Nicholas Cage - Japander Hoe-Down

Check out this video of Nick Cage 'selling out' in full Japander glory. He's doing a wacky hoe-down dance with some silvery alien types to promote Snakyo Pachinko.

Link (via Japander)

Speaking of PETs..

We ran into an interesting Japanese phenomena recently. Apparently many people in Japan believe that PET (polyethylene terephthalate - plastic) bottles filled with water keep away cats.

From what we've seen it is not uncommon for cars, gardens and homes to be surrounded by said bottles.

There also seems to be some concern that these water filled bottles may in fact 'magnify the suns rays' and cause houses to catch fire. Wow.

Japan Times Article
Flickr Image
Coverage at News on Japan

Silly Japanese Pets

Here's a fun roundup of silly pet tricks from a Japanese TV show. The dog and cat tricks are great but the voice-overs and sound effects really drive home the mad-cap nature of the show.

Enjoy!

Link

More Happiness and Serenity

It's been a bit since I last posted but I needed to share an odd sighting of the "Head Tired Sexy Knee Pillow" we linked to a while back. Apparently, these comfy companions are popular eough for people to post pictures of themselves with them. Amazing.

Check out more at the link here.

Walkie Bits Redux

Walkie Bits our favorite rhythmically excitable little droids from Japan are now available in the USA for the first time via EBAY for $10-$25.

For those of you who missed our previous coverage Walkie-Bits are programmable mini-robots that can recall patterns of up to 15 digits tapped on their shells and translate them into movements or songs.

More info on Walkie Bits at Time.com.

Flower Can

While not quite the same as picking up some roses on the way home from work the Magic Bean Word Sprout might still score you some points with your significant other.

Also offered: sunflower, mimosa, marigold and more.

unfortunately, custom printing is only available on orders of 5,000 or more units.

Link

Storm Trooper tours Akihabara

Akihabara News bring us a Storm Trooper led tour of the world famous Tokyo shopping district: Akihabara. Some great pics at the link.

Link

Halloween Japan - O-Bon

generally speaking Japan does not celebrate western Halloween. The closest equivalent is O-bon where the spirits of the dead are invited back home to spend time with their families. O-bon celebrations typically consists of the spirits of the dead being greeted with strange dances and rites.

Of course exptas can still visit Disney Tokyo and there are tales of drunk costumed westerners parading through the streets of Tokyo.

O-bon is typically celebrated from August 13-15.

Link

Japander

Japander:n.,& v.t. 1. a western star who uses his or her fame to make large sums of money in a short time by advertising products in Japan that they would probably never use. ~er (see synecure, prostitute) 2. to make an ass of oneself in Japanese media.

Check out vid's of everyone from Brad Pitt, The Muppets to Stevie Wonder doing asinine things to sell products in Japan.

Link

Chindogu strikes back..

The childern of Chindogu (the art of gee-whiz semi-useful quirky inventions) bring us this gem.

With easy to attach leg straps the Walk and Wash will clean small and medium sized clothing and help you save on your ever escalating power bill.

Think of all the calories you'll be burning and the positive environmental impact of your daily Walk and Wash.


Link

Crazy Happy Lunch!

JustinSpace recently posted a collection of Japanese kids lunches accompanied with very amusing haiku.

Little bird made of rice. Fresh eggs in her lettuce nest infested with shrimp.
Justin does an excellent job and would surely have posted more than the dozen or so pages at the link had his luggage not been stolen!

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

Link

Honda Dog returns!

At the Tokyo Auto Show this week our palls over at Honda announced their expanded Honda Dog concept called WOW (Wonderful Open-Hearted Wagon). A new small sedan was demonstrated that includes a handy compartment for mans best fried as well as dog bone shaped door handles and more. While the particular pooch shown here doesn’t look all that excited I’m sure there are many a K9 who will enjoy their new dog-house-car. Let’s hope this makes it out of the prototype phase.

See our previous Honda Dog coverage here.

Link

Doremon Returns

Hot on the heels of the recently released Doremon helicopter Bandi brings us the indispensable Doremon robot. With the ability to understand over 750 words, the ability to respond to pain ("hey, that hurts") and make random utterances ... "if you're going to stroke me I wouldn't mind a bean-jam pancake as well" this cute cat has a leg up on your average coworker.

Now available in a limited release of 5000 units for approximately $187 from Rakuten.

Not dead yet..

No not quite dead but I felt close for a while.

I apologize for being out of touch and not keeping JMAD updated recently. I moved to a new position at work last month and it's been sucking up most of my free time. I think I'm finally in the groove with the new job and should be posting a bit more regularly in the future.

Thanks for your support and continued patronage.

- Eric

Beware the Nattou

Yongfook.com has an amusing and enlightening review of a Japanese treat known as Nattou. This fermented soybean dish is apparently quite ghastly...

Unfortunately, much in the same way a poisonous frog or caterpillar will be brightly coloured to warn predators not to accidentally eat them and suffer a long agonising death, nature provides similar health warnings for food that isn't fit for human consumption, and in nattou case the subtle clue by which humankind should be able to decipher that we are never ever to put this in our mouths is that it smells - overwhelmingly - of S**T.

Even after this description I was still open to giving Nattou a try until I got to the part about the "decaying tentacles of bean plasma".

Check out the article here.

When there's smoke....

... There's the Hello Kitty fire extinguisher!

The good people at Sanrio Japan may be just a little out of touch with the demographics of their target market for this to have slipped out the door. They've unleashed a fully functional Hello Kitty fire extinguisher. Not just cute this baby will douse the stubbornness of flames in no time flat.

I guess the real question is how Batz-Maru feels about all of this.

Want it REALLY clean?

When you need your clothes more than clean turn to the new Samsung
Silver washing machine. Promising a 99.xx % reduction in bacteria and other nasty beasties you can count on the Silver to keep you both alergen free while keeping your obsessive compulsive cleaning tenedencies in check.

Pricing not yet announced.

Link

Mecha-Madness:The Land Walker

Yes, it's real.

When you need a 3.1M tall industrial robot to do some heavy lifting or um.. 'crowd control' turn to the Sakakibara-Kika corporation of Japan. Their new product "The Land Walker" brings the hopes and dreams of many a mecha fan to life for the low, low cost of $345,000 USD. While the 250 CC engine seems a little underpowered for serious action I'm sure the modding community will have a ball.

Follow the link for action packed (well, sort of ) movies of The Land Walker.

Link

Wild Japan

The New York Times has an interesting story on vacations to 'wild Japan'. That's right - sparsely populated swamps, jungles and mountains awaiting your visit.

Link

Video Bulb

Need an 8 bit x 8 bit dancing stick figure to dance on your TV screen? Then the BITMAN-Video Bulb by "Mwiwa Denki (Japanese artist/preformer) is here to satisfy.

Just plug the bulbs RCA plug into your TV and groove along with the little dancing figure.

As one comentator put it "the practical possibilities are limitless!"

Availible in NYC or online at Zakka Shop and Space

Domu-Kun-Madness

While Domu-Kun seems to have faded from the spotlight recently there is still a massive plethora of Domu-Kun related kitch availible online. Some of our favorites include Emporor-Kun (pictured here), Samuri Domu-Kun, and the Yubnimal Collection.

Get your fix over at JBOX

Toast Roundup

Our buddy Jen over at Nipper Knits posted a great blog entry recently on the wonders of toast that inspired us to collect a few cool links to toast related Japanisms.

- Greggman discusses the Japanese toast alternative Ongiri (riceballs). Tasty flavors include Chikin Raisu (chicken), Yaki Onigri (plain), Ebi Chiri Chaahan (shrimp in chili sauce), Ume Chirimen (bitter plum crepe) and many others.

- Dan in Japan has a great piece on why it's so hard to cook anything much larger than toast(er oven) size dishes in tiny Japanese kitchens (scroll 2/3 down the page).

- Toaster.org examines the ubiquitous Hello Kitty toaster phenomena.

- I4UNews exposes the newest in toaster tech: the $10,000 Neural KK infrared cooking, bread slicing "Oh Super Toaster".

We'd buy Jen an Oh Super Toaster for her move to NYC if we had the Yen!

Enjoy.

Small scale sushi

I realize all the 'big' gadget site already hit this one but since we recently blogged on a high capacity sushi robot we had to mention the newest entrant into the semi-automated sushi market.. The sushi@home line of sushi making machines are now available to satisfy your Nigiri and Maki cravings.

Each machine retails for approximately $90... That's about 200 times more than your average sushi mat.

Link

McDonald's Nori fries and KFC Grilled Riceballs

We recently read an excellent article detailing how American exported Japanese fast food has changed over the last 30 years.

Some of the highlights include:

- McDonald's has never offered ketchup in Japan and instead serves them with your choice of toppings including nori (seaweed), curry, barbecue and Mexican sauces.

- Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) offers 'yaki musubi' .. Grilled riceballs instead of biscuits and is one the leading seller of tira misu (Italian desert).

There is also some interesting discussion of the secular nature of Christmas in Japan and the role of KFC in it's celebration. Definitely worth a read.

Link

Hurray!...Sex

When you need to let the world know you got lucky.. Gaigen Geisha offers the "Hurray!...Sex" bracelet. For the price of only $7 you can afford to buy in bulk and really show off what happend last night!

Link

Insane Flying Cat

While his heyday was in the early 80's the Insane Flying Cat (aka Doreamon) is a combination of Felix the Cat and Inspector Gadget who has been reborn as an exciting remote control helicopter.

Here's a Google translation from the site :

Recently slightly arranged suddenly finds one report, the machine cat's bamboo dragonfly finally may fly. But in this bamboo dragonfly and the book writes not greatly same, it has two 螺旋桨, needs the battery takes the power, moreover may control remotely.

Man, I want a bamboo dragonfly!

Ramen in Space

As if 65 billion served on earth wasn't enough NASA saw fit to turn to the Nissin Foods for a fresh (well, sort of) serving of Ramen noodles on the recent shuttle flight for Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.

No word so far on Noguchi's impression of the Space Ram meal but I hope NASA was able to get at least 4 servings for $1.

Arcade Madness - The Dogstation

When you NEED to know who's love dog types faster just visit your neighborhood Japanese arcade!

No need for silly inventions like the internet or PS2. Japanese arcades seem to have it all.. huge multi-story enclaves with lot's of crane games, multiplayer dance, drum and action titles waiting for your hard earned Yen becon.

Besides the Dogstation (pictured here) the folks at Cardhouse have put together a feature including a robust complement of titles to bring out the twitch in anyone.

Enjoy!

Butter Stick - Father Milk

Chindogu is the Japanese custom of creating silly, marginally practical inventions. This site has some shining examples including the Butter stick, Father milking system for infants (a must see), toilet paper headgear and more.

Old School Pencil Carving

Q - What did the Japanese do before texting obsessively?

For at least two gentlemen the answer was elaborate pencil carving. There are some pretty incredible designs that I'm amazed humans produced. Their names sound like thrill rides from a wonky theme park.. 'Chains', 'Helix', 'Triangles' and the dreaded 'Six Fold Spiral'.

I considered giving this a try but realized that I don't think we have a single pencil in the house and that my current experience in carving pencils involves teeth marks.

The link features some competition winners from the late 80's and early 90's.

The string will not pass!

Our friends over at Nippon Style are now offering a unique "neodymium magnet bracelet" held together with the power of magnetism.

Their secret is the neodymium alloy who's 'electromagnetic' properties are strong enough to hold the bracelet together during normal use.

In Gandolf like fashion Nippon Style thunders "The string will not pass!".

Cost is about $240.

Link

Sushi Making Robot

Wow.. automated Sushi production. If I wasn't totally intimidated by the size of this machine I would probably consider taking the amazing MCR-3000 from TOMOE for a spin. Here are just a few features..

-This machine is the most high speed in the world．
-The producing capacity of this machine is 50pcs/minute ... 3,000pcs/hour
-The exchange of the amount of Wasabi became possible by the easy operation．
- It is excellent in the durability and there won't be a trouble．

Unfortunately you'll have to contact them for pricing. Make sure you're hungry!

Link

Strawberry milk sausage

When fish-meat sausage sales dropped recently Nissui corp. Decided that their market research dictated entering the lucrative 'Strawberry milk sausage' niche.

"Customers will be able to buy the strawberry milk sausages in packs of five, and they will go for a retail price of 148 yen, about the same as regular fish-meat sausages."

I just can't wait to try these (yuck!).

Link

Alpha wave MP3 player

The Cure Alpha mp3 player transmits extremely low frequency alpha waves (the kind your brain produces during deep sleep) and claims to:

In sleeplessness cancellation
In improvement of Labor effectiveness
In improvement of study ability * memorizing ability
In concentration rise such as sport
In serenity of stress cancellation * heart

I sure could use some "stress cancellation" but what I really want to know is if this mean that I can train my brain to relax while listening to rockin' music? Alas, at ¥30,000 ($268 USD for 128 MB) I can't afford to know.

Link

Walkie Bits?

Just when you thought Sony and Honda had things all wrapped up in the neat robot space come the "Walkie Bits" line from Takarapy.

These little bots might be the smallest programmable robots available to consumer market.

A great bonus is that "You sing song and/or taking the rhythm, you walk, with several... also race is possible."

Link

Music Bird Cannon: Flower Speakers

What could be more delightful than the sight of a beautiful plant and the sound of FM radio? The Music Bird Cannon flower pot speaker system apparently utilizes plants as oscillation boards so that sound is emitted from their flowers, stems and leaves.

I think the larger questions are if these devices are iPod compatible and if our orchids prefer jazz or indie pop.

Check out the link for some neat images are further details.

Vader likes school girls...

... and cell phones.

Scared of ghosts?

Cost of Atari 2600 - $100
Game cartridge - $12
Hat (at age 35) - $46
Loss of all dignity... Priceless


I always thought Pac-Man looked more determined than crazy but at least this one is having a good time.


Link

Full-sized origami house

"The architecture of Origami House was purposely designed to reflect a childlike image of a house, the traditional rectangle and triangle, for a single main reason: Origami House should be easy to build."

Link

Snack or meal?

There's nothing I like more than coming home to a cold beer and some roasted bamboo worms. Yes, the web site is Thai but many of the Japanese blogs I follow are interested in these lovely treats.

Also available: roasted mole crickets, silk worm pupae, water bugs....

Link

Happiness and serenity

Just when you thought you couldn't get comfortable in bed comes the 'Head tired sexy knee pillow"!

"You gathering the knee because your own, the happiness which it waits is the expectation which offers one time of the serenity which does not understand in only the man."

I know this is what you've been waiting for..

Link

Google Poo

Just a silly observation here - I added Google Ads to the page a few weeks ago in a vain effort to earn some money to buy the nifty toys we find while 'researching' items for our blog. I've been keeping an eye on the results lately and I am bemused to see that based on the content of the site Google deems the most effective ads to be:

1 - Related to hazardous materials and their disposal.
2 - Dog poo cleanup items
3 - Composters

I really hope this isn't the typical impression our faithfull readers are getting of our site even if the worlds premier search engine seems to think we are all about poo. At least search results from Google related to waste don't seem to be brining people here with misguided expectations.

I'll try no to interpret this as a sign.

Your brand new (wooden) keyboard

I ran across this immaculate wooden keyboard produced by the Hacao company of Japan. Before you set your sights on one of these beautiful devices you should know that yes it is fully functional and that it sells for the heart wrenching price of 262,500 Yen ($2340 USD) plus shipping.

See the translated link here.