Adult Video Ads Uploaded to Japanese Politician’s YouTube Account
Somebody hacked the YouTube account of LDP lawmaker Shoji Nishida and put up ads for Russian camgirls:
The video has already been taken down, but caused much consternation when it was discovered early in the morning on Jan. 30.
According to Nishida’s representatives, it is believed that someone hacked into Nishida’s YouTube account — which the Diet member uses to post videos related to his political activities on his website — and posted the obscene material.
Screencaps and backup videos are available via 2channel aggregate blogs (maybe NSFW – although women appear to be fully-clothed).
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Categories: Odd / Strange, Politics
Prime Minister Noda Removes Eye Patch
The cover-up has come to an end! Prime Minister Noda has removed his eye patch:
He’d been wearing the patch for the last two weeks:
Complete with patch – more surgical than piratical — the premier later explained to reporters that the self-inflicted blow came in the dark as he rushed to try to pick up an unexpected call.
“The phone suddenly rang in the middle of the night,” the prime minister explained, “so I got up and rushed to get it, and then bumped into a pillar.”
Now he’s just wearing makeup to hide the bruises.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Backpacks Donated on Friday the 13th by “Jason”
Serial killer Jason is on the loose again, only now he’s donating school supplies to orphans.
In early 2011 Japan was treated to the heartwarming story of “Tiger Mask”, an masked hero who donated dozens of randoseru backpacks to orphanages across the country. Randoseru are tough, super-expensive backpacks that all elementary school students are expected to own. The anonymous donations, apparently mostly from old men and women, were unusual in a country where people usually like to take credit for their good works and sparked conversations at water coolers across the country.
One year later, it’s randoseru season again, and anonymous philanthropists have returned… with a weird twist. At 4pm on Friday the 13th, two men in their 40s walked into a police station in Yokohama and asked for assistance with donating 10 randoseru (roughly 200,000yen, or $2600) to orphan kindergarteners. When the police asked for a name, the men responded that they’d rather be anonymous, and perhaps thinking of the slasher film series “Friday the 13th,” one of the men shyly replied, “Say they came from Jason.”
The police department said that they were very grateful to receive the gift and that the backpacks would be distributed to social welfare groups in the area. No word on whether the children will be informed of their donors’ questionable choice of pseudonym.
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Contributor Bio: Avery teaches English somewhere near Takeo. When he is not translating things, he is probably visiting haikyo or researching weird footnotes in Japanese history. He can be reached on Twitter at @ahm.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Gourmet Seafood in Mysterious Unattended Roadside Box
Throughout rural Japan, trusting farmers leave their fruits and vegetables at unattended stands by the side of the road for hungry passers-by. If you take anything at these stalls, you’re meant to just drop a coin into a box as payment.
What’s a bit more unusual is the unattended stand shown in this video:
The stand in Mie prefecture offers lobster (which fetches up to 5000 yen a head in Japan) and conch, or sazae (about 2000 yen each) for anyone who happens to drive around this bend to stop off and take. What’s more, the anonymous vendor asks for only 500 yen from the locals. On most days, the stand is totally sold out by the end of the day, but it is always replenished.
Soon enough, the vendor walks by to replenish his stand. It seems that he runs an Internet service selling lobster and sazae, and these are the extras he can’t sell. The man with a red jacket and green-rimmed bifocals (an ordinary guy who e-mailed Japanese television about his find) is overcome with gratitude to see such a selfless person and asks to shake his hand. “You’re really a very good person.”
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Contributor Bio: Avery teaches English somewhere near Takeo. When he is not translating things, he is probably visiting haikyo or researching weird footnotes in Japanese history. He can be reached on Twitter at @ahm.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Famous Kyoto Statue Vandalized
Kyoto’s famous statue of Takayama Hikokuro (1747-93) has been vandalized:
At around 5:50 p.m. on Jan. 20, a woman spotted a man standing on the plinth of the bronze statue of Takayama Hikokuro in Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto, and pouring white paint on it. The man fled the scene by bicycle. The woman alerted officers at a nearby police box.
Police are searching for the man, who is believed to be around 30 years old, on suspicion of damaging property.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Yu Darvish Arrives in America Wearing Marijuana Leaf Shirt
A couple days ago, pitcher Yu Darvish signed a $60 million deal with the Texas Rangers. When he arrived in in Texas, he was wearing a very strange shirt:
Darvish arrived about three hours earlier at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where he was greeted by a large group of media cameras and a handful of Rangers fans.
There was a bit of a stir created by the photos of the arrival, when Darvish wore a T-shirt with the phrase “I Will Survive” surrounding the image of a Japanese Maple Leaf, which looks similar to a marijuana leaf.
“In Japan, anything that’s like a T-shirt with English words on it,” he said. “We just tend to wear it, we don’t really actually know what it means.”
It’s true, shirts like that are sold all over Japan. And most people don’t really see them as a bad thing. To them, it just looks neat.
Related video: With its usual wackiness, Taiwan’s NMA reports on Yu Darvish.
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Categories: Celebrity News, Odd / Strange