When we visited Japan earlier this year, we visited the famous Jigokudani Monkey Park (which you can read more about here), a place where Japanese macaques bathe in natural hot springs. I thought it was pretty funny that the monkeys were so spoiled in such a human way; the monkeys bathe in the same kind [...]
A while back I wrote about some of the more popular tropes used in manga (and anime too!). A single post really doesn’t do the topic justice, though, given the huge number of manga tropes out there. The tropes I covered previously were also limited to the straightforward, clear-cut variety: nosebleeds indicate sexual arousal, snot [...]
In the early 90s, Kyoto University had a problem. A statue on campus kept getting vandalized over and over, without any sign of stopping. Students kept making their own additions to the statue of educator Hikoichi Orita, including face paint, clothing, props and just plain ol’ text and scribbles. By 1994, the university was so [...]
OK, so we already had our grown-up, philosophical talk about authenticity and ethnic food earlier this week. Blah blah blah, boring. Now that it’s the weekend, we can take a more fun approach to things. That’s why today’s post is about the YouTube series “Rino which eats world various dishes” “Rino which eats world various [...]
It’s not easy to write about art. Art is highly subjective after all, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a complete plebeian when it comes to art. But someone much wiser than I once said that art is supposed to make the viewer feel something – and I certainly had a lot [...]
Open Letter – Miichan, it’s been a whole month now, and I just can’t keep my mouth shut any longer. I know that this Tofugu-AKB48 rivalry is like that of the Montagues and the Capulets, or the Hatfields and the McCoys, or the Zerg and the Protoss… but I never expected things to turn out [...]
Japan has a well-earned reputation as the land of cute. Everything from its mascots to its pop stars have been carefully engineered from the ground up to make you push in your cheeks and say “Awww!” But that cuteness isn’t always designed by a company or committee; sometimes it just happens on its own. Just [...]
