If you’ve been around a while, you’ll notice that the word “week” is missing from “Japan News week in review.” If you’ve been around a while, you’ll also know that these never come out once a week. So, in order to put a little less pressure on writing these too often (and thus becoming a Japanese news blog, which is something I don’t want to do), I’ll just write them as I gather enough news that I want to write about. That way, they’ll come when they come, and hopefully slightly more often. “Japan News in Review” doesn’t cover all the important news, just the stuff I like. So, here we go! And, down at the bottom is some Tofugu news, even, so if you’re interested in that kind of thing it’ll be down there somewhere.

Japan News August 1 – August 12:

“WhatJapanThinks” of Dinosaurs: WhatJapanThinks translated a survey for us done by the MyVoice internet community. They asked 13,867 of their members via a private questionnaire everything you’d ever want to know about dinosaurs. Questions ranged from simple things, like, “Are you interested in dinosaurs” to more useless information (though, not much less useful, honestly), such as “If you were reborn as a dinosaur, what kind of dinosaur would you like to be” (I would be Earl from the TV show Dinosaurs). Of course, if you head over to WhatJapanThinks, you can find out the answers to all your burning dinosaur questions. [source]

McDonalds Japan Raises Prices Again: You know the economy is having trouble when McDonalds has to raise prices. You know that we’re having trouble with obesity when people actually care. McDonalds cronies say that prices will rise by less than five percent (dollar menu becomes dollar five cent menu?) Apparently, “costs of meat, bread, potatoes, and other ingredients are expected to increase by about 10 billion yen during the current business year.” That’s approximately 90 million dollars of increase for poor McDonalds. Wow. [source]

Japan is Home to the Oldest Women in the World: Maybe this explains why Japan has been getting into old people porn lately (link is safe for work, surprisingly). Japanese ladies born in 2007 are expected, on average, to live until they are 86 years of age. Men on the other hand, are going to be living until they’re 79 (which is third in the world behind Iceland and Hong Kong). People who know what they’re talking about say this is because of good diets and social ties (not sure how that makes a huge difference, but I suppose that’s why they know what they’re talking about). This will only contribute to Japan’s aging problem, where a larger and larger percentage of the Japanese population are old, and nobody’s having babies. Robots for the future win, I say. [source]

Rare Texas Star Fungus Appears in Nara: So now, if you don’t like friendly deer or beautiful temples, Nara has become home to a very rare fungus, only found in Central Texas, as well as two remote areas of Japan. It gets its star shape from when it releases its spores. It starts out like a cigar, then it splits open (and makes an audible hiss, aparently). Think explosive Looney Tunes cigar, Road Runner era (beep beep). If you want to have a chance to find one of these things, they seem to grow on dead oaks near streams. If you want to learn more about these things, check out the [source].

Murasaki Robot Regales the Tale of Genji: Now, I suppose I don’t claim to be the biggest reader of important novels (possibly the first novel ever, actually), but this is a little too much. I had to read this book a while back, and I don’t think having a small robot reading it to me will make it any more enjoyable. The robot is modeled after Lady Murasaki, supposed author of the novel, and will do robotic movements to add emphasis to Genji’s pimpedness. [source]

Takeru Kobayashi FINALLY Beats Joey Chestnut: If you’ve followed Tofugu for a little bit, you’ll know our extreme passion when it comes to Takeru Kobayashi and his lack of winning as of late. This guy broke all the records. He put competitive eating into the public eye. Then, he breaks our heart with multiple losses against Joey Chestnut. In his last contest, Kobayashi actually beat Chestnut by eating 385 sticks of satay, which, according to Wikipedia consists of chunks or slices of dice-sized meat. According to the picture, it’s covered in funky yellow stuff. Good job Kobayashi, you’ve finally got us to write a non-seppuku-worthy story about you. [source]

Tofugu News

New Fan Art Section: We recently got a nice email from a nice artist named Priscilla, who drew us a bit of fan art. Now, we promised ourselves we wouldn’t be so self centered to add a fan art section before getting any fan art, so we patiently waited, and it finally happened! Thank you Priscilla! Go check out our fan art section. You’ll also find images from the (failed) postcard contest from a while back. If you’ve got the inkling to break out some MS Paint and doodle yourself something for this page, we’ll put it up, then we’ll give you some electronic email high fives.

What? Newsletter? Actually Coming? A looonnggg lonnnggg time ago I wrote the first Tofugu newsletter. Now, a lonnng time sine then, another one is coming, and this time, with more regularity…As in, once a month at the most regularity. It finally has a vision. It finally has a purpose. If you’re interested in it, as well as some special Newsletter-only content, then you should go sign up for it before it’s too late. You never know when it will suddenly appear in your inbox! You can sign up for the newsletter here.

Last Chance to Get some Candy, not last chance to Follow us on Twitter: You’ve got around 24 hours to have a chance to win some awesomely tasty Gumi candy from us by following us on Twitter. All you have to do is sign up for Twitter (if you haven’t already) and hit the follow button on our page. You’ll get updates mostly on things relating to Japan, but maybe a few other things as well. Contest ends at the end of August 12, so that leaves you, not too much time left…or no time left, depending on when you read this. Either way, check it out!