Tuesday.
The 26-year-old Jero, born in Pittsburgh in the United States, grew up listening to enka (traditional Japanese [...]

A screen capture from a World War 2 era US Navy training film that taught downed pilots how to distinguish between friendly Filipinos and their Japanese occupiers:

Check out the full gallery of screen captures here.
[via It's Beyond Me]

Here’s a “Super Report” that aired last week on Fuji TV. The report focuses on the security systems in place at Narita Airport’s immigration checkpoint (length: 13 minutes):

A brief translation of a few things mentioned in the video:

The frightening buzzer that goes off a minute and 40 seconds into the video indicates that [...]

Pretty scary news:
HIMEJI, Hyogo — A teenager required hospitalization after swallowing a fishing hook left in a hamburger he bought from a convenience store here, police said.
The manager of the convenience store that sold the burger reported the presence of two fishing hooks — another one was found inside the packaging.
Investigators are looking into the [...]

Anybody want 20% more fiber-optic capacity between Japan and America?
TOKYO (AP) ・A group of six international companies, including Google Inc. of the U.S., is building a $300 million underwater fiber-optic cable linking the United States and Japan.
The 6,200-mile trans-Pacific broadband cable system called Unity will respond to the expected growth in data and Internet traffic [...]

Just found this graph showing the results of a survey conducted in China that asked people to name Japanese goods they considered to be high quality. The top categories on the graph (left to right) are translated as follows:

Digital Cameras
LCD Televisions
Automobiles
Video Cameras
Notebook Computers
Game Consoles
Video Games
Mobile Phones
Washing Machines
Audio Visual Electronics
Fashion
Computers
Wristwatches
Motorbikes
Toys
Household Goods/Daily Sundries
Accessories
Food
Alcohol
Musical Instruments
Stationary
Golf Equipment
Bicycles
Furniture

The colored [...]

If you’re going to pretend to be blind so you can get extra welfare money, don’t make the mistakes this guy did:
SAPPORO — A Sapporo man was arrested for fraud Monday after he claimed to be legally blind to get a heftier welfare handout for years even though his eyesight was good enough to permit [...]

This is one of those things that one never even contemplates getting to see. The famous English Rock and Roll song Smoke on the Water is being played by a Japanese traditional-style orchestra, named Ooedo No Hikeshi*. It gets really interesting when they start singing.

If anyone knows where to see or hear more [...]

If you’ve lived in Japan, chances are you’ve heard of the charisma man stereotype of foreign males, which gets its name from the popular comic strip of the same name. The first comic in the Charisma Man anthology pretty much sums up the stereotype:

Do such characters exist? It would be hard to deny [...]

Tokyograph has reported that the Shoko Nakagawa (Shokotan) has drawn criticism for remarks she made about the two men who were in a fishing boat sunk by an MSDF Aegis destroyer:

During a discussion on TBS’ live program “Sunday Japon,” Nakagawa lamented the loss of the two men, referring to them as if they were dead. [...]

Remember when members of the radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd illegally boarded a Japanese ship last month to “deliver a letter” informing the crew of an Australian court ruling against Japanese whaling? Now they’re claiming that they planted tracking devices on the Japanese ships:
Watson said two crew from his protest ship Steve [...]

From Mainichi:

A Fuchu Prison inmate in his 50s has committed suicide by stabbing himself in the head with a chopstick, prison officials said over the weekend.
The man stabbed himself in the back of the head with the sharp end of a broken chopstick on the night of Feb. 19.
He received treatment at a hospital in [...]