Archive for April, 2009

Woman Yoinked 800 Originals of an Adult Manga

Nerima, Tokyo– I think what we can see in this article (picture link) is the evidence of an odd little theft. These are original pages of the manga やる気まんまん (my translation: Rearin’ to Go). Police have a suspect that they say has already admitted to stealing these because she “wanted money”. There’s not much else, but she did live in the same building as the cartoonist.

“Hmmm…” says I. “I’ve not seen this manga.” A few searches later I can tell you that it is a long-running manga about… well, adults and a seal character. We don’t need to go into further details, but if you are interested, there is a rather risque promo on YouTube that will be pulled soon no doubt (NSFW).

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Contributor Bio: Claytonian studies the Nihongoes in Saitama and blogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic.
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Vintage 7-11 Commercial

From the old days, when 7-11 meant “open from 7AM to 11PM”:

The commercial starts with the salaryman’s wife telling him to pick up some things on the way home. Later, he is having a after work drink and realizes he has forgotten to go to the supermarket! Luckily, 7-11 is still open, so he is can avoid his wife’s anger.

[via Zaeega]

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Billy Blanks and his Japanese wife

Billy Blanks, the American fitness video guru whose Bootcamp videos became a major hit in Japan last year, has married a Japanese woman:

His new wife, Tomoko, is a 39-year-old interpreter he met in Los Angeles back in 2007. A romance soon developed, and in November of last year (just a few months after Billy divorced his previous wife), Tomoko gave birth to their daughter, Angelina. They legally married in January. According to the report, they plan to have a formal wedding ceremony in Osaka in June.

Billy has long term plans to stay in Japan. He’ll be opening an exercise studio in the Shinsaibashi area of Osaka later in July. He’s also applying to receive permanent residency.

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Fire truck & school houses to be sold online

Anybody want to buy a fire truck? How about some old elementary schools?

The Hokkaido town of Niikappu, with 5,900 residents, on Tuesday registered four elementary schools that closed last year on the Yahoo! online auction site’s section for government agencies.

The schools, built 20 to 30 years ago, each have grounds of around 10,000 square meters or more. Minimum sale prices of between 22 million and 68 million yen were set.

The video embedded in this post also shows a fire truck being sold by a city in Gunma prefecture. The truck was purchased in 1989 for 17 million yen, but will now be auctioned with a minimum sale price of 100,000 yen. Fire trucks and their powerful hoses can be pretty handy for cleaning, apparently.

For details on the auctions, check out this post at Asiajin.

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Zomahoun Rufin to release CD

Zomahoun Idossou Rufin, the famous Beninese panel member from the Japanese TV program Koko ga hen da yo, nihonjin (This is what’s strange about Japanese people!), is releasing a CD:

Rufin, who built two schools in Benin with the proceeds of money raised from book sales in Japan, is also planning to use the profits from his musical career to help fund social welfare programs for the needy in Benin.

He has told the Japanese press that he made the CD at the suggestion of Beat Takeshi, but Takeshi has denied any connection to the CD.

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How to get up, eat breakfast and get ready for work in 5 minutes

Comedian Tomonori Jinnai shows us how to get up, eat breakfast, and get ready for work in just five minutes:

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