Archive for October, 2009

Love Hachiko – a special rhinestone version of Shibuya’s famous landmark statue

The same episode of “Champions” that turned a Mt. Fuji bath house painting into a shiny rhinestone “Deco Fuji” also made a rhinestone version of Shibuya’s famous Hachiko statue:

“Love Hachiko” will be put on display inside a new building in front of Koza-Shibuya station on the Odakyu line. The building is not quite complete, so the statue has been put on temporary display inside the nearby Yamato city hall building.

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• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Princess Aiko’s relay race

A video of Princess Aiko, daughter of Crown Prince Naruhito, participating in her school’s Sports Day (undokai) festivities:

The second half of the clip contains footage of Naruhito running in the same relay back when he was 7-years-old.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Japanese netizen reactions to Islamists whipping women who wear bras

The insurgent group, which seeks to impose a strict form of sharia Islamic law throughout Somalia, amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery earlier this month. They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.

A few translations of comments left by users of the Japanese web forum 2channel in response to a Reuters news story about Islamic militants in Somali who have been flogging women who wear bras [via the popular blog Itai News]:

So bras are bad and S&M is okay?

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A public S&M show?

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This sounds exactly like the kind of villains that appear in Go Nagai manga.

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Next time give us a video.

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It must be hell to be born a woman in a place like this.
I’m glad I was born Japanese.

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Using religion for S&M play.

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Tell me perv, is it alright to wear panties?

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Do the scriptures really talk about this sort of stuff?
Isn’t this just some asshole warping the meaning of the text?

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Anything goes in anarchy, huh?
Pretty scary.

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Do they think the same way about men wearing briefs?

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This boils down to people using religious doctrine as an excuse to do whatever they want.
This is pretty extreme even for primitives.

Disclaimer: Comments left on the internet by anonymous netizens should not be interpreted as representative of an entire nation.

[The Japanese news article translations in this post were provided by myGengo's simple human translation system.]

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• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Ponyo theme song performed by hand

A man turns his hands into a flute and plays the theme from Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Shaving bear commercial: the sequel

Back in June, I posted about a Nisshinbo commercial that featured bear shaving as an example of one way we could help cope with global warming. Now that winter is approaching, Nisshinbo has a new commercial in which the bear tries and fails to summon snow from the heavens:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Luv (sic) pt. 2 music video

A music video for “Luv (sic) pt. 2″ by Nujabes feat. Shing02:

[via Jean Snow]

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• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)