Archive for December, 2009

Scooter helps you lift girls’ skirts

A Japanese commercial for JD Razor scooters reveals some of the cool stuff you can do when speeding along on one of these vehicles:

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

Obama KFC bucket sold in Japan

Spotted a earlier this month on display at a major chain of Japanese novelty stores (Exiciting Bookstore Village Vanguard):

It is a tissue holder shapped like a bucket of fried chicken. Colonel Sanders’ face has been replaced by a similarly-styled Barack Obama face.

According to Gizmoto, who considers the product to be racist, it is made by a company based in Hong Kong:

I’m really, REALLY not understanding why Brando, purveyor of all things strange and gadgety, is selling a tissue holder looking like a certain fried chicken bucket– WITH OBAMA’S FACE on it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

To top it off, the slightly stereotypical product has Obama dressed up like Colonel Sanders, and also features a coin bank for change. Sigh. Get it? One has to wonder whether or not they merely thought it was funny, or if they really just hate Black America. And for the record, a Popeye’s bucket (despite them frying up superior chicken) WOULD NOT have made it any better. Regardless, though…WTF!

Gizmoto’s link to the product page on Brando’s website no longer works, so I’m guessing they pulled it after somebody at the company realized it might offend some people.

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

Exploring Niigata

From

Hey folks, recently Japan Probe was approached with the offer to have one of us sent to Niigata. In return, we merely had to blog about it. Reluctantly, we decided to send me and hope I didn’t ruin the whole prefecture. I think I’ve found my dream job; Niigata was a blast!

This is a video about the first couple days one and two of the trip, covering my experiences with odd wildlife. If you stick around for the end, you can see one session of geigi (Niigata geisha) dancing. If you want to see a lot of pictures and links to interesting things in Niigata, the whole writeup is collected here.

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Contributor Bio: Claytonian blogs and vlogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic and occasionally has cool adventures.
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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Foreigners admire Mao Asada’s clean teeth

A commercial for an elettric tooth brush has some foreigners watching figure skater Mao Asada from afar and singing about how she must really brush her teeth well:

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

Russian karate dude smashes blocks

A Russian whose block-smashing routine is apparently so impressive that he was featured on the news in Japan:

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

Dog bathing suits and bikinis

As we’re getting towards the end of 2009, it’s about time I did some winter cleaning and finish a few posts I initially planned to make several months ago. Here’s one of a fashion show for dog swimwear that was held in Taiwan but was deemed newsworthy in Japan:

P.S. – If you’re in Japan and want to buy wacky clothes for your dog, head to a big shopping mall and look for Pet Paradise. [shop list here]

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