Kajima's floor-by-floor slow demolition is one of those rare things in life that leaves you truly speechless....After all, seeing the video of a 20-floor building submerging into the asphalt as if it was liquid is something that belongs to a sci-fi movie.
posted on Jul 15, 2008 - View this thread

In Parentheses is a collection of many ancient, medieval and classic texts from all over the world, many of whom are hard to find anywhere, let alone on the internet. There are translations from Greek, Old Norse, Medieval Irish, Japanese, Incan, Old French, Medieval Latin and many more! As well as all that they have papers in medieval studies and vaguely decadent and orientalism series. Adding to that there's a linguistics section with wordlists and language flash cards in languages such as Icelandic, Quechua, Basque, Classical Armenian and a whole bunch more. [flashcard links go to pdf files]
posted on Jul 10, 2008 - View this thread

The Japanese master intercultural stereotyping. Is it racist when non-whites do blackface?
posted on May 25, 2008 - View this thread

Smoke on the Water and We Will Rock You -- the traditional Japanese versions.
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - View this thread

How obedient is your dog? Or chimp.
posted on Mar 13, 2008 - View this thread

Slideshow: Japanese book jackets. via
posted on Feb 24, 2008 - View this thread

Prisoner 547 is a Rabbit in prison. He shares a cell with another Rabbit, a Frog and a Chicken. It is visiting day. In Japanese. One episode of many.
posted on Jan 8, 2008 - View this thread

Rule No. 1: Two bugs to a fight. Rule No. 2: Bug fights go on as long as they have to. Rule No. 3: No outside weapons in bug fights.
posted on Jan 5, 2008 - View this thread

Railway TV. Live video from the front of a train in Japan.
posted on Dec 10, 2007 - View this thread

All About My Dog - Marimo
posted on Dec 9, 2007 - View this thread

From aquarium toilets to sself-cleaning toilets to intelligent toilets and musical multi-buttoned Japenese toilets, toilet technology has come a long way, baby.
posted on Dec 6, 2007 - View this thread

Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs (1867).
posted on Dec 5, 2007 - View this thread

Child-bearing machines, net café refugees and bottom-biting bugs: Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2007.
posted on Nov 19, 2007 - View this thread

Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema - David Bordwell
posted on Oct 16, 2007 - View this thread

Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema - David Bordwell
posted on Oct 16, 2007 - View this thread

The challenge, take the usb drive to new levels, you may have seen the mimobot usb drives, pretty hip but perhaps only Japanese-influenced since manufacturer Mimico is Boston based. The true Japanese usb style is undeniably unbalanced, por ejemplo: The USB Chameleon (video), the Self-destruction USB hub (video), the USB motorcycle engine hub (video), and no movie here but you will be happy to know that the Kore Janai robot USB drive is the "perfect cool toy" with the uncool appearance. Full context found here
posted on Oct 15, 2007 - View this thread

Tips for expressing gender in Japanese. Or, how to avoid becoming a "gaijin peto". Plus: obligatory wikage.
posted on Sep 17, 2007 - View this thread

Is there anything Japanese sailors won't have sex with? [via]
posted on Aug 30, 2007 - View this thread

Single Japanese Male. Rather than yammering in Meta about what "best of the web" means, let's have an object-lesson in astonishing obscure excellence. Introducing every last one of you to the Virtual Wilbye Consort.
posted on Aug 4, 2007 - View this thread

The Japanese Trailer to Kokoro Scan. Japanese game trailers always seem pretty interesting and fun. And, well, most often more-or-less nonsensical. This is for the new game Kokoro Scan, which, um, looks like it might be a dating sim of some sort? Maybe? The animation and segues are pretty interesting, and, though it's 6 minutes -- awfully long for a trailer, particularly one sans any gameplay (I think) -- it's interesting/off-the-wall enough to be engaging. What do cartoon nipples, pixellated white things and bananas have in common? (via)
posted on Aug 3, 2007 - View this thread

OH! DANGO! JAM Incredible little Japanese game, Tamagotchi + Pokemon + awesome music = great happy fun time. Z is attack, X is magic, C is defend, and spacebar is special move. Don't forget to save often using end -> data regist. [via]
posted on Jul 25, 2007 - View this thread

Kiiiiiii for any occasion, or just for fun! Kiiiiiii, that's K & 7i's, is a Japanese girl duo whose sound has been described as "Noise Pop" and "Experimental Fun Music." They've made a couple of bizarre music videos, played concerts in Japan and America over the last seven years, and now have an album and a live DVD. Listen to more on their myspace page, grab an .mp3 and read the history, and try to download 5 .mp3s from their site.
posted on Jul 24, 2007 - View this thread

"Pimp my rice paddy." Crop art for aliens, instead of by them.
posted on Jul 20, 2007 - View this thread

Rose and Camellia. Flash Friday. It's in Japanese, so I don't know which girl is Rose and which is Camellia. But I do know this -- they resolve their problems by slapping each other. Instructions are in Japanese as well, but it's pretty simple: Click "attack" and run your mouse over your opponent's face to slap, click "evasion" and run your mouse over yourself to dodge a slap.
posted on Jul 20, 2007 - View this thread

So you want to learn Japanese . . . (Also, a more serious look at the question from a 2005 AskMe)
posted on Jul 10, 2007 - View this thread

The true story of Yamamoto Otokichi (or John Matthew Ottoson, a transliteration of "Oto-san"): a Japanese seaman who in 1832 got caught in a storm off the coast of Japan and ended up floating all the way across the Pacific, becoming the first Japanese (documented, at least) in North America. And that's only the introduction to his story. To get back to Japan he traveled around the world, setting many firsts for a Japanese native, and played a part as the inspiration for Commodore Matthew Perry and his "Black Ships." Although barely a footnote in history, in 2005 half of his ashes were brought back to Japan to rest in home soil.
posted on Jul 4, 2007 - View this thread

Emile Hirsch plays the title character. Christina Ricci is Trixie. John Goodman is Pops, Susan Sarandon is Mom. And Matthew Fox plays Racer X. The Wachowski brothers are directing. Hollywood screws with yet another happy childhood memory.
posted on Jun 4, 2007 - View this thread

Kuroko, Japanese performance art: Why is my girlfriend mad at me?
posted on May 27, 2007 - View this thread

Joe Is Japanese So far all there is are some Myspace profiles and a nifty teaser but I'll be darned if this doesn't look five shades of awesome. Desperate for more information? DeviantArt account of one of the animators.
posted on May 21, 2007 - View this thread

Huge gently floating bombs made their way across the pacific below balloons using the high altitude jet streams floated to the Americas during WWII. Kept secret for most of the war, you can read about their amazing history here.
posted on May 6, 2007 - View this thread

If you thought Toyama Koichi's campaign speech was interesting, you may also find the 2004 House of Councilors campaign speech by Matayoshi Mitsuo, or, as he calls himself, Matayoshi Jesus, interesting.
posted on Apr 17, 2007 - View this thread

"Paths are made by walking" as these artists prove by walking in the park for five days. Other projects include knitting a sweater for a giraffe, slowing down a shooting star (to allow for a lengthy wish), sprouting a seed in their hands, globes drawn by memory, and more.
posted on Apr 16, 2007 - View this thread

Ukiyo-e, a collection of dreamy, mostly charming, flash animations of Edo period Japanese paintings. Pictures of the floating world (everyday life) by Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro. Encyclopedic list of floating world images on the web. Hokusai sketches in flash. [related]
posted on Apr 7, 2007 - View this thread

Comedy duo, Ramenz (ラーメンズ), aka Kobayashi Kentaro and Katagiri Jin, also known as the Japanese versions of Mac and PC, have recently done a number of shorts collectively called "The Japanese Tradition." Apparently, these tongue-in-cheek pseudo-instructional vids about famous aspects of Japanese culture (Tea, Chopsticks, Sushi, Origami, Apology, Onigiri, and Relationships) have been fooling a lot of non-natives into thinking they are actual guides. (YouTube, each approx 4-6 min).
posted on Mar 29, 2007 - View this thread

(Not So) Fun Flash Friday: "The Great Adventure in Getting Killed". Z to shoot, X to jump, R to retry (you'll mostly be using the last one).
posted on Mar 2, 2007 - View this thread

An illustrated edition of the Ise Monogatari (Wikipedia, review of translation). Yeah, yeah, it's in Japanese, but just keep hitting the forward button (the leftmost of the two on the right, red/brown rather than blue/green) and you'll find lots of pretty pictures. I can't improve on the descriptions by Matt of No-sword, where I found it, so I'll just quote him: "Behold our hero maxin' and relaxin' at his writing-desk, looking like he just got hired as a middle manager at his dad's lighter-flint concern! Thrill to the famous scene where he is visited by the Pineapple of Golden Week Past! Laugh as he is mistaken for a member of Aerosmith! Wonder why everyone is just sitting around smiling contentedly when the building is obviously on fire!"
posted on Feb 27, 2007 - View this thread

Yoshiro Nakamatsu aka Dr. NakaMats has invented everything, other than all the other stuff that the rest of us have invented. He has 3218 patents to his name. (Edison had 1093.) Among his many inventions? The compact disc, the compact disc player ('natch), the digital watch, a unique golf putter, the floppy disk (!), and a water-powered engine. Besides being the founder of the World Genius Convention (where the world first learned of ingenuity of ADR ceramic disks, for instance), Dr. NakaMats was voted by the US Science Academic Society as one of five greatest scientists in history - in the company of Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Marie Curie, and Nikola Tesla - and he plans to live until 144!
posted on Feb 23, 2007 - View this thread

28-year-old Tomomi Kunishige has created a new form of Japanese calligraphy, dubbed Eikanji (literally 'english kanji'), which uses the Roman alphabet to represent Japanese characters. Even if you don't study Japanese her calligraphy is still worth admiring, though it must be said that some of the paintings involve a fairly relaxed usage. (taken from Mainichi Daily News)
posted on Jan 31, 2007 - View this thread

Karakuri automata are representative of the highest technology in the Edo period (1603 to 1867). Automata were also crafted hundreds of years ago in Europe: The Dulcimer Player by Pierre Kintzing , made in 1772; The Singing Lesson, created by Robert-Houdin; three androids by Jaquet-Droz; the Pooping Duck by Vaucanson (the first link at the top). Ancient robots. The first automaton was created by Al-Jazari: video of his clock. The history of automata [pdf]. Contemporary toy automata. [more inside]
posted on Jan 14, 2007 - View this thread

Japanese Spider-Man seen here before, but this time he seems to be protected by a bandito type sporting a machine-gun guitar (but sadly, not one of these).
posted on Dec 4, 2006 - View this thread

Welcom to Kushami Room.
posted on Nov 7, 2006 - View this thread

Japanese Pink Movies, and posters. [nudity]
posted on Oct 25, 2006 - View this thread

Japanese Ant Database Group.
posted on Oct 15, 2006 - View this thread

Totems. It's in japanese, but the point of the game is to click the little guys before they go away. (flash friday)
posted on Oct 13, 2006 - View this thread

Geiko of Kyoto is a stunning photo gallery of Kyotos's Geisha - both the mature Geiko and the apprentice Maiko. Melissa Chasse annotates many photos with fascinating details and offers an account of her tea party with Mamechika, a lovely Maiko. For more, this lovely Geisha site offers a brief history from the era of the floating world, more photos, Ukiyo-e art, and links. Also see y2karls' prior definitive post on ukiyo-e.
posted on Sep 23, 2006 - View this thread

Japanese Surf Versions of Classical Themes
posted on Sep 11, 2006 - View this thread

Vintage Drug Ads, Spanish Drug Ads, Japanese Psychiatric Drug Ads
posted on Sep 10, 2006 - View this thread

Delaware 7+h Album and 5+h Exhibi+ion: Too Slow to Live Experimental -- ha, excuse me, experimen+al ar+ and visuals by JAPAnese LUNA+ics DELAware. What made me bring this to your attention? Two delicious bites, Monte Blanc and Walk, Don't Learn. The entire album is available to download if you've become enamored or are generally adventurous. [Flash, Audio, embedded gifs, generally odd]
posted on Sep 5, 2006 - View this thread

Who needs boots when you can have steel-toed tabi? An overview of Japanese worker clothing.
posted on Aug 15, 2006 - View this thread

Rangaku (literally "Dutch Learning") refers to the body of knowledge developed in Japan during the Sakoku period (1641-1853) during which the country was closed to foreigners. As the Dutch trading post at Dejima was effectively an enclave of the Netherlands, for 212 years it was just about Japan's only way to keep tabs on European scientific progress (pdf). Rangaku has influenced Japanese medicine, anatomy, engineering, meteorology, and chemistry, among other fields.
posted on Aug 3, 2006 - View this thread