MetaFilter posts tagged with japan

Pants Pankuro: Toilet training in Japan

PeterMcDermott — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:05:49 -0800

Toilet training isn't quite so easy in Japan. There's squat toilets and western style to consider. Then there are the talking toilets, and toilets that act as electronic bidets. It's no wonder then, that Japanese kids need more than a few hints from mum to master lavatorial etiquette. Meet Pants Pankuro and his friends, in their efforts to master the strange world of the Japanese toilet. Mind you, Pants doesn't have the market all to himself. He's got opposition in the form of Shimajiru, but for my money, the tiger's work just isn't a patch on that of Mr. Pankuro.

Not a Halloween Post.

gman — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:46:13 -0800

The Maskatorium: hundreds of masks collected from around the world over the past 20 years.

Anatomy of Japanese folk monsters

brundlefly — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:12:01 -0800

Yōkai Daizukai is an illustrated guide to yōkai authored by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki. Via NOTCOT.org, via Sprayblog. Previously, the anatomy of kaiju.

Oldest Family Run Business

somnambulist — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:47:03 -0800

So how long have you been running your business? The Houshi Onsen in Komatsu, Japan. About a 2.5 hour train ride north from Kyoto is the Houshi Onsen complex was founded in 718. The legend states that the god of Mount Hakusan visited a Buddhist priest and told him to uncover an underground hot spring in a nearby village. He found the hot spring and asked his disciple, a woodcutter’s son named Gengoro Sasakiri, to build and operate a spa on the site. His family has run a hotel in Komatsu ever since. The structure houses 450 people in 100 rooms. For generations, Houshi proprietors have borne the name Zengoro Houshi. The current proprietor is the 46th Zengoro!

The Three Human Bombs

XMLicious — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:19:53 -0800

The scene was the siege of Shanghai, the year 1932. It was more than half a year since the Mukden Incident had provided a pretext for Japan to invade Manchuria and begin moving down through Northern China. Three Imperial Japanese soldiers from an engineering division died in a bomb blast that took out a section of the Chinese fortifications, allowing Japanese forces to surge through the breach and advance. The fallen soldiers became known as the "Three Human Bombs" (Bakudan Sanyushi / 爆弾三勇士). Memorials were built and murals were painted and the Three Human Bombs were remembered as gallant and selfless heroes who gave their lives for the greater good of Japan, lauded on stage, in film, and in song. A military medal was created to award heroism in honor of the three. Problem is, it was all a lie. The story of the Three Human Bombs was one of the most successful propaganda campaigns of the early twentieth century.

Shūji Terayama

vronsky — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:08:11 -0800

Three short films from avant-garde director Shūji Terayama -- The Cage ll Emperor Tomato Ketchup (NSFW) ll Labyrinth Tale + this 6 min. clip from Pastoral: To Die in the Country

Vintage Japanese Matchbox Labels

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:21:17 -0800

Japanese Matchbox Labels is a fine collection (flickr set) of wonderful vintage eye candy from the Japan of the 1920s through the 1940s. And while I'm here, let me just tack on another flickr set: Vintage Japan Graphics. Altogether different from the matchbook stuff, but fun. And BTW, if the main link looks familiar to you, and you're thinking "DOUBLE!", it's probably this FPP from 2006 posted by jonson (I miss jonson), from the same flickr user, maraid.

Immigration or Robots?

Extopalopaketle — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:50:53 -0800

Japan is facing a demographic crisis that will shrink the population dramatically. The Japanese aren't having babies, and the country won't accept immigrants to help bolster the population. Japan: Robot Nation looks at a uniquely Japanese solution. Cheat: Robots come in at the 15 minute mark.

U900

vronsky — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:02:27 -0800

Usagino U (ukulele, lead vocal) and Kumano 900 (ukulele, pianica, theremin, bongos) play American surf rock in Japan -- Isogabamaware ll Diamond Head ll Crazy G

Lunar Jamming

Korou — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:28:13 -0800

Moon Music: moonbell generates sounds based on lunar topography. (via) Topographical data is from Japan's recent KAGUYA explorer. Here's a short guide for the generator.

Japan's Media Environment

armage — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:21:13 -0800

Japan -- Media Environment Open; State Looms Large (August 2009, PDF) A detailed, 67-page overview and analysis of Japan's traditional and new media environment published by the Open Source Center, an office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Japan's New Day

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 08:03:41 -0800

Japan's opposition party, The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is projected to win a landslide victory tomorrow, ending the 52-year reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Furthermore, according to a survey conducted by the popular Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the DPJ could win a two-thirds majority, enabling them to roll legislation through the Diet unabated. Despite the projections, the two parties are still battling hard. Washington is following these elections very closely, because of the man who could be the next prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama. In an op-ed piece for the New York Times, Hatoyama criticizes US economic and foreign policy, and says that while "the Japan-U.S. security pact will continue to be the cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy", that "we must continue to build frameworks for stable economic cooperation and security across the [East Asian] region", including the development of a single pan-Asian currency. In addition, Hatoyama has been vocal about his opposition to public officials visiting Yasukuni Jinja, a Shinto shrine honoring fallen Japanese soldiers, including numerous war criminals - a move that could smooth relations with China and Korea. Gerald Curtis, a Japanese politics expert who teaches at Columbia University, sums up the sea change within the Japanese electorate thusly: "The DPJ will almost certainly win the majority — without a coalition partner. This is a huge, huge change. ... The public was waiting for a chance to show their dissatisfaction, which is why they had no election, because [Shinzo] Abe, [Yasuo] Fukuda and Aso knew that they would lose. So, they put it off until the very last moment. And lo and behold, they're going to lose."

Hand-built bullet trains, made-to-order

armage — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:08:51 -0800

Yamashita Kogyosho (jp) is a small manufacturer of about 30 people based in Kudamatsu, a city in Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan. Like many small urban factories (so-called "machikoba"), they specialize in precision metalwork under contract to major corporations. But Yamashita Kogyosho is special: they create the noses for bullet trains. By hand. (relevant scenes begin at 2:54 in the video above) Kiyoto Yamashita, the founder, began by hammering out the nose cones for the original 0 Series Shinkansen in 1963 for Hitachi. Yamashita Kogyosho craftsmen have since created the noses for the N700 Series and 500 Series Shinkansen, the Taiwan High Speed 700T Train, and the 500 kmh experimental maglev train, among others. Today, the man in charge of actually crafting these nose cones is Jiro Kunimura. Using sheets of aluminum only a few millimeters thick, it takes him approximately three or four weeks to complete one 15 meter-long nose, and he and his team can produce up to 20 per year. Yamashita and his company were recognized in 2007 by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry with the Monodzukuri Nippon Grand Award, which recognizes unique contributions to Japanese manufacturing. Monodzukuri (or monozukuri) literally means "the making of things," but in Japan refers to an entire way of thinking about manufacturing and the economy. However, the company's chief concern isn't orders -- they have enough for the next three years -- but rather passing on these unique skills to the next generation. It takes ten years to master the technique and only constant practice makes perfect. Interested? They're recruiting.

We go from the ground to the mountain, baby! Without walking!

wintersweet — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:29:37 -0800

The funicular railway is a kind of cable-based railway that gives me great joy because of its peculiar shape and its uselessness for doing anything other than what it does. A funicular carriage is generally stairstepped or terraced, so you can't repurpose these cars for other uses. They generally work in a particular way, too, as pairs: one goes up the mountain, one comes down the mountain! Maybe this kind of glee is why they seem to be especially popular in Japan today, where they can be taken to many popular sightseeing areas--but a fair number of funicular railway riders are probably there for the journey, not the destination. You can go on a pilgrimage to the numinous group of peaks called Kōyasan (here's a video of the trip there) via the Kōyasan Cable, which even accepts payment by smart card. You can take the Mitake Tozan Mountain Railway not too far from Tokyo and do some fine hiking in the Chichibu Tama Kai National Park (video trip). In the famous sightseeing region of Hakone, you can start your journey on the modern-looking Hakone Tozan Cable Car, defying the generally old-fashioned vibe (you complete your trip up to Lake Ashi on a ropeway, and once you get to the lake you can hop on a replica of the HMS Victory or 17th-century French warship Soleil Royal no I am not even kidding). Then there's the Kintetsu Ikoma Cable Line. The dog car, named Bull, and the cat car, named Mike, are on the Hōzanji line to the Buddhist temple Hōzanji. (Another Flickr user notes that some people use these trains as part of their normal commute.) The music-themed Do-Re-Mi car and the cake-themed Sweet car go to the amusement park Skyland Ikoma on the Ikoma line. Compared to these four, the two cars on Hōzanji Line 2 look positively normal. There are probably a couple dozen funiculars in Japan, so...more where those came from! (They even have cool looking tickets--more here.) In the videos above you can see the "passing track" style, where a single track is used for most of the course but there's a kind of "mouth" area where the two cars pass each other on two tracks. Other systems may use parallel tracks. For zillions more strangely hypnotic Japanese funicular railway videos, see this Youtube search results page. (Yes, those katakana spell "cable car", basically. Although they're two somewhat different things in English, they're the same thing in Japanese. There's a note about this on the Japanese Wikipedia entry, and another link is provided for San Francisco cable car seekers.) There's not enough space to address funiculars all over the world, but I'll add a few general notes: The name comes from Latin for "rope." Many of the now-closed ones in the US (where they're often called inclines or incline railroads) and elsewhere were used to get into mines, but they've also been used to move ships. The steepest passenger railway in the world, the Katoomba Scenic Railway in Blue Mountains, Australia, is a funicular railway, as is supposedly-the-shortest and supposedly-soon-to-return-to-operation, Angels Flight in Los Angeles, USA. There's also a funicular that may be the oldest railway in the world, the Reiszug in Austria, which dates to the 1500s and is now run by motor--a lot older than this 1920s one from Japan! They're found in many other places in the world. There are many in South America (most notably Valparaiso, Chile), some in other parts of Asia (though not Korea for some reason, as far as I can tell), and particularly in Switzerland, Italy, and other hilly and mountainous areas of Europe, where Michel has blogged his photos for you. Apparently they were pretty popular in the Soviet Union, too. For details on how they operate, you can read the nitty-gritty of funicular function at the Sweden-based funiculars.net. You may even know a song about funiculars! The 1880 song "Funiculì, Funiculà," is about the opening of the funicular on Mount Vesuvius (no, really!) which had to be shut down in 1944 after repeated eruptions caused problems. And yes, that's where the headline on this post comes from. Here, for no apparent reason, is a children's chorus, Luciano Pavarotti, and Aqua (yes, THAT Aqua) performing "Funiculì, Funiculà."

Everyone needs a hug.

Liver — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:30:47 -0800

In which a chimpanzee is shown reacting to sleight-of-hand on a Japanese television show. [SLYT. Overuse of sound effects.]

Greatest Tree House Ever!

vronsky — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:22:22 -0800

Who has the greatest tree house ever? Architect Teru nobu Fuji mori in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Or Jacob, from Nowheresville, USA?

Reverse Engrish

wendell — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:54:00 -0800

Ronald McDonald is so-o-o last year. The new McDonalds mascot in Japan is "Mr. James", a nerdy white guy from Ohio who speaks broken Japanese in the new ads for their "Nippon All Stars" sandwiches. Here's his blog (copyright McDonalds), translated by Google. FRANCA (Foreign Residents And Nationalized Citizens Association) want MickeyD's to dump him. Those Wacky Japanese!

Techno Pop Triple Play

SansPoint — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:38:33 -0800

Three Japanese Techno-Pop Bands rock it back-to-back-to-back on a kid's show. [SLYT]. The bands, in order, are P-Model, Hikashu, and Plastics. You're welcome.

Excuse me, may I have some directions? Certainly sir, step right this way!

woodblock100 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:15:22 -0800

The 'problem'? A perceived spate of recent knife crime in Japan:

The 'solution'? Revise the 'Firearm and Sword Control Law' to ban possession of daggers and other double-edged knives with blades 5.5 cm or longer.

The 'result'? Pocket knife lands tourist, 74, in lockup, with nine days in a holding cell. Two other American tourists were arrested that same day at the same koban (police box) ...

The state of high-speed rail, August 2009

acb — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:12:59 -0800

The Guardian ran a series of articles looking at the state of high-speed rail travel today. France intends to double its length of track over the next decade, and China is planning a massive rail-building programme, including a high-speed line which will halve the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai to 4 hours. In Germany, domestic air travel is rapidly going extinct, and Spain's network has made day trips between Madrid and Barcelona a possibility. The USA, which has long neglected its rail network, is planning up to 10 high-speed lines. Meanwhile, Britain's only high-speed line goes to France, but there is talk of a 250mph line from London to Birmingham and beyond, possibly by the early 2020s. Meanwhile, the CEO of France's rail operator, SNCF, weighs in on what the UK should do.

Alright! Let's go on a journey — through time and space! There are 95 Pokemon stamps! Let's get all of them!

silby — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:08:37 -0800

"And much like Christmas, originally about the birth of a religious savior-figure named Jesus, is now about buying things for people and hoping that they buy more things for you, much how Easter, originally about the death of a religious savior-figure named Jesus, is now about receiving rabbit- or egg-shaped chocolates, now and forever Obon is about collecting all of the Pokemon." Japan, trains, marketing, pachinko, hordes of stamp-seeking children.

Inside a bloody cultural tradition.

kanuck — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:49:49 -0800

TV star. Amusement park attraction. Mine sweeper. Stew meat. Funded by SGI & Netscape founder James Clark, award-winning documentary The Cove goes undercover for an inside look at the brutal slaughter of dolphins in the Japanese town of Taiji. Previously.

Please Call Me Hararie

netbros — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:54:40 -0800

Japanese Element Symbols is an introduction for non-Japanese to the Japanese language through Kanji symbols, its alphabet, elements of Japan's culture, and what to expect on the culinary front.

Crazy Japanese advertisements

reenum — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:30:28 -0800

The makers of Ninja Gaiden 2 have decided on an unorthodox ad campaign. The game is being advertised by two white breasts protruding from a wall facing the street (SLYT). There are predictably funny reactions from passers by. Obviously, this is NSFW.

Happy Science, and the Potential Joining of Church and State in Japan

filthy light thief — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:02:38 -0800

Kōfuku-no-Kagaku (幸福の科学), also called Happy Science, is a relatively new religious and spiritual movement, founded in Japan in October 1986. The organization is gaining ground world-wide, with the international headquarter office in central Tokyo, 6 local temples located in London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seoul and Taiwan, and an additional 37 local offices around the world. The group's leader, Master Ryuho Okawa, has is not limiting the scope of the movement to politics, and in May 2009 the Happiness Realization Party was formed, with over 300 HRP candidates running for the coming general election. To provide background on the religion and political movement, here is a little investigation of Happy Science by MeFi's own shii [via mefi projects] Believers state that Ryuho Okawa attained Great Enlightenment on March 23, 1981 and renounced his business career in the 1980s after being awakened to the hidden part of his consciousness, El Cantare, Eternal Buddha. El Cantare is also known as Elohim, the Supreme God in the Old Testament, and the Mahavairocana Buddha of Mahayana Buddhism. In the United States, Happy Science is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose aim is to achieve true happiness by deepening and widening our love, and to reach a higher level of enlightenment based on the teachings of truth by Master Ryuho Okawa. If you're in New York City, you might see ads for Happy Science lectures, meditations and discussions. On the other hand, this (unscripted?) interview with Sohken Kobayashi (the secretary general of the Happiness Realization Party) displays a group less focused on self-realization and more about the stability of Japan versus the forces of the global economy (Kobayashi explains the party already saved the world financial crisis last year by advising the Japanese Prime Minister to fund $100 billions of dollars to the IMF), and reacting to the threat of the secret nuclear alliance among the North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and China. Along with interviews of this sort are propaganda videos, depicting the potential events of North Korea bombing Japan (English summary of the Japanese video). Bonus bits: Full color pamphlets and books being made for Happy Science Uganda Peak inside a Happy Science building in Japan, who aren't too fond of unauthorized photography Happiness Realization Party posters in Kyoto, being posted by HRP candidate Karube Yoshiteru himself