As much as I want to be outrageously snarky in this post, I don’t think I can bring myself to do it. After all, social anxiety disorder is pretty serious stuff, especially in Japan, the birthplace of the hikikomori (引き籠もり or “pulling away”) phenomenon. In an attempt to help out those who are uncomfortable in social situations, Avex has introduced a DVD titled Miterudake (ミテルだけ) or “Just Looking”. The DVD is labeled as “interactive”, but there are really only two activities that users are expected to perform:

1. Choose one of fifty relatively-diverse women

2. Endure them staring at you for about a minute (eyes up, boys)

3. Repeat (does this count as an activity?)

So basically, the only purpose of the DVD is, as its creator states, 「人と目を合わすこと」, or to help people “adapt to others”. As weird and pointless as it may seem, I can’t deny that there are people out there who do have a major fear that they’re constantly being judged by others. Still, I think it might be more cost effective to just realize that most people aren’t actually staring at you in real life (especially not in Japan, where a lot of “normal” people still find sustained direct eye contact to be rude) than to go and buy a $25 DVD. Or you could just find a picture of the Mona Lisa.

But hey, whatever floats your boat. I’m certainly not one to tell other people how to manage their neuroses. One thing I can say for sure about this DVD, though, is that it’s bound to act as inspiration for many x-rated spin-offs. You just wait and see–in the next few months, scores of new AV DVDs will hit shelves of sketchy Akihabara porn shops with similar premises and similar titles (“Just ____ing”). Come on, it’s Japan. You know it’s true.

Anyway, sorry this article was a bit boring. To make up for the lack of entertaining sarcasm, here are some links to more Miterudake clips and spoofs on the Youtube and NicoNico Douga. You can also find more clips on the Miterudake website (as well as links to the personal blogs of some of the women, which is kind of creepy).

EDIT: It turns out Miterudake could be a lot weirder than I first thought.

EDIT 2: Here’s a video from Koichi. Thanks, Ko.

The signs read 「偶然だぞ」 or gūzen da zo, which translates into It’s Accidental. Probably not the most appropriate sentiment when your favorite baseball player steals a home run.

So what caused this blunder? Online translators, of course. As illustrated below, when entered into Google tranlsate, the Cubs’ slogan becomes the inadvertantly commical phrase that ended up on the placards (much to the delight of the Japanese blogging community, I might add). Had the fans tried the more gramatically correct “It’s going to happen”, they would have gotten 「それが起こるだろう」, which would have been a vast improvement. Just some food for thought :D

Source: as-is.net

*I’m joking, you guys. You’re all entitled to your own opinions.

The bowl and noodles were constructed out of carbon nanotubes–tiny cylinders made of latticed carbon molecules–in Nakao’s lab in 2006, but were only unveiled today after being entered in a microphotography contest. Measuring a measly 1,016 nanometers (or 1/25,000 of an inch), the bowl is theoretically small enough for even some bacteria to use–the average E. coli being around 2,000 nanometers long–assuming they like the taste of graphite, that is. Maybe the addition of some carbon chāshū or menma would make it more enticing?

Anyway, here’s what the inventor had to say about his creation:

“We believe it’s the world’s smallest ramen bowl, with the smallest portion of noodles inside, though they are not edible,” Nakao said.

The hardest part was to keep the noodles from rising upright from the bowl “like alfalfa sprouts,” he said. “The achievement was mostly for fun.”

So, though Nakao probably won’t be winning a Nobel Prize for this feat, you have to admit, it’s pretty cool. In my mind, it’s right up there with the world’s smallest guitar, toilet, and smiley face. And, hey, if the price of wheat continues to rise, tiny bowls of ramen may become a lot more prevalent, hm?

More nanocoolness: Nanotechnology Now and the EIPBN Micrograph Contest
Source: The Honolulu Advertiser

]]> http://www.tofugu.com/2008/05/30/worlds-smallest-bowl-of-ramen/feed/ http://www.tofugu.com/2008/04/22/mixijp-hates-foreigners-now-requiring-a-mobile-email-address-to-join/ http://www.tofugu.com/2008/04/22/mixijp-hates-foreigners-now-requiring-a-mobile-email-address-to-join/#comments Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:02:23 +0000 koichi http://www.tofugu.com/?p=364

Wow Mixi, way to put a damper on things. About two months ago, I put up a tutorial on how to get started with Mixi so that you could use it to practice your Japanese. Now it seems like Mixi is pretty much off limits (for now) to foreigners without a Japanese cell phone email addresses. This theoretically means you have to be living in Japan, and own a cell phone if you want to be able to join Mixi now.

Here are the new rules:

1. You have to confirm a Japanese cell phone email address (docomo, AU, softbank, etc).
2. You also have to confirm a normal email address (hotmail, gmail, whatever).

If you don’t have both of these, you don’t get into Mixi, simple as that. I’ll still be happy to send folks invites, just know that you won’t be able to complete the registration process unless you have a Japanese cell phone.

Anyways, now the important thing is to try and figure out a way around this. Anyone know of a way to get a Japanese cell phone email without actually owning a cell phone? Anyone know a way to circumvent this? I invited myself to Mixi, but I couldn’t figure anything out. I looked around online as well. Still nothing. If any of you know, please let me know in the comments and I’ll make a post about it so we can get this Mixi train rolling again.

UPDATE: Just because some of you seemed worried, if you are already registered with Mixi, you’re okay (for now). I can’t see them shutting down already created accounts just because you don’t have a Japanese mobile email…though, perhaps I wouldn’t put it past them as well. Mixi has done some other crazy stuff that makes me think they are internazis (Thanks for the link, Caitlin).

Believe me when I say that I understand the inclination towards using online Japanese-English translators, but trust me, you’re much better off just doing your best on your own. Why? I’m glad you asked (if you didn’t, humor me, please). There are three main reasons:

They Don’t Work

Online translators are generally unable to translate anything properly and will likely make you sound like either a robot or a lunatic. Harsh, but true. I have a theory, actually, that the people who’ve created these programs have done this on purpose, just for kicks. After all, if you don’t know enough Japanese to translate your English text yourself, how will you check whether the translated version sounds correct or not? You can’t. It’s a brilliant and diabolical scheme, no?

To illustrate my point, here’s a snippet of the Japanese folktale, Momotarō (桃太郎):

成長した桃太郎は、鬼ヶ島の鬼が人々を苦しめていることを知り、鬼退治を決意する。両親から黍団子を餞別に貰い、道中にそれを分け与えてイヌ、サル、キジ を家来に従える。鬼ヶ島で鬼と戦い、見事に勝利を収め、鬼が方々から奪っていった財宝を持ち帰り、お爺さん・お婆さんの元に返り、幸せに暮らしたとさ。

Now, here’s the “translated” version from Babelfish and Google Translate, respectively:

Momotarou who grew the ogre knows that the ogre of the island has tormented the people, determines ogre suppression. From the parents you receive the millet dumpling in the parting gift, distribute that in the road and attend the dog, the monkey and the pheasant in the servant. That the ogre it fought with the ogre with the island, supplied victory beautifully, it carried back the treasure which the ogre keeps taking from the people, the grandfather returned to the origin of the grandmother, lived happily.

and

Momotaro growth by the demon Onigashima bedeviling people to know that the determination to rid demon.黍parting gift from the parents to貰いball, it distributed along the way that dogs and monkeys, pheasant subject to the rule. Onigashima battle with a demon and the impressive victory, the Demons will treasure these people to go away from the elderly man to return to his grandmother’s original, and lived happiness.

While you may be able to glean the meaning of the original paragraph out of this jumbled mess, it’s largely incoherent, and it doesn’t sound natural. Can you imagine the confusion that would result if the English versions were translated back into Japanese using the same programs? I shudder at the thought. So, my point here is, unless you want your translated Japanese to sound like that translated English, don’t use online translators. They just don’t work, and will leave your readers, pen pals, teachers, etc scratching their heads in bewilderment.

They’ll Make You Lazy. And Fat.

Well, maybe just lazy. Even if translators did work, you’d still be doing yourself a disservice by using them. Relying too much on those kinds of programs will only serve to set you back in your Japanese studies in the long run—actually learning the language, no matter how hard it is or how long it takes, is so much better than the instant gratification that you’d get by not doing any of the work yourself.

Also, dependence on online translators isn’t really practical in the real world (e.g. actually visiting Japan or answering questions in class). Except, maybe, if you have an iPhone. But still. Don’t do it.

It’s Dishonest

It’s just not nice to mislead the person you’re presenting your translated material to.

So Basically…

If you’re someone who already uses online translators, you’re probably more than a little peeved at me right now, which is understandable. But as much as you may think that my goal was to portray you as a jerk, it wasn’t. I just want to encourage you to stop and discourage others from starting. Sadly, I’ve used online translators a bit in the past (high school, haha), so I’m speaking from experience. For all the aforementioned reasons, it’s just not a good thing to start.

This is what happens when Gojira and King Kong use online translators to chat:

A Possible (If More Time Consuming) Alternative

If I’m going to tell you not to use translators, I should give you some other options for what to do if you need something written in Japanese but don’t know exactly how to do it, right?

First, give it your best try. Write out your sentence, paragraph, whatever, in the best Japanese you can. For now, you can put in English words/phrases where you don’t know the Japanese ones. Then, fill in the gaps—grammar, vocabulary, particles etc by using a dictionary, online Japanese lesson pages, or one of the many Japanese Learning/Translating Communities on LiveJournal (if you use these, you should still do most of the work yourself). Make sure you get rid of the English, too.

I’m going to backtrack a bit to note that I feel it’s best to stick to the grammar points and sentence structures you know already and try to only look up new vocabulary words. It’s really up to you, though. The thing you should definitely try to do, though, is learn (rather than just copy) the vocabulary/grammar that you look up, so that you don’t have to look it up again.

Next, depending on your situation, you could have someone check it. This can be your teacher, penpal, or even one of us (if it’s not more than three lines and doesn’t need to be done quickly) as a last resort. If you’re writing something that seems too trivial to be checked (e.g. a short comment on someone’s blog) or that doesn’t have time to be checked (e.g. an instant message), it’s probably best to post it as-is. A mistake or two is definitely not the end of the world.

This applies to a longer block of text, as well. If you’re self-conscious (try not to be!) about what you’ve written, you could always preface it with something like “Please excuse any mistakes”.

Good luck, you guys!

Thoughts From Koichi

Don’t expect to be able to write in Japanese right away. It’s something that comes with time and practice. Don’t get discouraged when you’re trying to write something in Japanese and it just doesn’t come out right away. That’s because you haven’t studied enough. I know we want everything right away, but it’s really best if you just keep studying. Things will fall into place, I promise! Eventually you’ll be able to write fairly well, just don’t expect it to happen when you first start you Japanese studies. That’s all I’ve got to add, I think.

Momotarō Text Source: Wikepedia JP

Picture Sources: Unknown

Edit: Let’s not link to too many translator sites in the comments, please.

What is different about Mixi?

• Everyone is Paranoid: The most important thing to know about Mixi is that nobody wants to be your friend. That is, the folks who use Mixi listened to their parents, and will often refuse to talk to strangers. I feel like this is quite different from Myspace, and even Facebook. When I first got Mixi, I joined a community (which you will learn about later) for everyone who went to the high school I went to in Japan. I thought I would add some people I didn’t know (but who went to the same school as me). I thought this was reasonable. I have a decent amount of “friends” on Facebook from high school or college that I’d never formally met, but still added because we shared a common educational experience. Although most people were nice about it and added me, I got a handful of people who refused my Mixi friend offer saying they didn’t know me personally, so I should stop pestering them, or something to that extent. I suppose the best way to learn is to make mistakes.
• Centered around Journal Writing: In a sense, Mixi is somewhat similar to Livejournal in that a lot of it is centered around journal writing. When you write a journal entry, all of your added friends see it on their front profile pages. Many of them read it and comment on it too. I know several people who are absolutely addicted to this feature and will get a little bit restless if they can’t read their Mixi journal articles on a regular basis.
• Communities are Big Big Big: Another big part of Mixi is their communities. Unlike Facebook groups, people are often active members. Communities don’t usually have silly names, and anything written in the community is relayed to your front page, which keeps you on top of things (as long as you don’t join too many big communities). Joining a communities might be a good way to make friends as well.

What you should know before joining Mixi:

• Everything is in Japanese: If you are just starting to learn Japanese, it won’t be easy stumbling around the controls and setting up a profile (not to mention meeting people and making friends). You should probably have a pretty good grasp on hiragana and katakana at the very least. Having some kanji knowledge would definitely be a plus. At least you can always pop stuff into Jim Breen to get English translations, but if you don’t know hiragana/katakana I wouldn’t bother for now.
• It’ll be hard to make friends (you can be my friend, though!): Like I said before, people don’t want to become friends with strangers (for the most part). Joining communities and becoming active members might be a good way to make friends. Emailing any Japanese people you know and asking them for their Mixi accounts might be another good way to network out. At the very least you can become my friend, though (the link won’t work unless you are logged on).

Mixi Top Menu:
The Mixi top menu is full of information. The most important thing, though, is that you distinguish the two menu rows from each other. Both of them are similar, but they actually have very separate functions. The top one has to do with things that are not your own. For example, if you clicked on the top menu’s “journal” button, you will see everyone else’s recent journal entries. If you clicked on the bottom one, you will see your own recent journal entries. Below is an image of the top menu, fully translated. Click on it to zoom in.

I am now going to go through each menu item and talk a little bit about each one. For sanity’s sake, I will only go through the bottom menu row, plus “search friend” and “invite friend” up in the top left.

• Home: This will just take you home, to your main page.
• Messages: This section allows you to read and send messages to your friends (or not friends).
• Journal: This will allow you to write a journal entry. This can be about pretty much anything. Think of it more like a diary, where you say stuff almost at random (at least that’s what it feels like when I read people’s Mixi Journals). Don’t say anything you want to keep private, though.
• Movies: Upload movies here. Mixi tried to make a video service to rival Youtube’s and failed. Still, there’s some neat videos in here, and people like to see your videos as well.
• Photos: Upload and manage your photos in this section. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I bet it’s pretty cool.
• Music: I’m not sure what this section is about, honestly, but it has something to do with music. Either way, it won’t affect your social networking experience too much. If anyone knows more information about this section, feel free to comment and let us know.
• Reviews: You can review places, things, etc in this section. I thought this was a pretty neat idea. You can search for products and places, too, and find out what people thought of them.
• Bookmarks: Put up your favorite websites here.
• Traffic: Who has visited your page?
• Options: A huge array of options pertaining to your account.
• Search Friends: Find friends already on Mixi.
• Invite Friends: Invite others to join you!

Left Column: Profile Picture, Friends, and Communities:
On the left column you’ll find profile pictures, friends (also known as my miku (マイミク), short for my mixi(マイミクシー), and communities. Depending on how deep you are into the system, you will either have a lot here or nothing at all. Let’s go through each section, because everything works a little bit different than you might expect. For your reference, a full sized left sidebar can be found here.

• Profile Picture: Mixi allows you to upload three profile pictures, which can be viewed if you click on a link below someone else’s image. The funny thing about profile pictures, though, is that most people don’t put up their real faces. Usually there will be some kind of animal, an actor/actress’ photo, or some inanimate object. Like I said above, though, everyone is paranoid. I would say one in every thirty people put their real images up, and that’s it. You will often see non-Japanese using Mixi with their real pictures, but that is rare as well.
• Friends: You can find your list of friends here. I always get confused because real names are not displayed (just nicknames) and the images above them are of kittens and ferris wheels. Even if it is someone I know really well in real life, most of the time I’ll have no idea who they are on Mixi, even though we are Mixi friends.
• Communities: The Communities section can be found at the very bottom. This shows off the communities you have joined. I didn’t join too many communities because then I get too many messages on my front page, which makes it too difficult to keep track of everything. Some people can handle it but I just read to slowly.

Center Column: Friend and Community Journal Entries, Reviews, Photos, Movies, Music, and Introductions:

• Newest Friend Journal Entries: When one of your Mixi friends writes a journal article, it will show up here for you to read and comment on, if you choose. Many people are very addicted to this feature.
• Newest Community Posts: When something is written within a community page that you are a part of, it will show up here. This will help you keep up to date on discussions going on in different communities. I had too many of these messages, so I left a bunch of my communities and kept only the really important ones.
• Most Recent Friend Reviews: Whenever a friend reviews a place or a product, it will show up here. These are sometimes pretty interesting to read, since you’ll learn about things you’ve never heard of before.
• Most Recent Friend Photos: Woo, photos of friends.
• Most Recent Friend Movies: Woo, movies of friends.
• Most Recent Friend Music: Woo, I don’t know what this category is. Does someone else know?
• Friend Introductions of YOU: This section is my favorite. In Mixi, you don’t write on people’s walls like in Facebook or Myspace. That space is for people to write introductions about you. Most introductions explain how the person knows you and then a little bit about your personality. Occasionally you’ll see a non-Japanese person writing on it as if it were a wall, but this is incorrect. A typical translation of an introduction post would be: “I know this person from high school. He was in my Soccer Club, and he is the type of person who gets along well with everyone,” or something like that. Just remember that this section is for you to write about other people and their personalities/abilities/etc. I think that most of these are positive things about the person, so don’t go around and say that people are real knee-biters. Here is an image of my introduction wall, click on it to zoom in:

Using Mixi to Learn / Practice Japanese:
All in all, mixi is a great way to learn and practice your Japanese. The real hard part is getting people to add you as their friend. If you can get over that boundary, you’ve got yourself an incredible resource.

• Reading Practice: Reading other people’s journal articles is a great way to practice reading. Although it isn’t formalized like a text book, people on Mixi tend to write in short, simple sentences. A lot of people write their journal articles on their phones, which means it’ll be easier for you to read. If you’ve never seen Jim Breen, take a look. It’ll help you translate journal entries in a jiffy. Mixi journals is a good (and quick) daily practice for reading comprehension.
• Writing Practice: If you really want to get into things, you can start writing regular journal entries. If you have enough Mixi friends, you can probably ask people to correct your mistakes in the comments section of your post. It’s a good (and usually sure) way to feedback and corrections on your writing, at least in my experience.

How Do I get an Invitation to Mixi?
I’ll send you an invitation if you comment below. Please note: I think there might be a lot of requests, and although I plan on getting to everyone eventually, sometimes things get busy with school and work. I’ll be giving priority to those who I see or have seen commenting more often (on other posts, not this one) over those who only commented here for the first time. So, if you want a faster return, please comment elsewhere too. Here’s a good list of articles, though anywhere (or nowhere) is fine. Also, please enter your correct email into the comment box, otherwise I won’t be able to invite you.

The Full Translation of Mixi’s Front Page:
I thought I’d translate the whole front page for you all, too, while I was at it. You can see it here in it’s full glory, or click on the image below. Both will take you to an “actual-sized” image.

Everyone, good luck with your Mixi’ing! It’s a lot of fun, which is good motivation to learn more Japanese.

UPDATE: Mixi now requires you to have a Japanese mobile email address to join! This means, if you don’t have a Japanese cell phone, you’re pretty much screwed. More information here.

Every week (i.e. whenever time allows), I’ll be doing a “Japan week in review.” These segments will cover smaller news articles from throughout the week that we don’t want to cover individually. Although these articles of news won’t necessarily be very important, they’ll surely be interesting instead. Included after the break is a video; before that, though, let’s go through the stories not covered in moving picture.

Army of Tiny Crustaceans is Destroying a Small Japanese Island: On a small island 1650 ft off the cost of Hiroshima, a whole bunch of tiny crustaceans are burrowing into the island, causing it to break apart into a billion little pieces. The island’s name is Hoboro, if you ever want to visit, though I’m not sure why you would, since it’s inhabited (except for our friends the “nanatsuba-kotsubumushi,” of course). Supposedly the increasing number of these shrimp/crab relatives was caused by increasing temperature of surrounding waters, which caused plankton blooms. These little guys love the stuff, so they reproduced like crazy. Since they make their homes by burrowing into rock, they are destroying the island one burrow at a time. Reports say that the island could disappear within the century if this keeps up. Wow! [source]

Japan Stops their Brutal “Research” of Whales: When Japan “researches” whales, they kill them in large numbers and feed them to their upper classes. “I say, Mr. Tanaka, I’m going to have to research some more of that ‘Whale Curry‘, it tastes smashing” (British Accent). Thankfully, due to international pressures, Japan has halted (for now) this nasty practice. We’ll see how long Japan can keep from eating that lovely whale cocaine. [source]

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s Vlog: As you can in the video above, Yasuo Fukuda (along with the whole Liberal Democratic Party) has started a Youtube page. You can even check out his English Video and see what the Prime Minister actually had to say (instead of what he said in my video). It’s pretty interesting and pretty blah at the same time. His English is fairly good, anyways. I’ll include it below for your convenience:

Mobile Post Offices: In Aichi Prefecture (where I used to live), a lot of rural post offices are getting shut down. To combat the obvious problems that would arise because of this, mobile post offices (big vans) are being sent out. People can do all the normal mail stuff as well as withdraw money from ATMs. One neat little tidbit for the non-Japanese explorer: If you need to withdraw money from an ATM, the post office is the way to go! Most ATMs won’t accept your cards, but for some reason post office (and Airport) ATMs often do. Just something good to know if you are visiting. [source]

Death By Mochi is Wonderfully Tasty: Every New Years, a lot of Japanese people eat mochi soup (zoni). It’s one of those things that if you grow up with it you’ll absolutely love it. With every wonderful thing comes a price, though, and Mochi Soup is no exception. Every year a handful of people die from choking on the mochi, although usually they are of the elderly variety. This year four people died, and ten people were hospitalized - a pretty average New Years in my book. Party on, Garth. [source]

Ass n’ Boobs Airbag: You really just have to look at the picture. These airbags are supposedly better for you when you smash your face into them. I imagine they’d be a lot more fun too. Made by Takata, these airbags will reduce injury from airbags, but greatly increase (suspicious) male driver collisions. [source]

Tallest Elevator Test Tower: *Ah, dang, I messed up on this one. I thought it was the tallest elevator (as said in the video above). It’s actually the world’s tallest elevator testing tower, which sounds a lot less impressive, because I don’t imagine there are very many towers dedicated to elevator testing. Still, it seems like a pretty cool place to visit, so why not check it out if you’re near Inazawa City? [source]

Japanese Inmates Think Their Jumpsuits Aren’t Stylish: Aw damn, and I thought gray with vertical stripes was in again. O Brother Where Art Thou is hax. Recently a survey was done showing everyone what everyone already knew: Jail cells are too small, solitary confinement is no fun, and their clothes aren’t very fashionable. It’s not like we’d want our prisoners to be wearing the latest fads. How would we tell them apart from society? They have to look crazy, otherwise it would be hard to spot them amongst the millions of spiffy Japanese teenagers.

Hello Kitty Shames Soldiers, Kills You With Love: Apparently Hello Kitty has come out with it’s newest (and cutest!) high powered rifle … just kidding. Actually, a crazy gun-otaku put together a themed Hello Kitty AR-15 rifle for his wife. Here’s a quote from the creator: “Well, in the “spirit” of the California Assault Weapon Ban I decided to do my best to alleviate the fears of my fellow citizens and gun-banning legislators when I put together a new AR-15 for my wife.” Maybe if President Bush saw these he’d start equipping our fearless soldiers with these deadly assault rifles. [source]

So what do you think about this week’s useless Japanese News? I’m particularly interested in politicians blogging. I don’t think they pull it off very well, with Mr. Fukuda being no exception. All the American candidates are using Youtube as well, though for a different purpose. Fukuda’s use of it is more of a running thing; I think it’s good to keep the young’uns informed. Otherwise, I’m terrified of the Hello Kitty Gun, laughing at the Japanese inmates, and craving Mochi Soup. I might have to go make some of that right now, I think we have leftovers. See you all next week (or so)!

*Update: Aw, man, I kind of feel bad for posting this. I’m not very happy with it, overall. This has been a big learning opportunity, so there will be big improvements on this series for next time, though. Until next time…

The most important part is the top left. That baby’s never been happier!

Basically, what you do is you stick the soft end in the baby’s sloppy, gushing nose and put the other end in your mouth. Luckily there is an easy to clean bottle between you and your child’s snot factory, but what seems to be missing is the brown paper bag for when you have to throw up. Maybe that will appear in version two. If you’d like to see the product “live” on video, go ahead and read more:

If you like this video, then check out Zenhill’s other stuff!

I really want to know about the market research before the Mama Hanamizu Totte was released. Granted, Japan is a pretty sexist society, but I love how papa is left completely free of responsibility when it comes to sucking baby’s brains out. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a Papa Hanamizu Totte. I guess papa is busy enough slapping his children for kanchoing him in the butt.

Luckily, as long as your child is old enough (or you’re brave enough), you can do a thing called “self mucus sucking.” Strangely, I found a couple of Japanese blogs that talked a little about this. Unfortunately, the children doing it don’t seem to have the right idea. They try though:

Stay away mom. I don’t want another lobotomy. (Source)

I can’t figure out why it isn’t working…oh wait, that’s because both tubes are in the same nostril. (Source)

Here Mommy! Now that I’ve put both tubes in my nose you try to do it! (Source)

In all honesty, though, this is another one of those genius Japanese products. Have you ever seen the book “Crazy Japanese Inventions?” (or something like that) This really feels like one of those except so much better. No more raw noses from blowing. No more clogged noses…even the toughest clogs can be torn right out of your inner sanctum with one sharp swig on the ‘ol hanamizu totte. Still, something like this would never sell over here. It’s not a pill so us American’s won’t deal with it.

So, what do you think? Would you use it? Just imagine your mom trying to pull this on you in public.

At this point, everyone should know that Japanese people like their cell phones. In Japan, we are seeing a decline in personal computer use and a bigger interest in more versatile mobiles (the video’s a fake, but there’s still a lot of truth in it, nonetheless). On Japanese phones there are coupon scanners, television tuners (for at least the last 5-6 years), cell phone internet speeds faster than America will ever achieve (well, maybe if Japan shares), and so much more. The point is, Japanese cell phones are the s**t, and American cell phones are not.

This morning I read this article. It was early and I was feeling a little bleary-eyed. I scanned through it and thought that it said that half of Japanese top-10 books are read on cell phones. “Okay, great,” I thought. “This sounds about right.” Americans, even, are starting to enjoy the flexibility of reading e-books on their cell phones, not to mention Amazon’s new Kindle. Granted, I was surprised that Japan was only this far ahead. Normally when it comes to cell phones and technology (and ninjas) we have to look up to them like a third-world nation. The fact is, I was totally off, and I was totally blown away by the real story, which was this:

It turns out that the article was not talking about people reading their books on cell phones. That is old news. That has been going on for years and years. The story here is that people are writing novels on cell phones. They are sitting down with their little 9-key phones and typing something up at unimaginable speeds with their tiny, muscly, fingers tapping in sinewy abandon. The most remarkable part of this is that half of Japan’s top-ten books during the first six months of this year were written on cell phones. The next thing I wanted to know was how people are actually writing these. Rin (pen name), who has sold 420,000 hard cover copies of her 142-page novel Moshimo Kimiga (If You …), says this:

“I typed it all on my mobile phone,” Rin explains matter-of-factly over the same device. “I started writing novels on my mobile when I was in junior high school and I got really quick with my thumbs, so after a while it didn’t take so long. I never planned to be a novelist, if that’s what you’d call me, so I’m still quite shocked at how successful it’s turned out.”

I’m shocked too, honestly. How could books like this become so popular? The reason is this:

Usually they are written by first-time writers, using one-name pseudonyms, for an audience of young female readers - who, in Japan especially, consult their mobile phones so regularly that the habit could be mistaken for a tic. The stories traverse teen romance, sex, drugs and other adolescent terrain in a succession of clipped one-liners, emoticons and spaces (used to show that a character is thinking), all of which can be read easily on a mobile phone interface. Scene and character development are notably missing…

Toru Ishikawa, a professor of Japanese literature at Tokyo’s Keio University, points out that Japanese mobile phones allow their owners only a limited selection of kanji, the Chinese characters regarded by Japanese as more intellectually demanding than their native syllabary. “The size of the screen also necessitates that [authors] use short, simple sentences with basic words. If that’s how you measure the quality of literature, then yes, the prevalence of writing like this will water down Japanese literature.

Emoticons are the really startling thing. Even I, as someone who is fairly liberal with his writing style (tofugu is a poor example of this supposed liberalism) am shocked and displeased with the idea of a novel being written with emoticons. Then again Japanese emoticons are ridiculously detailed and include more content than a burlap bag full of bobcats, so maybe there is some weight to their “dirty” writing.

One of the neat things about these cell-phone written books is the contributions that fans make.

“It might seem strange that young readers are going out and buying the book after they’ve already read the story on their mobile. Often it’s because they email suggestions and criticisms to the author on the novel website as the story is unfolding, so they feel like they’ve contributed to the final product, and they want a hardcopy keepsake of it.”

I’m not sure what I particularly think about these kinds of novels. I’m not a big fan of lolz-internets talk, which I would say is the rough equivalent to these cell phone novels. Then again, language does change over time, and as generations get older certain things become standard and others become old (kind of like the way my parents talk). Even so, I can’t help but think this is very similar to the genbunitchi (言文一致) movement back during the Meiji Era, where Japanese literary giants decided that they should write the way they speak (instead of like eg0-tripping elite samurai), and that was a huge and irritating change for them as well. Crazy hippies.

I hope to God, though, that we don’t begin writing with 5ymb01s and number5. Reading a novel like that sounds almost as inconvenient as writing a novel on your cell phone.

Source: SMH

Aight maggots. It’s time to edumacate you in the fine art of UFO catching. I’m about to present to you tips on how to net yourself a cute stuff j-character without spending a lot of moolah. Koichi spent ¥5,000 figuring out the tricks of the trade so the lot of us wouldn’t have to. But before I indulge you with such delicious tips, I’ll bore you with some background information on these arcade machines (sorry, nothing is free!).

In the US (and maybe Canada?), you may be familiar with its cousin generically named the claw vending machines. Typically the claws are three to four prongs and have ridiculous low gripping power. Prizes are positioned in the prize area in such a way that the only way of succeeding is to grab onto the object and hope that the prong latches onto something or its sad gripping power is just barely enough to carry it to the outlet.

So what makes the US version different from the Japanese? Not much. There is still the weak gripping power. However, the first thing you’ll probably notice is the two-prong claw. TWO-PRONG?!?!?! How the hell are you suppose to grip around an object with just two prongs? Well, you don’t for the most part. Here is where the main difference lies: Majority of the time when looking at the sea of prizes in the casing you’ll find the “winnable” prize sitting almost right next to the exit hole at a higher elevated position. This is done on purpose. The Japanese arcade peons like to give you a chance of winning. They WANT you to win. All that is required is to understand the mechanics of the two-prong claw.

The trick is the utilization of the force from the prongs when it open/closes/descends and the use of gravity. The claw typically opens up midway descension and closes before it ascends back on. You’ll also notice that the claw has a wide range in the open position. The use of the claw depends on the positioning of the object. Sometimes you’ll need to pull the prize towards the hole by either latching a prong to some opening on the object or position it over the object by some offset amount so that when the claw closes it’ll push the object towards the exit . Or you’ll have the descending prong push straight down on the objects side so the weight gets shifted, letting gravity do its job.

Check out this video for more information:

Games typically run at ¥100-¥500 for one to three plays, depending what is at stake.

Oh, one more thing. Don’t bother with the UFO catchers with AV DVDs (READ: Mystery person pictured above). You are better off saving the yen and purchasing them at a “DVD/CD/本屋” (you’ll know what I mean if you ever attempt to visit one).