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nendo creates designer Valentine’s Day chocolate for BbyB.
Christmas and New Year are over, so it’s already time to look towards the next big public (and commercial) holiday: Valentine’s Day. Regular readers will know that February 14th in Japan is a bit...
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Roamcouch transforms rural Japanese riverside warehouse with Venetian mural
After American street artist DAAS stunned us with his vibrant burial mound-inspired mural in Takatsuki, here’s another example of superb recent street art in Japan. While a lot of great street art can...
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Star Wars 3D Rubik’s Cube BB-8 awakens force of puzzle-solving
Everywhere around the globe has been going Star Wars crazy due to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This is especially the case in Japan, though, which saw an array of merchandise and...
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Taboo-breaking shunga exhibition hits Kyoto this spring
The surprise smash hit event of 2015 in Tokyo was the Shunga Exhibition, the first such large-scale public showing of erotic prints in Japan. 200,000 people packed the tiny Eisei Bunko Museum over the...
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Moff Band wearable smart toy transforms Pac-Man
Moff is based in Tokyo but has its sights firmly on the global market. Its wearable smart toy Moff Band was released internationally after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. Now it has...
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Decoding Canned Coffee in Japan
If you’ve been to Japan you’ve seen them: Brightly lit vending machines with rows of beverages lined up, each facing the passerby and beckoning to be sampled. Maybe you’ve noticed the coffee options as...
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Boroichi Market: Weird, Wacky and Wonderful
This article by Adriana Mazza first appeared on Tokyo Cheapo. Photo by Adriana Mazza Boroichi Market: Intangible Folk Cultural Asset There’s something pretty magical about an intangible folk cultural...
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Upskirt Umbrella offers private view of anime girl’s panties, but what does...
Okay, Wacky Japan alert… but this is quite fun, in a very cheeky way, and also might just be worthy of closer investigation. After all, here is a product that will not only turn heads, it might even...
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Hana Tajima, the Muslim British-Japanese designer working with UNIQLO to...
Half British, half Japanese. That alone would set Hana Tajima apart from most, but she is also a Muslim convert (at the age of 17) and a fashion designer and blogger. Tajima has teamed up fast fashion...
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Kengo Kuma denies Zaha Hadid’s allegations of Olympic stadium plagiarism
The controversy over the new National Stadium to be built for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics rolls on and on. After Kengo Kuma’s design was chosen in the second contest that became necessary when Zaha Hadid’s...
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Gatebox hologram communication robot showcases future of spouse-free smart homes
Gatebox is a “hologram communication robot” that integrates with a smart home. Developed by Japan’s Vinclu Inc and apparently the first of its kind, Gatebox can converse with you, turn on appliances,...
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Kanagawa Prefecture promotes female empowerment with all-male campaign
Woman Act is a slightly awkwardly named Kanagawa Prefecture initiative aimed at bringing “women more and more into the main role”. A worthy cause, we would all agree, in Japan’s acutely patriarchal...
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Equal Wedding Japan: Traditional marriage services for same-sex couples in Japan
While Japanese TV and history is filled with many people we would likely label LGBT, the issue of same-sex marriage in Japan has been almost taboo until recently. However, following the decisions by...
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Dragon Quest Builders turns Shinjuku Station wall into removable blocks mural
Just under a year ago, Shinjuku Station was taken over by 100,000 “pop-able” bubbles as a promo for the PlayStation game Dragon Quest. Once again Dragon Quest will be hijacking the same underground...
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Rio de Janeiro Olympics handover ceremony team includes pop star Ringo Sheena
Later this year, the Rio de Janeiro Olympic and Paralympic Games kick off. After they are finished, the handover event during the Rio closing ceremony will then see the clock really start ticking down...
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Tokyo’s first airport-style duty free store opens in Ginza Mitsukoshi
Ginza Mitsukoshi has opened the first airport-style duty-free store in Japan. The only place in Japan that has previously been allowed to host such retail facilities outside of airports is Okinawa,...
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Will 2016 see the return of Japanese horror movies?
Are we about to witness a revival of the J-horror film genre? Local horror films experienced a boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Starting with the 1998 release of Ringu, a raft of small but...
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Rating Convenience Store Coffee in Japan
If Tokyo has one enduring image abroad it’s that everyone and everything is rushing. In the mornings, high-heeled women in skirt-suits can be seen running down the sidewalk towards the train stations....
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Behind the Cove: Japanese documentary challenges anti-dolphin drive film
A new film has been released in Japan challenging the anti-whaling and dolphin-hunting attitudes of foreign activists and filmmakers. Directed by Keiko Yagi, Behind the Cove purports to show the truth...
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We tried McDonald’s new chocolate-covered french fries, McChoco
Recently McDonald’s Japan released a new menu item that is simultaneously surprising and intriguing both the populous in Japan and abroad: Chocolate-drizzled french fries. If you’re anything like me...
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