Tofugu.com – Wonky Japanese Language and Culture

If you’ve been reading Tofugu for a while, you’ll know that I can’t pass up a good Godzilla story, especially one that contains haikus as well. GodzillaHaiku is a Tumbler Blog that simply contains images from Godzilla films and overlays them with haikus. Kind of feels like a cross between LOLcats and UnhappyHipster, but a lot more radioactive, if you catch my drift. Read more…

Yep, that’s the same exact reaction I’d have if Akebono pulled that crazy stunt on me. WTF, Akebono-san? I’m just a kid (though I think Segata Sanshiro still wins in the unnecessary child-beating category). And is it just me, or does the “So Fun, So Fox” sound like something else? Now, you’ll have to forgive me, because I’ve really only seen part of one episode of Glee, so I don’t really know what it’s all about (they did well at the Golden Globes, right?), but I do know that they’re using one of my favorite people, Akebono Tarō, who is the first non-Japanese wrestler to make it to the top sumo rank of Yokozuna. That and he is a very large human. Read more…

The last part of this little series is the “Japanese Mascots” category. We’ve done Ronald McDonald / Colonel Sanders, Mickey / Hello Kitty, Food Mascots, and American Children Shows. Today, we focus on well known Japanese characters. There was a lot of Mario and Luigi out there, so I thought we’d start with that. Read more…

If you thought American children shows were safe from this series, I have no idea what you were thinking. We’ve hit Fast Food Mascots, Mickey & Hello Kitty, Food, and today we’re hitting Winnie The Pooh, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Sesame Street. Prepare for your childhood to be ruined. Read more…

Previously, we’ve covered Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders, Hello Kitty, and Mickey Mouse, but today we’re going to delve into food items being parodied. Things like the image above, which are just a little too sexy creepy to eat. Really, it looks like it should be called SM&M. Why do you think he’s showing his pinky like that? That’s the Japanese hand-symbol for boyfriend!

There’s a longstanding obsession and devotion to food in Japan, so it’s only natural that food gets some attention. Here we go! Read more…

In our previous post, we covered Ronald McDonald (i.e. “Donald”) and Colonel Sanders. This time, we’ll be looking at perhaps two of the most well known mascots in the world: Hello Kitty and Mickey Mouse.

Hello Kitty is owned by the company Sanrio, which has a bunch of other cute characters as well, and Mickey? Well, I should hope you know where he comes from.

Let’s start with the most disturbing image first and then work our way down (Sort of NSFW). Read more…

This is a 5ish part series covering parodies of well known characters by Japanese artists, which will include Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders, Sesame Street, Pooh, Hello Kitty, Thomas the Tank Engine, Mickey Mouse, and more.

When I was looking for an image for my Japanese McDonalds Menu article, I came across a ton Ronald McDonald images just like the one I used (i.e. ridiculous). Therefor, I thought Ronald McDonald would be a great place to start.

Read more…