James's Feed Releases for April 2010

Three Japanese commercials with paintings that love delicious snack food: The first two advertise Shige Kix, a kind of candy that produces a soda-like buzzing sensation in one’s mouth. In the next commercial, classical music composers want to eat...

That’s the question asked by this full-page advertisement in the April 28th edition of the Washington Post [click to view full size]: The advertisement was paid for by pacifist and environmentalist groups. Oddly enough, despite the fact that the ex...

Yokohama’s Hikawa Maru has celebrated its 80th birthday: The above news clip includes a brief summary of the Hikawa Maru’s history. It started out as a luxury liner, then it became a hospital ship during the war. After the war, it was used to ferr...

Asahi TV’s special foreign reporters try out the luxury helicopter service that offers rich people a quick trip from Roppongi to Narita Airport: After the chopper ride, they check out some of the duty free shops inside Narita Airport, interviewing s...

Super small Indian girl Jyoti Amge was back in Japan recently to film a Guinness World Records special. During her trip, she visited a Japanese high school, where she met basketball player Ramu Tokashiki: Tokashiki may not be the tallest girl in Ja...

A clip of contestants chugging down big bowls of sake at the Dorome Festival in Kochi: The men chugged 1 sho of sake (about 1.8 liters) while the women chugged half that amount. The fastest man finished in 11.4 seconds and the fastest woman finishe...

A vandal has been causing damage to Christian churches throughout the Kansai region. As of December 2009, over 50 churches had been vandalized, with the first recorded attacks having occurred in 2008.　　 Last week, several churches in Hyogo and Osa...

McDonald’s Japan has renovated a portion of its restaurants, turning them into “luxury” shops with better interiors and higher prices: Designed by a French decorator, the renovated shops feature sophisticated black and brown tones, instead of the ch...

If you’ve been walking around Tokyo or riding trains here for the past few days, you’ve probably noticed that Docomo has a new advertising campaign that features Darth Vader asking, “Who is your Boss?” The advertisements direct users to this websit...

When shopping for bananas in Japan, be sure to go with the brand that has weird commercials with sweet dancers and a singing Banana King: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Asahi TV’s “Nanikore” team finds a macaw in Hiroshima that has spent a lot of time around dogs and seems to enjoy barking: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

This commercial for a toilet cleaner seems both cute and somewhat gross: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

In the aftermath of the scandal involving the 2010 Shanghai Expo’s use of an “original” song that was actually an unauthorized copy of a Japanese pop song, other suspicions about copying are coming to the surface. Fuji TV reports that the official m...

An NTV news reporter in America looks into the case of Brooklyn’s “Stop the Sag” billboard: The report starts with a mention of Olympic snowboarder Kazuhiro Kokubo, who was banned from the Olympic opening ceremony because he disgraced Japan by saggi...

TV Tokyo recently assembled a group of Lego maniacs for a contest to see who could build the coolest Hamster play set. Here are the results: The results are pretty neat, but it is doubtful that the hamsters prefer them to normal hamster wheels and...

American Enka singer Jero (Jerome Charles White) enjoys instant noodles and cherry blossoms in a commercial for some spring-themed cup ramen: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

What kind of Japanese sounds difficult for foreign students who study Japanese? For example, why do we say “Ittekimasu“? Is it going or coming back? Which is it? It means “I’m going but coming back (for sure).” (The teacher didn’t refer to Ko...

A few years ago, anti-Greenpeace/Sea Shepherd videos uploaded by an obscure YouTube Vlogger who goes by the user name PropagandaBuster [real name: Tony Marano] was discovered by Japanese bloggers and 2-channelers. Up until that point, he had virtual...

About a week ago, I posted about Gabourey Sidibe visiting Japan to promote the movie Precious. Here’s a clip that aired a couple days ago on Fuji TV, in which she goes shopping in Harajuku with entertainment reporter Shinichi Karube: Sidibe meets f...

Consider this news an admission that the official theme song of the 2010 Shanghai Expo was plagiarized: The organizers of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai have asked Japanese singer-songwriter Mayo Okamoto for permission to use one of her songs, whi...

The famous Phoenix Hall of Byodoin Temple in Kyoto, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has been damaged by raccoons: > While the temple is busily trying to seal off any points of entry for a would-be pest, Monsho Kamii is worried that the temple could be...

The eruption of a volcano in Iceland continues to cause cancellations of flights going to and from Europe. Thousands of people who had planned trips to Europe are finding themselves unable to go, while Europeans who were on vacation are now unable t...

Fuji TV introduces Uni, a cat that hangs out at the guard house of the Kiryu Campus of Gunma University: One year ago, Uni was found injured on the campus and was brought to the guard house for treatment. Since that day, she’s stuck around – much t...

Asahi TV’s team of Foreign reporters checks out fun and free activities in Tokyo: Free Cycling – Every Sunday one can borrow a bicycle for free and ride around the Imperial Palace. Between 10AM and 3PM a major road is closed to automobile traffic,...