Morisawa Fontpark : View or create amazing art with Japanese characters.
posted by rollbiz on Jun 8, 2009 - 4 comments

Really interesting photography by Tokyo artist Daikichi Amano, who claims to be the reincarnation of Katsushika Hokusai.
posted by seabel on Jun 1, 2009 - 35 comments

The Incredible Hulk, as told by Koike Kazuo, of Lone Wolf and Cub fame, and Yoshihiro Morifuji. More scans here.
posted by Artw on May 27, 2009 - 16 comments

Japanese Balloon Bombs — "In 1944, during World War II, Japan launched a top secret project, nearly two years in the making, to send thousands of "balloon bombs" (called Fu-Go Weapons) to the United States. The goal of the attack was to create panic, forest fires, and show the United States that it could be attacked from afar. Each of the more than 9,000 balloon bombs launched towards the United States, over the course of several months, carried a 15 kilogram bomb that would detach from the balloon and explode on impact with the ground." On a Wind and a Prayer. [more inside]
posted by netbros on May 2, 2009 - 39 comments

Cooking with Dog is a fantastic Japanese cooking show on YouTube - but don't worry, they don't actually cook dogs. It's just that in Japan, an internet cooking show comprised of short videos of simple Japanese recipes just wouldn't be interesting unless it was narrated by a talking poodle. Katsudon / Oden / Gyudon
posted by billysumday on Apr 12, 2009 - 26 comments

Nihongodict is an AJAXy online Japanese-English dictionary. The list of matches auto-updates as you type. You can enter (or paste in) romaji, Kanji or kana, and use character maps for hiragana and katakana. Results can be bookmarked. [more inside]
posted by kurumi on Mar 26, 2009 - 36 comments

29 year old Hiromi Uehara first mesmerized the jazz community with her 2003 Telarc debut, Another Mind. 4 albums later she continues to astonish and inspire. On February 3rd, she released the album Duet, a collaboration with Chick Corea, having first played with Corea at age 17. A graduate of the Berklee School of Music, Hiromi tours relentlessly with her crack band. I defy your jaw not to drop at their performances here, here, and here. [more inside]
posted by Roach on Feb 24, 2009 - 85 comments

Dancing Japanese Street Gangs - mov
posted by You Should See the Other Guy on Feb 20, 2009 - 12 comments

Please enjoy the stone sculptures of Hirotoshi Itoh
posted by boo_radley on Jan 17, 2009 - 14 comments

Gamarjobat: well-dressed, colored-mohawk-wearing Japanese mime-magic-comedy duo. They may even fight crime, too. 1, 2, 3, 4
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing on Jan 12, 2009 - 9 comments

Novels written on cellphones are dominating the Japanese book market.
posted by theroadahead on Jan 7, 2009 - 35 comments

Kure Kure Takora was a Toho produced, short form children's television show from the Japan in the early 1970's. Meet the Cast: Kure Kure Takora, aka Gimme Gimme Octopus; his closest friend, the coin vomiting squash Chonbo; jellyfish bully Tororo; Monro, the sexy walrus who gets around; Debura,the grizzled and world-weary badger; Biragon, lazy trust-fund iguana; and last but not least, the picked on, Sea Cucumber Gang. An exhaustive listing of videos for all 220 episodes, most with plot breakdowns. [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall on Jan 5, 2009 - 18 comments

Phase — Mother Earth, a piece created by Mono-ha artist Nobuo Sekine in 1968, has been re-created:

Consisting of a hole dug into the ground, 2.7 metres deep and 2.2 metres in diameter, with the excavated earth compacted into a cylinder of exactly the same dimensions, Phase — Mother Earth was instrumental in the early development of work by the Mono-ha artist group, and has been considered a landmark work in Japanese postwar art history.

Gizmine - "the world's largest Japanese gadgets and lifestyle design shop." Viewable by color, theme, price, popularity, or brand.
posted by Manhasset on Nov 26, 2008 - 11 comments

"There's something very shabby about a noble grave... Political power and the power of wealth result in splendid graves. Really impressive graves, you know. Such creatures never had any imagination while they lived, and quite naturally their graves don't leave any room for imagination either. But noble people live only on the imaginations of themselves and others, and so they leave graves like this one which inevitably stir one's imagination. And this I find even more wretched. Such people, you see, are obliged even after they are dead to continue begging people to use their power of imagination." - Yukio Mishima via Kashiwagi in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. On this, the anniversary of Mishima's transformation into a headless god, a collection of video links. [more inside]
posted by eccnineten on Nov 25, 2008 - 11 comments

In a series of sixteen advertisements screened in Japan, Tommy Lee Jones plays extraterrestrial 'Alien Jones', who has taken the form of a man to check on the world of humans, all the while drinking a Japanese brand of coffee named BOSS. I have no idea how Tommy Lee Jones got talked into doing these advertisements, or why. And after watching them for yourself (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16), you probably won't either.
posted by Effigy2000 on Nov 23, 2008 - 85 comments

A well designed Japanese video about food security
posted by oxford blue on Nov 16, 2008 - 44 comments

The Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari) is a medieval Japanese account of the rise and fall of the Taira clan and has inspired many other works of art. Click on the chapters and scroll down to see Heike illustrations (or start here), see more art or figures inspired by the Heike. Would you rather read? [more inside]
posted by ersatz on Nov 16, 2008 - 10 comments

Meet Chikan. He likes to touch young women in the crowded subway of Tokyo. Meet Chikan, Otaku, Pachinko, Yopparai Salaryman, and yes, even Geisha at 51 Japanese Characters. [more inside]
posted by redsparkler on Nov 15, 2008 - 30 comments

At One Minute Languages you can learn greetings, talking about names, counting, and more in Catalan, Danish, French, German, Irish, Japanese, Luxembourgish, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, and Russian.
posted by sveskemus on Nov 11, 2008 - 26 comments

Perfume, a three-girl Japanese technopop sensation formed in 2001 now consisting of Nocchi, Kashikuya and A~chan, is about to release their ninth single, "Dream Fighter". Perfume's July 2008 single "Love the World" was the first technopop song ever to debut at #1 on the Oricon sales chart. The previous highest debut for techno was Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Kimi ni, Munekyun" 25 years ago in 1983. (original article citing #1 record translated via Google translator) [more inside]
posted by Unicorn on the cob on Nov 7, 2008 - 61 comments

A blog about Japanese photography seen from abroad. [more inside]
posted by chunking express on Nov 3, 2008 - 2 comments

Japanese Cat Weightlifting (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by essexjan on Oct 5, 2008 - 41 comments

Scatman + Ultraman = ScatUltraman!
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Oct 1, 2008 - 27 comments

Puzzled by sugary J-Pop bands and their eccentric (and failed) TV shows? Frustrated and confused by the complexity of Japanese and want to see what your inchoate blustering looks like from the other side? Then join "perennially unpopular" gaijin celebrity Thane Camus (grand-nephew of Albert Camus), as he walks a class of fellow pop star clichés through an endearingly awkward English conversation class.
posted by Rhaomi on Aug 21, 2008 - 22 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by Pater Aletheias on Jul 15, 2008 - 30 comments

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 by Kattullus on Jul 10, 2008 - 18 comments

The Japanese master intercultural stereotyping. Is it racist when non-whites do blackface?
posted by parmanparman on May 25, 2008 - 71 comments

Smoke on the Water and We Will Rock You -- the traditional Japanese versions.
posted by flatluigi on Mar 26, 2008 - 22 comments

How obedient is your dog? Or chimp.
posted by spec80 on Mar 13, 2008 - 26 comments

Slideshow: Japanese book jackets. via
posted by vronsky on Feb 24, 2008 - 5 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall on Jan 8, 2008 - 23 comments

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 by Cool Papa Bell on Jan 5, 2008 - 185 comments

Railway TV. Live video from the front of a train in Japan. [more inside]
posted by brownpau on Dec 10, 2007 - 14 comments

All About My Dog - Marimo
posted by brett on Dec 9, 2007 - 23 comments

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 by christonabike on Dec 6, 2007 - 11 comments

Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs (1867).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 5, 2007 - 11 comments

Child-bearing machines, net café refugees and bottom-biting bugs: Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2007.
posted by mediareport on Nov 19, 2007 - 16 comments

Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema - David Bordwell
posted by hama7 on Oct 16, 2007 - 9 comments

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 by jeremias on Oct 15, 2007 - 5 comments

Tips for expressing gender in Japanese. Or, how to avoid becoming a "gaijin peto". Plus: obligatory wikage.
posted by Laugh_track on Sep 17, 2007 - 76 comments

Is there anything Japanese sailors won't have sex with? [via]
posted by absalom on Aug 30, 2007 - 95 comments

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 by jfuller on Aug 4, 2007 - 19 comments

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 by Rev. Syung Myung Me on Aug 3, 2007 - 13 comments

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 by knowles on Jul 25, 2007 - 13 comments

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 by CrunchyFrog on Jul 24, 2007 - 22 comments

"Pimp my rice paddy." Crop art for aliens, instead of by them.
posted by dersins on Jul 20, 2007 - 24 comments

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 by Astro Zombie on Jul 20, 2007 - 16 comments

So you want to learn Japanese . . . (Also, a more serious look at the question from a 2005 AskMe)
posted by spock on Jul 10, 2007 - 49 comments

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 by switchsonic on Jul 4, 2007 - 20 comments