Archive for January, 2010

Space Battleship Yamato live action trailer

The first trailer for the live action Space Battleship Yamato movie:

[hat tip to Jean Snow]

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P.S. – Gotta love the loading “complate” image on the film’s official movie homepage:

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

Yakuza Party

Remember that photo-less post about the Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza gang handing out presents to children at a New Year’s Event? Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, has been kind enough to send us a photo of a previous year’s event:

Apologize for the crappy quality of the photo. Mr. T is a reference to Takayama–who was rumored to have died at the end of last year (last year referring to the end of 2008/start of 2009).
I put a comic book filter on it to obscure the source of the photo. Well, you do have the white sweatsuits, which is charming.

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

Rock climbing inside your own house

The owner of this not-very-big house in Japan have turned one of their walls into a rock climbing course:

The guy’s wife is not very pleased with the existence of the climbing course, especially since one cannot even take a bath outside of the view of whoever is climbing on it…

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

German arm wrestler ownz Japanese celebrities

German arm wrestling champion Matthias Schlitte shows up on a Japanese TV show and uses his gigantic right arm to destroy everybody:

If memory serves me right, the show said that the arm in question is so huge because of a genetic mutation. However, at least one blog is making the hard-to-believe claim that his large arm is purely the result of a lopsided training routine.

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

Dr. Death is dead

American pro wrestler and All Japan Pro Wrestling veteran Steve “Dr. Death” Williams has passed away:

Most readers will probably be most familiar with Williams for his brief tenure in the WWE, where he competed in their ill-fated 1998 Brawl for All tournament. A shoot-boxing event, Williams was expected to win and was slated for a major push off the back of it. However, he was injured, and lost to Bart Gunn and was never afforded much opportunity upon his return.

Williams also appeared in WCW, primarily as a tag team competitor, but is best remembered for his work in Japan. There, he was one of the most successful Gaijin of all time, holding his own at the top of the card in All Japan during their glorious period in the Nineties where the company was artistically, untouchable.

Williams produced bonafide classics against the likes of Kenta Kobashi and Mitshuharu Misawa, and was a regular partner of Johnny Ace. He also was honoured in 1994 with a Triple Crown reign.

Williams continued to wrestle into this year, finally retiring in October, appropriately enough, working a match in Japan.

Check out The Wrestling Daily for a good tribute post and some YouTube links of Dr. Death battling Japanese pro wrestlers.

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

2010: The year of the Tiger

Happy New Year, everybody! Here’s a video clip from Reuters showing a ceremony in Osaka that formally handed over control of this year to its Chinese zodiac animal:

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Flashback: Here’s the handover ceremony from the previous year, in which a mouse handed over its reign to an ox (cow).

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