Japanese Candy Artisan Creates Realistic Animal-Shaped Lollipops
Meet Shinri Tezuka, a highly skilled artisan candy maker whose masterpieces make animal crackers look crude. Using a 500-year-old Japanese art-form called ‘amezaiku’, Tezuka creates detailed animal-shaped lollipops that look incredibly lifelike. Tezuka, 26, owns a small shop in Tokyo’s Asakusa district called ‘Ameshin’ – one of Japan’s only two stores specializing in amezaiku. The self-taught artist works […]
Japanese Hotel Is Offering Special “Crying Rooms” to Women Looking to Relieve Stress
Entrepreneurs in Japan really do manage to come up with the most eccentric ideas for their customers, right from cat cafés to Godzilla hotels. Continuing the tradition is the Mitsui Garden Yotsuya hotel in Shinjuku, with specially allocated ‘crying rooms’ for female guests! The hotel offers women looking to release tension or overcome emotional issues special accommodations designed […]
Tokyo Hotel Hopes to Attract Business with Godzilla-Themed Rooms
In movies, the mere sight of Godzilla has people running for the hills, but a new Godzilla-themed hotel in Shinjuku, Japan, is hoping the iconic monster will actually draw in new business. Set at the very top of the Toho Cinema, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward, Hotel Gracery not only features Godzilla-themed rooms but also a […]
Japanese Collagen-Infused Beer Claims to Make You Prettier
In a bid to cash in on the latest beauty trend of consuming collagen, Japanese company ‘Suntory Holdings Ltd’ has released a special brew of collagen-infused beer. The trend has Japanese women believing that eating copious amounts of collagen – the structural protein of connective tissues – will lead to beautiful, younger-looking skin. The seemingly […]
Japanese Real-Life Superhero Cracks Down on Drunk Driving
Meet Priest Shinjiro Kumagai – mild mannered environmental artist by day, and real-life superhero by night. Dressed up as Japanese sci-fi TV hero Kamen Rider 1, his mission is to rid Kitakyushu city of drunk drivers. Kumagai’s day job involves making statues out of old aluminium cans. When he’s done, he dons the grasshopper-inspired superhero […]
Japanese Beauty Cream Leaves Your Hands Smelling Like Cat Paws
Lots of people love cats, but how many would actually want to smell like one? Well, as it turns out, there’s a small army of cat-lovers out there who love the smell of cat paws. So much so that they’re willing to spend money on this Japanese hand cream that promises to lend them the […]
Man Keeps Giant Leech for a Pet, Lets It Feed on His Arm
A gut-wrenching video, showing a leech grow fat as it sucks blood from a man’s hand, has recently surfaced on the internet. Shockingly, the man claims that the bloodsucker is actually his pet, and that he willingly feeds it his own blood! The identity of the man is unknown, but the video is believed to […]
Finally! Japanese Company Creates Onion That Doesn’t Make You Cry
Thanks to Japanese company House Foods Group, tear-inducing onions could be a thing of the past! The company claims to have produced the world’s first ‘tear-free’ onion, by disabling the compounds that the popular vegetable releases when chopped. According to a House Foods Group press release, their researchers have spent over a decade studying the chemistry […]
The Last Man in Fukushima – Kindhearted Local Remains in Radioactive Zone to Feed the Animals
When the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant went into meltdown, after the devastating tsunami in 2011, most of the locals fled to overcrowded temporary shelters. So did Naoto Matsumura, but the brave man soon decided return to his home town of Tomioka, just to take care of the many animals left behind! And even though the radiation […]
Japan’s 60-Minute-Candy – A Real-Life Version of Willy Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstopper
There’s a wacky new diet product sweeping Japan, and it’s modeled after Willy Wonka’s famous Everlasting Gobstopper. Aptly named the ‘60-Minute Candy’, it’s a lollipop with a three-centimeter ball of sugar that lasts for an entire hour! The 60-minute-candy has gone viral in the Japanese Twitterverse, with hundreds of women passing it on as a great way […]
Japanese Otaku Creates Creepy Talking Girlfriend Pillow for the Lonely
Japanese inventor Koichi Uchimura is on a mission to develop new technologies that “support people’s otaku life”. Otaku is a term that refers to young people who are obsessed with computers or certain aspects of popular culture, often at the cost of their social life. And Uchimura wants to make sure they have every convenience […]
Japanese Startup Invents Wearable Device That Gives You 10 Minutes to Find a Toilet
There are plenty of apps that remind us to drink water, or exercise, but here’s a first – a wearable device that lets you know when it’s time to use the toilet! Triple W, a California-based Japanese startup, has come up with an innovative technology that predicts bowel movements and gives users a 10-minute heads-up before […]
AIBO Robot Dogs Are So loved in Japan That Owners Hold Funeral Services for Them When They Break Down
‘AIBOs’ robotic dogs were the world’s first home-use entertainment robots, sold in Japan by Sony Corp. between 1999 and 2006. Equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI), these dogs were capable of developing their own personality, making them all the more endearing to their owners. So much so, in fact, that when they break down, the owners […]
Japanese Farmers Somehow Create Eggs That Smell Like Citrus Fruit
Only in Japan can you find strange foods like garlic flavored cola, deep-fried maple leaves, and delicious water cake, but citrus-scented eggs are pretty strange, even by its standards. And yet these fruit-smelling eggs do exist thanks to a producer in Kochi Prefecture, in the southwest corner of Shikoku island. The special eggs, called ‘yuzu tama’, supposedly […]
Beware the Shadows, Ninja Day Is Coming!
If you happen to be in Japan this Sunday, chances are you’ll be seeing a lot more ninjas than usual. That’s because February 22nd is National Ninja Day in the Land of the Rising Sun. Although not yet an official holiday, Ninja Day has been getting a lot of media attention in Japan, ever since the […]