James's Feed Releases for June 2010

The Yorii highway rest area in Saitama prefecture has re-opened after a renovation project that has turned it into a tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince: The rest stop is like a miniature French town, with a gift shop and a garden...

Just a little cat video shot by a Japanese blogger that has received over a hundred thousand views on both Japanese and international websites: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Here’s a piece of mind-boggling news: Apparently the Nishi-ku office of the Osaka city government experienced a sudden increase in the number of Chinese residents applying for welfare in the last month. It turns out most of them were from a group o...

Somebody is going around northern Saitama prefecture and vandalizing Buddhist statues: Since mid-June, nine temples have reported having their statues vandalized. Some have been spray painted, while others have been knocked over or decapitated. Po...

NTV’s evening news broadcast today had a story about a wounded cat in Ishikawa prefecture: The cat’s owner noticed that the cat seemed in pain and took her to a Vet. The Vet found a 7.5mm air gun pellet in the cat’s chest. Although the cat had suf...

A scandal involving illegal sports gambling by a considerable number of sumo stablemasters and wrestlers has been horribly damaging the image of the sport, and there had been talk of totally canceling July’s Nagoya tournament. However, after handing...

A nice high definition video from Vimeo user Darwinfish105 shows us that the 1:1 scale Gundam model that had been on display in Tokyo last summer is almost ready to be viewed at its new home near of Higashi-Shizuoka station: This time the 18-meter-t...

“Shimura Zoo” shows us that it pretty difficult to teach a chimpanzee the value of wearing clothing, and apparently much harder to make a chimp understand the concept of washing and drying clothing: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe...

A look at a decommissioned bullet train that has been turned into a library for children’s books: The bullet train library is located a short distance Akishima station on the JR Ōme Line. That area of Tokyo apparently has a lot of children, so the...

The Yokohama District Court　has dealt a major blow to right-wingers who were using loudspeakers and sound trucks to protest a theater that was going to screen “The Cove”: The court decision on the injunction Thursday prohibits making loud speeches...

The election campaigns for the Upper House election have begun. The most noticeable form of political “campaigning” in Japan is the candidates’ use of loudspeaker trucks to drive around voting districts and blast out self-introductions and other typ...

Performing Chimpanzee Pan-kun played some ping pong with Ken Shimura on a recent episode of “Shimura Zoo”: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

In a few hours, the Japan’s national soccer team will play against Denmark in a match that will decide if Japan moves to the next round in the World Cup. If Japan wins or draws, they will advance. As this clip from Asahi TV shows, the Japanese playe...

A 37-year-old man has been arrested in Tochigi prefecture for the theft of a 9-year-old girl’s bicycle seat. When police searched his house, they found this: A collection of about 80 bicycle seats, together with some other random things that probab...

Hats off to the Fuji TV news graphics team, who created this dramatic and exciting intro to their channel’s evening news coverage of the upcoming Upper House election: — Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe) dannychoo.com – Your portal t...

A former worker for a Mazda factory in Hiroshima visited his old workplace yesterday and went on a rampage with his Mazda automobile (the map above shows the 7 kilometer driving route of his 10 minute attempted killing spree): The suspect, Toshiaki...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Japan a few days ago, visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and meeting with Japanese leaders, who were no doubt pleased to hear that Karzai thinks Japan should have first dibs on some of Afghanistan’s mineral re...

Fuji TV shows some interesting places in Tokyo where people watched Saturday night’s Japan/Netherlands World Cup: Shown in the clip are a maid cafe in Akihabara, a pachinko parlor, and a public bath house. There is also some footage of excited fans...

A video clip of a recent accident involving a car that smashed plowed straight into a convenience store in Japan: Luckily, nobody was hurt in the accident. The driver was a woman who said she really had to use the toilet and was in such a state tha...

The city of Isesaki in Gunma prefecture is defending its decision to ban beards among its employees as part of a “Cool Biz” energy-saving campaign: A spokesman for Isesaki, a city in northeastern Japan with a population of about 200,000, said there...

A clip of the late Bobby Fischer discussing his experiences while detained in a Japanese immigration facility’s prison area [contains a crazy homophobic rant about how most Japanese men are "queer"]: [hat tip to Japanjin] — Akihabara News – Gadgetr...

An article in the New York Times about screenings of “The Cove” at contains the following two paragraphs, which claims that pressure from right wing groups has effectively made public debate about certain topics “taboo” in Japan: It is a stark exampl...

I hope somebody got fired for this: Workers at the Niigata City Aquarium noticed the fish, including sardines, damselfish and rays, were dying around 10 a.m. in the aquarium’s largest water tank, about 30 minutes after the substance was added. The w...

Photo: Bobby Fischer & Miyoko Watai When chess legend Bobby Fischer died in 2008, he left behind a sizable amount of money and no will. The situation has created a legal mess, and his body will now be exhumed so that a paternity test can be carried...