Archive for January, 2009

Laid-off hotel workers clash with police

When it was announced that the Keihin Hotel in Shinagawa would be closed and all of its workers fired, those workers seized control of the building and attempted to continue running the business. On Sunday, court officials and policemen seized control of the hotel:

The officials, accompanied by riot police, entered the hotel around 9:25 a.m. and finished seizing the building in about 15 minutes.

During a struggle with police, a glass door was shattered and one of the protesters was taken to a hospital after he fell down and struck his head.

There were no arrests.

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Obama Inauguration UFO

The bad journalism award for this week goes to TBS for running an extended segment on yesterday’s Evening News about a UFO sighting at Barack Obama’s Inauguration:

Their report relied on a very low quality YouTube video of the event and they took internet rumors at face value. They even consulted a Japanese UFO experts who seemed to agree with the theory that it was an alien space ship and not a bird.

The truth about the object was shown a little later when TV Asahi’s Super News aired its own segment about the UFO:

Unlike TBS, they obtained a high quality video of the event from CNN. The video quite clearly shows that the object was a bird.

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A dangerous toy robot

The Asahi reports on dangerous toy from Bandai:

At least 14 children were hurt after getting their fingers caught in parts of the toy, based on the popular “Go-Onger” TV action series, which is shaped like an armored vehicle and can be transformed into a robot.

The Tokyo-based company only made the risks public on Friday after being contacted by the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation, which is under the jurisdiction of the trade and industry ministry.

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Otaku tourism saves small town

A news report from ATV about the small town of Ugo in Akita Prefecture, which has undergone a tourism boom after giving its local products a Moe makeover:

Like many rural towns in Japan, Ugo’s population is in decline. There are few career opportunities in Ugo, so most young people leave the area in search of work when they reach adulthood. In the past ten years, Ugo’s population has dropped by ten percent, leaving the town with just 18,000 residents.

Things looked bad for Ugo, but the situation seems to be getting better thanks to a clever idea hatched by a local otaku named Takaori Yamauchi. Manga illustrators were hired to design labels that gave Ugo’s agricultural products a unique moe image. Local farmers had previously struggled to sale their rice crop, but after placing their rice in bags with bishojo illustrations, sales increased astronomically (36 tons were sold in just the first month, compared to the usual annual sale of 18 tons). Ujo has also started selling packs of moe curry, moe strawberries, and even “moe shochu. The sale of such products over the internet has drawn male otaku visitors from across the country, and local shops have started selling moe-themed Ugo posters and t-shirts.

At the end of the report, ATV checks on the tourist who was shown buying a bag of rice earlier in the segment. It seems the man isn’t yet planning to eat the rice, and prefers to put it on display alongside his many anime figurines. He says the lovely bag of rice is like a wife to him.

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Cup Noodle Light Commercials

Erika Toda goes nude in a commercial for Cup Noodle Light (Cup Noodle in a smaller cup with air-dried noodles = healthy):

And Kyoko Uchida’s commercial for the same product:

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U.S. looks for a compromise over Japanese whaling

William Hogarth, U.S. Commissioner to the IWC, is trying trying to convince Japan to accept a compromise that would allow limited coastal whaling but reduce the number of whales killed by Japan’s antarctic whaling fleet:

The draft proposal, which does not specify how many whales could be killed under the plan, would allow Japan to engage in “coastal whaling” off its shores in exchange for a cut in the number of Antarctic minke whales it takes each year in the Southern Ocean. Several anti-whaling nations have pushed for the creation of a whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean, the site of the current whale hunt. The coastal whaling provision would apply only to Japanese coastal waters, and it is unclear whether it could be expanded.

In an interview, Hogarth said he knew it would be controversial to condone a new form of whaling, but he argued that it probably is essential to reach an agreement with Japan.

“Even though we might not like this specific aspect, it’s better than what we have now, the status quo,” he said. “Everyone would like to see that there are less whales killed.”

The animal rights activists who dominate the anti-whaling movement obviously do not agree with such a plan.

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