The state of the Japanese Internet is very interesting. It’s about ten years behind in both how it’s used and how it’s designed, it doesn’t work too well, and like something out of a DC Comics Bizarro World comic, Yahoo Japan is doing better than the original. So how did Japan get so behind despite [...]
Told you they’d be back. It’s been a little while since the last Baka Gaijin post, but today I’d like to explore the world of Japanese tea ceremonies. For such a simple little ceremony, they can be pretty intimidating and a bit confusing to the uninitiated. Fortunately for you, though, we’ll be learning about some [...]
Every Sunday we gather the week’s weird and interesting Japanese news and present it to you in our Sunday News column. It might not always be hard-hitting news, but we hope that it still informs and entertains you. Enjoy!
Tyler MacNiven is an easy guy to spot in a crowd. He’s tall, with bright hair and extremely outgoing. His charisma has taken him all over the world, including a win on the TV show The Amazing Race (season 9), and Iran, where he filmed his documentary I Ran Iran. Despite traveling all across the [...]
Lots of American celebrities do some work in Japan — a commercial here, a billboard there, then they pack up their bags and return back home without giving it much of a second thought. But there’s one celebrity who goes beyond all that, whose relationship with Japan transcends mere business. Just like Saturday Night Live’s [...]
Rajio taiso (ラジオ体操), or “radio exercises” is an integral (if slightly dorky) part of Japanese culture. You’ve probably come across it even if you don’t live in Japan – it pops up all the time in anime and movies (I myself first stumbled upon it in Studio Ghibli’s Omoide poro poro (おもいでぽろぽろ) or “Only Yesterday”). [...]
Japanese fashion has always been extremely trendy overseas. You just have to look at US pop starlets like Gwen Stefani, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry to see the influence of Japanese fashion on the rest of the world. But few people know that this has been going on for a long time, and isn’t limited [...]
