Ask A Japanese Person!

READ MORE: Japan, Video

You got questions, evidently under-employed Japanese people got answers. You ask, some guy in Japan (mostly in Tokyo) asks around with a camera, and then you watch the answer. Episode one tackles the “what’s the deal with the ‘V’ it’s popular to shoot in photographs” issue, and also time travel.

We have one which has been bothering us for some time: “Japanese person, sushi is a goof, right? Just to see what our silly culture will buy into? We’ve never seen actual Japanese people eat sushi, just dopey Americans. Is this because of the bomb thing? We did apologize, you know.”

We’ll post a reply should it arrive.

Ask A Japanese Person!

Back to the Future II in Super Famicom

READ MORE: Japan, videogames

A Japanese Super Famicom videogame based on the movie Back to the Future II. The characters in animae style look sort of adorable.

Via Al Cabino, who has “the world’s first and only international sneaker petition” going in an attempt to get those grey moonbooty sneakers from Back to the Future Part II made available in mass production. We’d wear `em… which is probably why they’ll never see the light of day.

The Chimpan Channel

READ MORE: Clips, Japan, Video

For Americans, chimps in suits on television are no new trick, hell we put one in charge for what appears to be twice as far as we can prove, but in civilized society like Japan they’re still sort of novel, and so they’ve gone that extra step and created a talk show hosted by a monkey in a suit, one Gomez Chamberlain:

The Chimpan Channel site
Via the newly repainted TV In Japan

Snowing Is Half The Battle

READ MORE: Clips, Japan, Scrotums, Video

A clip from a Japanese game show where suckers try to sit down in a fake spa at a ski lodge. Serious hijinks ensue, eventually involving rocket boosters. We tried real hard to envision this sort of thing going on here in America, and we were sued into a bloody pulp before we could even finish the thought.

Scary Spoo

READ MORE: Japan, Memes

The quick version of the Spoo thing is this: Okasan to Ishho is a kids show in Japan, upon which cute hostette Shoko Haida drew an ungodly version of “Spu”, one of the plushie characters on the show. Her version is the stuff of nightmares; imagine a Barney the Purple Dinosaur with Jaws teeth and Cthulhu tentacles and say a giant cock. The Futaba Channel boards (2chan) picked up on the sketch, and it has become a meme of sorts, like a blend of the ORLY? Owl and Domokun. Info via both Avoiding Life and Mari, both of who go into some details we omitted to keep things snappy.

Japan a la carte

READ MORE: Internet teevee, Japan

Taka Yamada’s Brovision.com features a huge collection of photo galleries and streaming videos which serve as an introduction of the details of Japanese culture. One of the few Flash based streaming video sites that actually manages to smoothly play video.
Also, Video-link Japan, same concept but slightly more loose in tone and design.

· Brovision
· Video Link Japan - Video Blog From Tokyo

Both sites from this Metafilter thread

Mashiro Fukuyama’s Samurai suits

READ MORE: Art, Japan

Sculptor Mashiro Fukuyama crafts out some pretty nifty get-ups which are about 40% yesterday and 60% next week, drawing from both ceremonial Samurai armor and video game characters who tend to be from the future. A blend of molded plastics, leather, fur, precious stones and precious metals, Fukyama tends to model his snazzy threads himself.

Mashiro Fukuyama’s outfits [The Mothership]
Mashiro Fukuyama’s site
Via We Make $ Not Art

Who is Hard Gay?

READ MORE: Funny, Japan, Oddities, Short Video

“Hard Gay is a faux homosexual that dresses in stereotypical tight leather clothing and runs around the streets of Tokyo performing acts of ‘social improvement’ while thursting his hips and yelling “Woooo!”

Who is Hard Gay? [Avoiding Life]

There’s a jellyfish in our brains, and it wants us to eat monkeys politely

READ MORE: Ads, Japan

An ocean of odd commercials from the place where even odd commercials think to themselves that the ads seem particularly fucking odd: Japan.

The ads are presented in short videos, and galleries of stills; enough odd imagery to keep even the most ardent glue sniffer amused.

TVCM [Kewpie]

He’s lucky he’s pretty

READ MORE: Ads, Japan

In the later half of the 90s, Brad Pitt did Japanese blue jeans commercials in which he mispronounces “503.” The ever-fashionable kids in Japan made a where’s the beef sort of a catch phrase out of the mistake, which led to more ads where a frustrated woman tries to correct Brad’s pronunciation. Haha! Japan thinks we’re stupid. Thanks, Brad.
The whole story with the commercials we’ve mentioned are up at Japander.com

Go maru san with Brad Pitt [Japander.com]

You are not your fucking khakis.

This, and we feel comfortable saying this, is The Greatest Thing Yet Created By Man

READ MORE: Japan, Oddities

Japanese Children’s book Everyone Poops.
Yes.
Hey, some people need to be told. If our current president had been given this as child, he wouldn’t keep making that squinty face all the time, we’re sure of it. We see you George, not making any long strides, keeping the butt clenched— you got to let go, man.

If the cute NAMBLA-esque images of everybody poops end too quickly for you, there’s a whole tiny industry based on the the book’s success.

EVERYONE POOPS [retro randy]

Japanese English textbook from 1980

READ MORE: Japan, Oddities

Tokyo damage report’s scans of the most wack thing we have seen in a text book since some crazy garbage about how we all supposedly evolved from monkeys.

Japanese English textbook from 1980 [harmful]

While not terribly complex, this Flash thing held our full and rapt attention for a solid 40 minutes.
If you don’t notice anything, get out of your house immediately and call the gas company.

Imagination [neave] with thanks to Karl