City for Sale, Curry Mascot, Incredible Growing Food, and More [Sunday News]
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!
Japanese City Puts Name on Sale to Pay Off Debt These last few years have been tough all over the country, particularly for govrenments with staggering deficits. The city of Izumisano has come up with a unique way of handling it — putting its name up for sale. There are some strings attached, of course, and the city is hoping for a bid of at least ¥1 billion, but it still sounds like a pretty lucrative deal to me. Can we expect Izumisano to be renamed Sony? Or maybe Pepsi Presents: Izumisano? Or – dare I hope – Tofugu?! [via News On Japan]Today’s J-blip: kabe-don Every art form has its clichés: you probably know before something bad happens in a horror movie, and let’s be honest — no romance novels contain any real surprises to anybody. Manga is no exception! The kabe-don or wall pound, when a boy confronts a girl about their true feelings towards each other, is a classic move that should be known to any manga fan. What happens when a bowl of donburi or flying dinosaur is involved in the confrontation? Fortunately, we have wacky Japanese artists to answer that question for us.
VIDEO: Change the Size of Your Food (and Appetite) with New Augmented Reality Tech Across the world, people have been getting fatter and fatter — but fear not! Researchers at the University of Tokyo are experimenting with augmented reality technologies to curb that appetite. While using the University of Tokyo tech, food appears larger to the eater than it actually is. While it all sounds good in theory, I never have any doubt in people’s ability to eat in the face of adversity.
Face Recognition App Transforms You Into Toyama Curry Mascot There have been plenty of off-the-wall Japanese apps over the years; an app that Tweets embarrassing things when you oversleep, an app that turns your face into an emoticon, and many more. Now, a new app lets you transform yourself into a mascot for curry and proclaim all of the glories of curry in a local dialect. Personally, I prefer my curry more low-tech than that, but that’s just me.
