Japanese media recently reported the controversial story of a 35-year-old Japanese man who allegedly has four wives and three small children but hasn’t worked in over a decade.

35-year-old Ryuta Watanabe of Sapporo, on Japan’s Hokkaido Island, has become an overnight sensation in his home country due to an unconventional lifestyle. Watanabe reportedly lives with three of his four wives – who get along great with each other – and relies on them for most of the family’s financial needs, as he hasn’t had a job in the last 10 years. The polygamous family’s daily life was recently featured on Japan’s AbemaTV news program Abema Prime and sparked quite a heated debate in Japan, a country where polygamy is officially banned. To bypass Japan’s polygamy law, Ryuta’s four wives are currently in what is known as a ‘common-law relationship’ with him, but they plan to register their marriages and then divorce him, one at a time, so they can take the surname ‘Watanabe’ and pass it on to their children.

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The Chained Tree of Peshawar, in Pakistan, has been under arrest since 1899, when a British officer decided to teach it a lesson for moving away from him. It has remained chained ever since.

125 years ago, a drunk British officer by the name of James Squid performed one of the most bizarre arrests in history in Landi Kotal, a town near the Torkhan border. Convinced that the tree was trying to get away from him as he struggled to approach it, Squid ordered it chained to the ground and placed under arrest. The chains have remained in place ever since, and a plaque tells the story of the arrest for curious tourists.

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Emily Pellegrini has only been on Instagram for four months, but she already has nearly 150,000 fans showering her with compliments and date invitations. Only she’s not a real person…

AI-generated social media influencers are on a tear these days. A couple of months ago, we featured Aitana Lopez, aka Fit Aitana, a Spanish model who had amassed a following of around 110,000 people on Instagram in four months despite only existing in the digital world. She was the creation of a communication agency, but she looked just like a real person. It turns out that she was only one of many hyperrealistic digital avatars taking social media by storm and making their creators fortunes in advertising, sponsorships and paid personalized content. Emily Pellegrini, a digital model based on the guidelines of ChatGPT, has been getting a lot of attention in the media recently, sparking controversy in the process.

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Every year, Japanese pesticide company Earth Corporation holds a ‘transcendence ceremony’ at the Myodoji Temple in Ako City to honor insects that sacrificed their lives for research purposes.

Earth Corporation prides itself on being the ‘no. 1 preferred household insecticide company in Japan’, a status it has achieved over decades of research and trial & error. In order to test the efficacy of its products, the company uses them on various species of insects at a proprietary research facility in Ako City, and some of those bugs inevitably die in the process. The company breeds the bugs it uses for testing, but that doesn’t make their sacrifice meaningless, and to show that it doesn’t take the tiny creatures for granted, Earth Corporation holds an honorary ceremony at the Myodoji Temple in Ako City.

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The Swan Car is regarded as one of the craziest, most eccentric vehicles ever to hit the streets and one look at it is enough to explain why.

The Swan Car was commissioned in the early 1900s by Robert Nicholl ‘Scotty’ Matthewson, a wealthy British engineer living in Calcutta. It’s never been clear why he was so obsessed with swans – maybe because he lived in Swan Park, next to Calcutta Zoo, which was home to many beautiful swans – but he loved the birds enough to travel to England in 1909 and placed a very special with JW Brooks and Company of Lowestoft, Suffolk – a swan-shaped car. The following year, the unique vehicle arrived in Calcutta and immediately became the talk of the town. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, or would ever see again for that matter, and came with some intriguing features.

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Chinese media reports that a growing number of pet owners are putting their animals through painful cosmetic procedures in order to give them rounded ears inspired by Mickey Mouse.

Most cats and dogs have naturally pointy or droopy ears, but a new disturbing trend sweeping through China these days has pet owners ignoring common sense and their animals’ physical and mental well-being for the promise of stylish ‘Mickey Ears’. Apparently, some shady pet clinics will slice part of the animal’s ears off to achieve the Mickey Mouse look, but there are also a variety of special clamps available online for pet owners disturbed enough to perform the procedure themselves. Recent coverage of this bizarre trend sparked controversy online, with most of the general public urging authorities to ban the ‘Mickey Ears’ procedure and punish those who would torture defenseless animals purely for cosmetic purposes.

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A Minnesota woman is suing her dentist for allegedly putting her through hell for over five hours by conducting 32 different procedures in a single, agonizing session.

Having to endure one root canal is traumatizing enough, but imagine having to sit through four root canal procedures, eight dental crowns, and no less than 20 fillings in a single session. It sounds like a nightmare and Kathleen Wilson, a Minnesota woman with severe dental problems, can attest that it truly was. In a span of just over 5 hours, her dentist, Dr. Kevin Molldrem, allegedly used about double the recommended dose of anesthetic, in an attempt to fix all her teeth in a single session. His efforts allegedly left the woman disfigured and distressed, and she is now asking for at least $50,000 in damages.

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Park Yong Jae is an incredibly talented artist from South-Korean who specializes in molding and sculpting hyperrealistic figurines of iconic Hollywood actors and K-pop stars.

Not much is known about Park Yong Jae’s work, but he does have hundreds of thousands of followers across several social networks, and for good reason, his hyperrealistic figurines are simply out of this world! The young artist starts by sculpting the heads of his creations, using special tools to recreate every detail, down to individual hair strands. He then attaches them to bodies with movable joints and even uses miniature clothing to really nail their iconic look. The end result is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

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Mori Ouchi, a cozy cafe in Tokyo’s laidback Shimokitazawa district, is famous for only catering to pessimists and people with a generally negative mindset.

Negative people tend to get a bad rep and are constantly told to be more positive, but, if you think about it, is there really anything wrong with being negative? The founder of Mori Ouchi, a small cafe in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo, certainly doesn’t think so. A self-described gloomy person, he got the idea for like-minded people over a decade ago but only decided to open it three years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The man had always felt like negative people were more sensitive and more easily hurt than others, so he created a space dedicated exclusively to them.

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‘Star Wash’, a small, family-owned car wash on the outskirts of Santiago de Chile, is being sued by LucasFilm, the company that owns the Star Wars brand, for allegedly plagiarizing its property.

Matias Jara, the owner of Star Wash, was in the process of registering his brand with the Chilean patent authority when he received a lawsuit from LucasFilm. The Disney-owned company reportedly wanted to stop the registration of the Star Wash name, arguing that the brand could be confused as being affiliated with Star Wars. However, Mr Jara is contesting the suit and claims that the name is different enough not to be confused with the LucasFilm property, adding that they are not selling movies of branded products. Apparently, the Star Wars copyright does not cover car cleaning services.

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Tokyo restaurant Sushiya no Nohachi reportedly serves great sushi, but it is most famous for its gimmick – making the world’s smallest sushi with a single grain of rice.

Located in Asakusa, a slightly quieter part of Tokyo, Sushiya no Nohachi is the place to go if you want to enjoy the tiniest, most adorable sushi in the world. Each piece is made with only a grain of rice and a tiny slice of topping wrapped in the thinnest piece of nori. Every served piece is actually perfect, which hints at the amount of work and patience that goes into making them. They are the work of Hironori Ikeno, the chef of Sushiya no Nohachi, who came up with the idea in 2002 when a client asked him how small he could make his sushi. He answered, “as small as a grain of rice”, and proceeded to demonstrate that he wasn’t kidding. Over the years, the eatery became internationally famous for making the world’s smallest sushi.

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Serge Feeleenger is a self-taught Belarussian artist who gained notoriety in the art world for allegedly inventing the ‘ten brushes’ painting technique, where he attaches a brush to each of his fingers and uses them simultaneously.

Guiding a single paintbrush on a canvas to produce a somewhat decent work of art is virtually impossible for most people, but can you imagine painting with ten brushes at the same time? Sounds pretty messy, but there is one man who has been perfecting this unique technique for over a decade. Serge Feeleenger apparently got the idea for painting with multiple paintbrushes at the same time after becoming annoyed with having to regularly change brushes during the artistic process. First, he found a way to attach three brushes to the fingers on his right hand, and after getting used to them, he added two more brushes to his left hand. Before long, he had a brush attached to every finger on both his hands.

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The Amber Yantar, a new electric vehicle prototype from Russia, has been dubbed the world’s ugliest car because of its bizarre, unattractive design.

Car prototypes usually have eye-catching designs that capture viewers’ imagination. Even if the vehicle that reaches the production line turns out to be very different, or if it never actually goes into production, prototypes are an exciting way of showcasing a car brand’s vision of the near future. But that isn’t always the case. Take, for example, the new Amber Yantar, an EV prototype designed by Avtotor, a Russian carmaker based in Kaliningrad, in collaboration with the Moscow Polytechnic Institute. It was revealed to the public less than a week ago, but it has already become the laughing stock of the entire internet, with photos of its unflattering exterior doing the rounds on social media.

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Biohazard Coffee is recognized as the strongest coffee in the world. It has a caffeine content of 928mg per 12-ounce cup, which is more than double the daily recommended dose of caffeine and a lot more than most energy drinks.

The title of ‘world’s strongest coffee’ has been attributed to various brands over the last decade. In 2013, we wrote about Death Wish, a blend that promised 200% the caffeine content of the average dark roast, and then there was Black Insomnia Coffee, a brand that boasted a caffeine content of 702 mg per 12-ounce cup. But now we have another title holder, and this one is going to be tough to beat. Launched in 2016, Biohazard Coffee has established itself as the strongest coffee money can buy, with a caffeine content that makes it barely safe to consume.

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A group of South Korean students recently sued the Government for millions of dollars in damages because their teachers ended a life-changing exam 90 seconds earlier than they should have.

The Suneung, South Korea’s college admission exam, is notoriously long and difficult, and its implications are literally life-changing. Not only do the results of the Suneung determine students’ college placements, but also their career options and relationships, so it’s no wonder that everyone, from the students and their families to the South Korean government takes the Suneung very seriously. During the 8-hour exam, South Korea closes its air space and delays the opening of the stock market to help students concentrate. So when a teacher recently ended the exam 90 seconds early, it was a very big deal with serious legal consequences.

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