Archive for April, 2009

Stork readjusting to life in prison

The stork that escaped from the Chiba Zoo has went on public display yesterday for the first time since he was recaptured:

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Construction crane tips over in Tokyo

Pretty scary news:

Police said the 2.9-ton crane with an approximately 27-meter-long arm suddenly collapsed on Route 20 in Chiyoda Ward, where the crane was being operated at a construction site, at around 11:10 a.m.

A truck that was being driven along Route 20 was trapped under the falling crane, with the 29-year-old driver and 39-year-old and 40-year-old male passengers temporarily stuck inside the vehicle with injuries, according to the Tokyo Fire Department.

The 38-year-old operator of the crane, who was trapped inside the vehicle before being rescued, and a female pedestrian in her 40s, who was hit by the crane, remain unconscious. Another pedestrian — a 33-year-old man — sustained light injuries, police said.

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Reuters scrapes the bottom of the barrel

Apparently Reuters won’t allow Time/CNN to be the only international news organizations to treat a small niche of Japanese pornography as a newsworthy item:

Coming soon: the Japanese media reporting on the many elderly pornstars in the United States and other countries?

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Caterpillar Cat

Leo the cat inside a sleeve:

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Iranian woman wins Japanese literary prize

Iranian author Shirin Nezammafi has won the 108th Bungakukai Shinjinsho award for a novel she wrote in Japanese:

The 29-year-old Nezammafi’s prizewinning work, titled “Shiroi Kami” (white paper), depicts a romance between two students at the time of the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s.

According to the organizer, Nezammafi, a native of Tehran who has been living in Japan for about nine years, works at a major electronics maker as a system engineer and studied at Kobe University’s graduate school of engineering. She currently resides in Osaka Prefecture.

More information about Nezammafi can be found in this Hiragana Times article.

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Oppai Volleyball

Coming this weekend to Japanese theaters:

Set in 1979, Haruka Ayase stars as a 23-year-old teacher named Mikako who was recently transferred to a junior high school school in Kitakyushu. Enthusiastic about her new job, she immediately volunteers to coach the boys volleyball club. Unfortunately, she finds the team only has 5 members—all of them geeks who spend most of their time obsessing over girls and no time practicing. In an effort to motivate the team, she gets coaxed into promising to flash them her “oppai” (breasts) if they win the big tournament. – [Nippon Cinema]

The movie has been getting a lot of attention on mainstream entertainment TV shows, where it is being marketed as a typical fun movie that would appeal to viewers of all ages.

However, it remains to be seen whether the aggressive marketing campaign will help people overcome the embarrassment of having to go to the movie theater ticket counter and ask “one ticket for boobies, please.”

[hat tip to Ken Y-N]

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