Kaketsugi – literally ‘invisible mending’ in Japanese – is an amazing cloth mending technique from Japan that involves repairing damaged cloth to the point where you can’t even tell it was ever damaged.

With fast fashion being more popular than ever, cloth mending isn’t nearly as necessary as it once was. Got a tear in one of your socks? Just throw it in the trash and get a new pair, they’re cheap and readily available. The same goes for virtually any other garment, so needle and thread mending is a slowly disappearing craft. But what about special garments, what happens when something truly special and dear to our hearts becomes damaged? You can’t just go out and replace something of sentimental value, but you can’t wear it with a hole in it either. That’s where the magical art of kaketsugi comes in.

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Two Japanese companies are teaming up to produce upright ‘nap boxes’ that they claim will help solve the Asian country’s notorious overwork problem.

Tokyo-based furniture specialist Itoki Corporation and Koyoju Gohan, a plywood supplier from Hokkaido, recently signed a license agreement to start production of a bizarre-looking contraption that they claim will tackle the overwork phenomenon in Japan’s offices. It basically consists of an upright wooden pod that will allow users to enter and use as a private space to sleep standing up…

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A 47-year-old man recently became the envy of every male idol fan on the planet after it became known that he managed to marry his favorite idol.

Let’s face it, we’ve all fantasized about getting noticed by our celebrity crush at some stage in our lives, but deep down we always knew it was nothing but a dream. However, for one Japanese idol fan, that dream became a reality. Not only did he get noticed by his favorite idol, but they ended up having a romantic relationship and eventually getting married, despite a 27-year age difference.

In 2020, Yuki Tomoe debuted as a substitute member of an Osaka-based idol group. The moment he laid eyes on her, Mitsuo, who was 44 years old at the time, knew there was something special about her. She was only 17, but he thought she was very talented and charismatic, so he decided to support her.

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A Japanese man who spent a whole year fishing small pebbles out of the soles of his sneakers may have inspired a new bobby in his home country.

Neruno Daisuki, an illustrator and manga artist from Japan, recently got his five minutes of fame on Twitter after showing off the collection of pebbles and glass fragments he fished out of the soles of his shoes over the last year. You know, small stones get stuck in the grooves of our footwear soles all the time, but who would ever think of collecting them? Well, this guy did, and after a year of painstaking work, Daisuki showed off his collection of 179 pebbles, 32 glass fragments, and 1 nut.

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A Japanese company is selling hyper-realistic dragonfly-shaped pendants that it claims can keep mosquitoes and other pesky insects away without any chemicals.

Did you know dragonflies are among the most successful predators in the animal kingdoms? It’s true, they have a predation success rate of about 95%, and insects apparently fear them so much that the mere sight of a dragonfly causes them to run or fly for their lives. At least that’s what the makers of this popular dragonfly-shaped pendant want their clients to believe. That’s because they are not selling it as a cool accessory for insect enthusiasts, but as a mosquito and bug repellent. Just put the pendant around your neck or somewhere where it’s very visible, and you won’t have to worry about pests anymore.

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Japanese housing developer Ichijo Komuten recently unveiled a “flood-resistant house” that can not only remain waterproof during floods, but also float off the ground.

Whether you believe in climate change or not, the loss of housing due to floods is an undeniable issue all over the world, and while engineers and architects have been trying to find solutions, few have actually proven effective. Now, a record-setting Japanese housing developer claims to have come up with an answer to keep people’s homes from getting flooded as well as swept away by floods. Their new “flood-resistant house” was recently featured on a popular Japanese TV show and it has been getting a lot of attention online ever since.

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The “Inuden” (Dog Den), a $150,000 architectural wonder built exclusively by hand by a Japanese palace carpenter, is probably the ultimate dog house money can buy.

Cultural Property Structural Plan Co., Ltd. is an Osaka-based company that specializes in the preservation and repair of cultural property buildings and seismic reinforcement design. It employs experts in traditional architecture who use centuries-old shrine and temple-building techniques. Recently, the Japanese company announced a new project, codename ‘Inuden’, which involves building an exclusive dog house out of high-quality natural materials, using the same traditional techniques used on Japanese shrines, temples and castles.

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Ziggy Vamp Co. Ltd., a Tokyo-based company that specializes in products for wannabe vampires, is selling hand-made, customizable coffin furniture.

If you’ve ever dreamed of owning your very own sleeping coffin, you’re in luck! For just 429,000 yen ($3,200), you can now order the essential vampire bed and feel like a true blood-sucker. I know what you’re thinking, $3,200 isn’t cheap, but this isn’t some generic casket you’re spending your money on. Not only is it hand-made from actual wood, by carpenters at established woodworking and upholstering companies Yushin Kensho and Dainichi, but they are highly customizable and have multiple uses.

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Hirata, a small village in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, has become famous for challenging tourists to try its ultra-spicy habanero-laced ice cream.

Can soft-serve ice cream be hot? It sounds nonsensical, but if we’re talking about the cold treat served in Hirata Village, Fukushima, the shoe definitely fits. Sprinkled with varying amounts of habanero pepper powder – depending on the person’s spiciness tolerance – this special ice cream is nothing to mess with. It’s so hot, in fact, that people need to sign a waiver clearing the seller of responsibility before trying it.

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Kokenawa Inc., a startup based in Nagoya, Japan, produces the Pocketoilet, the world’s smallest portable toilet and a real life-saver when nature calls.

When you gotta go, you gotta go, but what if there’s nowhere to go? We hardly ever give the humble toilet a second thought in our day-to-day lives, but most of us could hardly imagine our lives without it. In war-torn regions and areas affected by natural disasters toilets are among the most sought-after amenities, but apart from insufficient portable toilets and unhygienic latrines, there aren’t too many options. Actually, there is also the Pocketoilet, a packet measuring 7 centimeters tall and 6.5 cm wide that can fit in virtually any pocket or purse.

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A Japanese IT engineer has created a creepy nigh lamp that crawls on robotic spider legs and leads you to the toilet in the middle of the night.

Don’t you hate when you have to answer nature’s call in the middle of the night? It’s pitch dark, you don’t know where you’re going and you don’t want to disturb the whole family by turning on the lights. Wouldn’t it be nice if a smart night lamp could light up the way from your bed to the toilet? Well, be careful what you wish for, because some night lamps can be downright disturbing. Case in point, this robotic spider lamp created by a Japanese IT engineer as a side project that has been freaking out Twitter for the past couple of days.

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Ever wish you could turn rock-hard ice cream from the freezer into soft-serve ice cream without having to wait for it to melt? Well, now you can, thanks to this bizarre-looking utensil from Japan.

Is it a fork? Is it a spoon? Is it a mixer whisking attachment? Well, it’s a little bit of all of those things. This is the アイホイスプーン (Aihoi Spoon), a special tool designed by a soft-serve ice cream lover for the sole purpose of turning hard tub ice cream into velvety-smooth soft-serve as quickly as possible. And while it may look like just a modified fork, after reading the inventor’s description, you’ll be surprised how much thought went into making the Aihoi Spoon.

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Japan is home to a variety of weird shops, from ones offering magic love-granting apples to others selling hoof sandals, but when it comes to services, this hard-disk crushing shop definitely stands out.

Dark Past Final Disposal Site is a unique shop where anyone can safely destroy their potentially sensitive digital data by crushing their old drive in a special machine, for just 100 yen ($0.80). The Akihabara-based shop introduced the service in 2020, when a growing number of personal computer owners began raising questions about what happened to their personal data when they changed their PCs. The owners of Dark Past Final Disposal Site bought a professional hard drive destroying machine and began offering people the chance to safely dispose of their potentially compromising data.

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A Japanese woman has been compared to The Incredibles’ Elastigirl because of her ability to stretch her earlobes enough to wrap them around things like umbrellas or selfie sticks.

Ayumi Takada, a 37-year-old woman from Tokyo, first noticed that her earlobes were super-elastic when she was in elementary school. It was a rainy day, and her hands were full, so she tried holding the umbrella with her ear as a third hand and it worked. That was only the beginning, as the Japanese woman has since used her unusually stretchy ear lobes to hold selfie sticks, calligraphy brushes, cleaning appliances and others.

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Japanese smart eyewear company Vixion has been working on an innovative pair of eyeglasses that can adjust the focus of the lenses, thus helping wearers overcome both myopia and hyperopia.

Suffering from either shortsightedness or farsightedness is bad enough, but as we age, many of us have to deal with the symptoms of both conditions. That means trouble seeing details up-close and in the distance. Unfortunately, the only way to deal with this is to get two pairs of eyeglasses – one for reading and another for seeing distant things more clearly. Having two pairs of prescription glasses is not only expensive, but also cumbersome. You need to have both with you at all times and switch between as necessary. Luckily, a Japanese company is working on a pair of smart eyeglasses that can help you deal with both myopia and hyperopia.

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