In Japan, You Can Rent a Grandma for $23 an Hour
Ever wish you could talk to someone more experienced about your problems, or have them prepare you a delicious home-cooked meal? Well, that’s what Japan’s OK Grandma service is for! Client Services is a Japanese company that specializes in a wide variety of convenience services, from cleaning and housing services to childcare and pet-sitting services. […]
Avatar-Like Capsule Interface Allows Anyone to Control a Robot Remotely
Japanese tech company H2L has created a capsule-like device that allows anyone to remotely control a robotic avatar just like in James Cameron’s namesake blockbuster. Imagine sitting comfortably in one of those state-of-the-art massage chairs and being able to perform most of your daily house chores by remotely controlling a robotic avatar. it sounds like […]
Japanese Man Praised for Aging Backwards Thanks to Lifestyle Changes
A 33-year-old Japanese man has been raising eyebrows because of his radical change in appearance after making drastic lifestyle changes and turning to cosmetic enhancements. Aki, who goes by @Aki_fit on X (Twitter), was recently featured on a popular show by Japanese online television network ABEMA, where he spoke about the shocking physical transformation that […]
25-Year-Old Man Develops ‘Dropping Head Syndrome’ by Looking at His Phone Too Much
A 25-year-old Japanese man who spent most of his time looking down at his phone eventually became unable to raise his own head and was diagnosed with ‘dropping head syndrome’. The rare case report published a couple of years ago in the medical journal JOS Case Reports detailed the disturbing consequences of holding one’s head […]
Japanese Airport Hasn’t Lost a Single Piece of Baggage in the Last 30 Years
Kansai International Airport welcomes tens of millions of passengers every year, but it has developed a system that ensures none of their baggage ever goes missing. Losing a piece of baggage is always a risk at airports. For example, in the US, data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that domestic flights lose about […]
Bus Driver with Three Decades of Service Loses $84,000 Pension for Stealing $7
A Japanese bus driver with 29 years of experience on the job lost his $84,000 retirement package after being caught stealing $7 in passenger bus fares. In 2022, while checking dashcam footage, members of the Kyoto Municipal Transportation Bureau spotted one of the Japanese city’s bus drivers pocketing a 1,000-yen bill, instead of putting it […]
Man Buys Dream Ferrari After Saving Up for 10 Years, It Burns Down in an Hour
After saving up for 10 years to buy his dream car, a brand new Ferrari 458 Spider, a Japanese man had to sit by and watch it burn within an hour of driving it for the first time. Japanese social media has been abuzz with the sad story of Honkon, a young music producer who […]
The Sad Story of Happy – How a Weird Name Ruined a Man’s Life
A Japanese man named “Happy” has been struggling with his unusual name for as long as he can remember, claiming that it had attracted bullying as a kid and ridicule as an adult. When Terauchi Happy’s mother chose his unconventional name, she had no idea the kind of problems it would pose for him throughout […]
Aether Clock OC 020 – The World’s Most Accurate Clock
Created by Japanese manufacturer Shimadzu Corp, the Aether Clock OC 020 is a strontium optical lattice clock advertised as the most accurate clock in the world and sold for over $3 million. The world’s most accurate clock looks less like you’d imagine and more like a small refrigerator. Its rectangular case is around three feet […]
World’s Smallest Park Measures Only 0.24 Square Meters
A tiny park roughly the size of a newspaper in the Japanese town of Nagaizumi currently holds the Guinness Record for ‘world’s smallest park’. A decade ago, we wrote about Mill Ends Park, the former world’s smallest park. At just two meters in diameter, it only had room for one tree and a few tiny […]
32-Year-Old Man Marries Ex-Classmate’s 53-Year-Old Mother
Isamu Tomioka met his wife, Midori, when he was still in school. She was the mother of one of his classmates and 21 years his senior, but he didn’t let that stop him from marrying her. Isamu and Midori’s unusual love story went viral in Japan after the Shizuoka couple spoke about their relationship on […]
The Airplane-Nose Cargo Ships That Revolutionized Ship Design
Japanese coastal containership operator Imoto Lines operates a number of feeder vessels with a unique look inspired by the nose of large passenger airplanes. In 2015, the Kyokuyo shipyard in Yamaguchi, Japan, completed the first SSS-feeder (Semi-Spherically Shaped-feeder) commissioned by Imoto Lines. It was one of the largest feeder vessels ever built in Japan, but what […]
Japanese Company Offers Free Drinks and Hagover Leave to Attract New Talent
Unable to offer attractive wages, a Japanese tech company has been trying to attract new talent by offering ingenious benefits such as free alcoholic drinks at work and hangover leaves. Since the burst of the Japanese economic bubble in the early 1990s, the Japanese economy has been stagnating along with employee salaries. Even though some […]
The World’s Smallest Escalator Is a Useless Oddity
Located in the basement of a department store in Kawasaki, Japan, the world’s smallest escalator only has five steps and measures 83.4 centimeters (32.8 inches). The escalator is one of humanity’s most useful inventions, allowing people to effortlessly travel between floors in places where elevators would be impractical, but the world’s smallest escalator is actually […]
Middle-Aged Man Makes a Living Praising Strangers on the Street
A middle-aged Japanese man known as ‘Uncle Praise’ has been making a living by standing on the street and showering strangers with praises for a small fee. Uncle Praise first made news headlines in Japan in September of last year when Fuji TV released a short documentary on his unique “profession”. The 43-year-old man reportedly […]