Random Japan

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 Bring your child’s imagination to life: 3-D printed figures of children’s drawings are awesome!

Preston Phro

3-D printing is bringing us a whole new world of possibilities, from fetus replicas to Link’s adventuring weapons, and while the technology is still in development, it often seems like there’s nothing a MakerBot can’t make out of thin air.

But here’s something you probably had no idea a 3-D printer could do: Bring children’s imaginations to life.

And we don’t mean that in the Disney way either. The Osaka company 3D Remind has started offering a unique service called Rakukuri, which will delight both children and their proud parents by taking children’s scribbles and turning them into actual figures using 3-D printing! Just think how happy your children will be when they see their drawings given form in colorful plaster!

STATS

3,608

Cases of domestic violence reported in Japan in 2001, according to the NPA

43,950

Cases of domestic violence reported in 2012

79

Percent of Japanese people who “have trouble understanding the meaning of frequently used foreign words,” according to a survey by the Cultural Affairs Agency

WELL, THAT EXPLAINS IT

Authorities in Hokkaido are warning that encounters between bears and humans may increase this autumn because “acorns are growing poorly across almost the entire prefecture.”

The TMG suspended the license of a home for mentally handicapped people over a series of abuses against residents, including “kicking, pushing, shoving food into their mouths [and] locking them inside bathrooms.”

Officials at Softbank say a “computer programming error” led them to register 63,133 customer accounts as “delinquent” even though the users were making their payments on time.

The NPA says internet banking scams have reached an all-time high this year-some ¥550 million has been stolen as of the middle of September.

 We are number 105

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Secrets?

  What Secrets?

Japanese Rice Wine

From America and China?

WWII sword returns after 70 years

CHUNICHI SHIMBUN

A “katana” sword confiscated by the U.S. military at the end of the war was recently returned to its owner’s family in Japan.

Miyoko Asai, 85, received the sword on behalf of her late husband, Masaaki, at their home in Seto, Aichi Prefecture, from Paul Ufima, who runs a film production company in Virginia.

Ufima, 37, inherited the sword from his grandfather, a former U.S. Marine officer who passed away 20 years ago. He kept the sword in his basement but began looking for its owner three years ago.