Japanese field voles can seriously impact the profits of apple orchard owners, if left unchecked. For centuries, many farmers have relied on owls to keep vole numbers to manageable levels, and research has shown the night predators to be incredibly efficient.

Ural owls have been setting up their nests in orchards with high rodent populations for a very long time, but Japanese apple growers were the first to notice the beneficial effect the winged predators had on their orchards and actively try to use them as a means of natural pest controls. Apart from allowing the owls to set up nests in tree hollows, they also started installing man-made tree houses to encourage owls from settling on their properties. They soon noticed that the owls brought the vole population down significantly, which meant healthier trees and bigger profits.

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Japanese self-taught artist Rito (@lito_leafart) spends hours painstakingly carving tree leaves to create stunningly detailed scenes that capture viewers’ imagination.

Rito’s leaf cutouts are impressive enough by themselves, but the story of what inspired the artist to take up leaf art in the first place makes them even more so. Apparently, the Japanese artist suffers from ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and spending hours focusing on a single artwork was his ways of treating his condition. He has been creating at least one of his leaf cutouts a day, as a form of therapy.

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Would you ever sell your face? If the answer is yes, there is a Japanese company that wants to hear from you. It’s in the business of buying the rights to people’s faces so it can sell them in the form of hyper-realistic 3D-printed masks.

Ever since Kamenya Omoto, a Tokyo-based specialty mask maker and store, announced its intention to buy the rights to people’s faces for 40,000 yen ($380) a pop, it’s been overwhelmed with offers. The company wants to reproduce people’s faces in the form of hyper-realistic masks and sell them for an estimated ($940). If a mask proves popular with clients, the person whose appearance inspired it stands to earn a percentage of the profits as well. The controversial project, named “That Face”, reportedly aims to give a sci-fi twist to the idea of buying and selling faces.

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35-year-old Rin Kambe has been dubbed the Japanese Rapunzel because of her nearly 6-feet-long mane, which she hasn’t cut in 15 years.

Rin, who hails from Tokyo, was never allowed to grow her hair as a child.  She was on the girl’s football team so had to keep it short, but when she became an adult, she decided to take control of her hair and use it as a “weapon of expression”. The last time she cut her hair was 15 years ago, and now her straight, black locks measure 5ft 10in, a good 4 inches more than Rin herself. Although her hair sometimes gets in the way when doing the simplest of tasks, like changing her clothes, the Japanese dancer and model said that she loves her long mane, adding that it encapsulates the “beauty of Asia”.

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We all love coupons and vouchers, but can you imagine living on them almost exclusively for almost four decades? A Japanese man claims to have been doing it for the last 36 years, adding that he hasn’t spent a yen of his own money during that time.

71-year-old Hiroto Kiritani is a minor celebrity in his home country of Japan. His ability to live comfortably on coupons without spending any money unless he really has to is legendary, and he has been invited on numerous television shows and events over the years. Kiritani says that he gets by without spending real money except for utilities and rent. But he’s not as frugal as you might think. He just manages to live comfortably on the coupons he receives from companies he invested in over the years.

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Makeup is an incredibly powerful tool in the right hands, and if you’re wondering just how powerful, this Japanese young man has been using it to cross the gender barrier and become a female cosplay idol.

Looking at the photos posted by @Makina_Jeanne, a popular cosplay enthusiast from Hokkaido, you could swear she was a young girl showcasing  her best assets in skimpy and tight outfits inspired by Japanese manga and anime, but in fact @Makina_Jeanne is a male who just happens to be fascinated by feminine cosplay. He uses makeup tricks, wigs and silicone breast prosthesis to make himself look like a girl, and most of the time, he does an amazing job.

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Hidefumi Yoshida, a self-described ‘tear teacher’, encourages people to shed a few tears every once in a while as a way to relieve stress and lead a happier life.

Japanese are among the least likely of all nationalities to cry, and some would go as far as to say that there is a stigma surrounding crying in the Asian country. But according to Hidefumi Yoshida, a man who has dedicated the last eight years of his life to bringing people to people’s eyes, Japanese people originally had a predisposition to cry easily, but that all changed to the point where children and adults alike are discouraged from crying and they end up becoming closed off. Yoshida has been trying to change this perception, by educating people on the benefits of crying as a way of relaxing and combating stress. He claims to have helped over 50,000 people shed tears over the last seven and a half years.

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Nikken Kamisori, a Japanese company with a long experience of making razors and blades, claims to have created the ultimate ear hair tweezers.

Ear hygiene is very important in Japanese culture, which explains the existence of ear cleaning parlors where ear cleaning masters wield specialized tools like the mimikaki to remove just the right amount of ear wax. Considering the long-standing tradition of ear cleaning in Japan, it comes as no surprise that a Japanese company managed to invent what it calls the world’s best ear hair tweezers. Featuring a metal spring at the end, which helps catch hairs more efficiently, the innovative device has become a huge hit among middle-aged Japanese men who care about their ear cleanliness.

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Mikishi, a 25-year-old girl from Japan, has been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media lately, because of her drastic plastic surgery transformation.

Ever since taking to Twitter to confess that her appearance is the result of several bouts of plastic surgery, back in March of this year, 25-year-old Mikishi has become somewhat of a poster-girl for early plastic surgery. She had her first cosmetic procedure, a facial reshaping, on the first day after graduating high-school, and she has since turned to plastic surgery several more times, spending about 4 million yen ($40,000) in the process. But she considers it money well spent, as plastic surgery changed her life, giving her back her self-esteem and helping her lead a happy life, instead of sinking into a depression. Today, Mikishi actually advocates for plastic surgery for people who really feel like they need it, and she has even founded a company that provides consultancy  services to such individuals.

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After struggling to stay open during the Covid-19 pandemic, a sushi restaurant in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, has found success with an ingenious “macho delivery” service that involves using buff bodybuilders as delivery boys.

Masanori Sugiura, a third-generation owner of the 60-year-old sushi restaurant Imazushi in the city of Anjo, started working out at the gym when he was in his 20s, but he never imagined that his hobby would one day help him keep his family business afloat. The trained chef had seen his profits plummet from the usual 100 million yen ($940,000) for the April-June quarter, to just 10 million yen, because of the coronavirus, and at one point had cut his staff from 50 to just four. But then he had a wacky idea to put his muscles to work as a way of attracting new business, and the “Delivery Macho” service was born.

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Akiko Obata has been fascinated by plastic food ever since she was a child, and 10 years ago she started collecting all sorts of plastic food items, amassing a collection of over 8,000 individual pieces.

“Sampuru”, the fake food displays used by most restaurants to showcase their dishes to potential diners, is an important part of Japanese food culture. They are considered superior to menus, as they give customers a much better idea of what they’ll be getting on their plates, and also help restaurant owners better showcase their dishes. Sampuru makers often go above and beyond to make their products as realistic as possible, and some do really look good enough to eat. Plastic foods are so popular in Japan that some people have actually started collecting them…

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Most people are apprehensive about using public restrooms as it is, so making them completely transparent would just boost their anxiety, right? Well, apparently, the exact opposite is true.

Japanese public toilets generally have a higher standard of hygiene that other public restrooms around the world. I distinctly remember posting about Benjyo Soujer, a Tokyo social club whose members gather every Sunday morning to voluntarily clean public toilets around Japan’s capital. But even in this country, some people dread the thought of having to walk into a dark, smelly, dirty and possibly unsafe facility to do their “business”. But what if you could see how clean or safe this facility was before walking in?

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Authorities in Tokorozawa, a Japanese city located north of Tokyo, recently unveiled a total of 27 high-tech manhole covers featuring LED displays inspired by popular anime.

In an ingenious attempt to improve the image of the local sewer system and also hopefully prevent nighttime crime on the main boulevard of Tokorozawa, the city’s Waterworks and Sewerage department recently installed a total of 27 new manhole covers illuminated by solar-powered LED lights and featuring anime-inspired designs. The new manholes were laid on August 1, 2020, and are the first manholes in Japan to feature LED lighting.

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Living in a huge airport isn’t easy, the sound of planes taking off and landing alone is deafening, but one for stubborn Japanese farmer it’s the only place worth living in.

Takao Shito’s family has been growing vegetable on the same farm for over 100 years. His grandfather was a farmer, his father as well, and now he has taken on the same mantle, only things are a bit different for him than they were for his ancestors. Where before the Shito farm was part of a village of around 30 families surrounded by open fields, today it stands alone in the middle of Narita Airport, Japan’s second largest airport. Jets fly over his head 24 hours a day, and his only way to and from the farm is through underground tunnels. Most people would be dying to move away, but not Takao Shito. He has been fighting to keep his farm for over two decades and even refused an offer of over $1.7 million for his land.

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Police in the Japanese province of Okinawa have been struggling with a phenomenon called rojo-ne, which translates literally as “sleeping on the road”.

Imagine driving home late at night and seeing someone laying in the middle of the road. Or worse yet, not seeing that someone in time to actually slam the brakes. Such nightmare scenarios occur quite frequently in Okinawa, with provincial police reporting over 7,000 cases recorded in 2019 alone. Some of those unfortunately resulted in the loss of human lives, and authorities are desperate to put an end to rojo-ne, a phenomenon that has been on the rise in Okinawa for years. Sadly, despite taking several measures against offenders, police have seen no improvements. In fact, things have been getting worse.

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