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.

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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.

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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.


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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.