The Asahi reports (in Japanese) that the government has decided to provide travel expenses to unemployed foreigners of Japanese descent who want to leave Japan:

厚生労働省は３１日、失業した日系人に、母国への帰国旅費として１人３０万円（扶養家族には２０万円）を支給すると発表した。雇用情勢の悪化で仕事を失い、日本語が話せないために再就職が難しい日系人が急増しているため。４月１日から全国のハローワークなどで申請を受け付ける。
　失業手当の受給期間が３０日以上残っている人には１０万円（６０日以上なら２０万円）を上積みする。ただし、旅費を受け取って帰国した場合、日系人の身分に基づく在留資格での再入国はできない。
The offer will apparently only apply to foreigners living in the country on Nikkei visas who already live in Japan and became unemployed before April 1st. 300,000 yen [...]

I should have included this in the Secret Ocean post, but it just wasn’t ready yet. Secret Ocean will be performing April 17th at the Hilton Tokyo in support of HOPE at the Hilton week from April 12 to 19.
Basically HOPE is a Japan-based NGO that works hard at getting clean water for families in [...]

A silly new site from Ken Y-N of WhatJapanThinks.com allows users to rate photos of Japanese Barack Obama lookalikes:

ObamaOrNot.com provides a fun way for you to view and rate President Obama and people and cartoons and other likenesses of our President. It is an absolutely free service with no hidden fees. Anyone can rate these [...]

Darlo, a British student studying at Konan University in Kobe, blogged about an Indian restaurant in Hiroshima that apparently refused to give him its advertised student discount because he was a foreigner:
We flicked through the menu, as is customary despite knowing already what we were going to order, when a member of staff came over. [...]

Some regard it as a religious requirement, for some culture it gives a sense of belonging, and for many it is a common form of punishment. But nonetheless we cannot dispute the fact that tattooing your body is part of today’s culture, especially in the western world.
In contrary to the popular beliefs, in Japan (入れ墨) [...]

On Sunday, the last episode of “Amazing Animals” had a countdown of some of the series’ most memorable moments. Included was a medley of some great moments involving Piya-kun, an adorable fat cat:

In the clip, Piya-kun sits at a table like an old man, tries some ballet dancing, and makes a costume [...]

A Japanese commercial featuring a sexy Puccho candy:

Oh wait, never mind. Those were just grapes!
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Mainichi reports that the Justice Ministry will be setting up new “One Stop Centers” to help foreigners on employment searches, immigration issues, and other problems:
Until now, these issues were handled separately by local governments and regional immigration bureaus, but the three centers — to be set up in Tokyo, Saitama and Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture [...]

Some Japanese stores need to start importing this lovely product from Korea:

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He may have not been able to reclaim the Nathan’s hot dog eating title, but Japanese pro-eater Takeru Kobayashi still dominates at Asian eating contests:

Takeru Kobayashi(L) of Japan and Johnny Wu (R) of China’s Hong Kong swallow food during an eating contest in Suzhou, east China’s Jiangsu Province, March 29, 2009. Takeru Kobayashi, the famous [...]

A commercial for Kirin’s classy new apéritif-in-a-can:

Have any daring readers out there tried it yet?
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Cancel your plans for tonight, dear readers: it’s SASUKE time! TBS will be airing the Spring 2009 SASUKE (Ninja Warrior) competition tonight from 8:00PM until 11:23PM.
Here’s a TV commercial with a few seconds of teaser footage:

Those of you who won’t be able to watch Japanese TV tonight can keep an eye on Lost [...]