Tag: Japan

MODEL BEHAVIOR?

# Model Sayuri Koda was arrested after she used another model’s credit card to pay for a laser therapy session at a Shibuya cosmetic surgery clinic. Koda apparently pinched the credit card at a photo shoot the two models were on together.

# Actor and television host Shingo Yamashiro, who starred in the popular ’60s children’s drama Hakuba Doji, died from pneumonia at the age of 70. Later in his career, Yamashiro specialized in yakuza-themed films.

# It was reported that a restaurant with branches in Tokyo and Saitama created a fish-chicken-egg rice bowl concoction that the proprietors hoped would help raise voter turnout in the recent general election.

# Kanako Otsuji, a former Osaka Prefectural Assembly member and the first openly lesbian candidate for national office in Japan, presented a same-sex marriage seminar at the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo called, “Is Everyone Normal Now?”

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For the first time since the event began in 2003, Japan took top prize at the World Cosplay Summit, which was held last month in Nagoya. Kinda makes those two World Baseball Classic titles seem insignificant now.

# The Japanese government plans to recommend that the Ogasawara islands, made up of roughly 130 islands about 1,000km south of Tokyo, be deemed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Several varieties of plants and animals are unique to the area.

History lessons

A group of American antiwar campaigners from the Seattle area got some less-than-supportive feedback when they announced their plan to take 4,000 paper cranes to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a gesture of apology. A letter to the editor of a local paper read in part, “Please first ask for Japan to apologize for the harsh treatment of Chinese, Korean and other Asian neighbors they aggressively attacked.” Ouch!

In a related story, Patrick Coffey, a former US Marine who was inspired by an exhibition he saw on the horrors of the atomic bombings, is spearheading a 5,000km drive across America to raise support for a nuclear-free planet.

It was revealed that several works by novelist Osamu Dazai were censored by Allied occupiers in post-war Japan.

The Yokohama Board of Education decided to go ahead and green-light a disputed history textbook for the city’s public junior high schools. The book, penned by the nationalistic Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (a.k.a. Tsukurukai), has riled the Chinese and Koreans for “downplaying Japan’s militarist past and justifying its wartime role.”

Gee, um, thanks

The Japanese government presented 79-year-old American actor Clint Eastwood with a medal called the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.

A government council affiliated with the labor ministry has approved raising Japan’s minimum wage in 12 prefectures. The move would bring the national average to about ¥710 per hour.

A recently declassified US government document revealed that the CIA hoped to install conservative politician Taketora Ogata as prime minister in 1955 so as to “place the nation under US control.”

Headline of the Week: “New Photo Book Opens Door on the Beauty and Style of the Homeless” (via The Mainichi Daily News)

An advisory panel urged the government to improve its treatment of Japan’s indigenous peoples, including the establishment of “Ainu Day,” to be celebrated on June 6 each year.

Coming & Going

It was reported that Kansai International airport suffered its biggest ever monthly decline in passengers in June.

Yet the JNTO announced that bookings for package tours were up 51 percent in September compared to last year.

A 50-year-old cram school teacher in Saitama who was busted for plugging toilets on Tobu line trains said he acted because “[Tobu] employees have a lackluster work attitude.”

The French government awarded Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto the National Order of the Legion of Honor at its embassy in Tokyo.

The Japan Football Association said it will consider providing accommodation to family members of its World Cup squad at the tournament in South Africa next year.

One person died and four others were reported missing after a mudslide hit a nursing home in Hofu, Yamaguchi.

Headline of the Week: Fruit Fetishists Given Chance to Pick up Pyramid-shaped Watermelon for Princely ¥52,000 (via The Mainichi Daily News)

Runner-up: Cop Rapped for Letting off Aliens (via The Japan Times)

Easy come, easy go

Cops are searching for the owner of a bundle of ¥10,000 notes found at a garbage processing facility in Yamaguchi.

Three professors at the University of Tokyo were found to have scammed the government out of ¥7.5 million in grant money by falsifying expense claims “for laboratory instruments and other office materials.”

A housewife in Edogawa-ku who let a pair of thieves disguised as delivery men into her home was robbed of ¥10 million after being beaten up.

A Tokyo DJ was arrested for scamming a man out of ¥600,000, which the DJ claimed was the fee for canceling the man’s subscription to his website. “I couldn’t make a living just doing DJ work because it’s a job that doesn’t pay,” he told the police.

Welcome to the 21st century

A coalition of lawmakers has agreed to revise Japan’s pornography laws to ban the possession of child porn.

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry announced that, for the 19th time, it had received reports that an iPod Nano overheated and emitted sparks.

Responding to a spate of accidents caused by the whisper-quiet operation of hybrid cars, police in Fukushima have asked the owners of such vehicles to turn on their lights when driving during the day.

Tokyo’s Toyo University is offering a course in “Renewed Spectrology,” which attempts to study paranormal phenomena via “philosophical, psychological and religious approaches.”

BLASTING OFF

Astronaut Takao Doi has called it a day, putting down the space suit for good at the age of 54. He will serve in a UN post in Vienna in the “Office for Outer Space Affairs.”

Diplomat Yukiya Amano was chosen to head up the International Atomic Energy Agency, also in Vienna, marking the first time a Japanese person was picked for the job. I see a Doi-Amano lunch date down the road here…

“Green” comedian Kampei Hazama made it to New York on his Earth Marathon, part of an undertaking in which he plans to sail and jog around the world.

Four Chinese were collared in a ¥300 million operation that was producing thousands of fake passports and alien registration cards.

Ishikawa Prefecture enacted a law banning the use of cellphones by elementary and junior high school students.

Makoto Yuasa, the unofficial “mayor” of the tent village set up for jobless and homeless people last year in Hibiya Park, is now out of a job himself after the organizing committee that started the venture disbanded.

More than 84,000 people attended a memorial service at Tokyo’s National Stadium to pay their respects to actor/singer Yujiro Ishihara, who died in 1987 at the age of 52. Ishihara was the younger brother of Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara.

Pieces of an Islamic vase dating back to the eighth century were uncovered in Nara, leading one professor to claim that the area was part of the ancient “Silk Road of the Sea.”

In other archeological news, a wooden “baggage tag” from the seventh century was unearthed in South Korea, leading researchers to conclude that Korea had close links back in the day with what is now Osaka.

Official business

The National Consumer Affairs Center warned that “germanium bracelets” being marketed as health products online do not, as claimed, “relieve fatigue and smooth blood flow.”

The Financial Services Agency suspended the retail operations of Citibank Japan for 30 days after the US-based bank failed to enact proper anti-money laundering procedures.

The government is said to be mulling the creation of a centrally funded sports agency that would be responsible for “nurturing future top athletes, supporting international competitions and promoting company-sponsored events.”

A 56-year-old cop in Kitakyushu who was busted for DWI told officers that he was on his way back from gambling on boat races and that he had drunk “one bottle of beer and two glasses of shochu” with breakfast.

The finance ministry announced that it will issue a pair of commemorative coins to mark the 20th anniversary of Emperor Akihito assuming the throne. A ¥10,000 coin made of pure gold will feature images of a phoenix and Nijubashi Bridge, while a ¥500 version made of nickel and brass will be stamped with chrysanthemums on the front and back.

Stepping out

A female loggerhead sea turtle named Yu-chan tried out her new prosthetic limbs in a pond in Kyoto. The 20-year-old creature had lost parts of two flippers in what was most likely a shark attack.

Blind pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, who last month became the first Asian to win the prestigious Van Cliburn competition, saw his debut CD reach No. 2 on the Oricon chart. It’s the top-selling release ever by a pianist in Japan.

Violinist Daishin Kashimoto was appointed the new concertmaster for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, making him the second Japanese to hold the position.

Capcom’s hit videogame Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, which has sold 3.4 million copies in Japan, made its long-awaited North American debut.

Prime Minister Taro Aso was among the 4,500 people who attended a memorial service to mark the 64th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa.

88-year-old Australian Joseph Frederick Coombs, a former prisoner of war forced to work in a Fukuoka coal mine operated by Aso’s dad, came to Japan with his two sons and the son of another former POW to seek an apology from the Japanese PM.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry decided that certain liver and thyroid gland problems will be added to the official list of atomic bomb-related illnesses after a Tokyo High Court recognized them as such.

After the NPA lifted a ban on “adult-plus two” bicycles, Yamaha released a motorized model that’s tailor-made for moms with a pair of toddlers. The mama-chari costs over ¥120,000, not including the two child seats.

Bizarre crime story of the week: a 27-year-old man was arrested in Fukuoka Prefecture after a local resident returned home to find someone in a Spider-Man outfit robbing his house. The perpetrator made a run for it but police later found the would-be webslinger in a parked car, “changing out of a woman’s swimsuit and a set of pink arm warmers.”

Do as I say, not as I do

The head of a nursery school in Saitama was busted for sending eight photos of naked girls to a child porn website from his cellphone.

The Chinese government criticized Japan’s newly announced greenhouse gas emissions targets, then went on to say that the world’s wealthy nations should cut emissions 40 percent by 2020.

At the same time, the environment ministers of China, Japan and South Korea pledged to work together to reduce the scourge of sandstorms.

The Tokyo-based manufacturer of an escalator whose handrail severed the pinky of a 3-year-old girl at an electronics store in Hokkaido said that the machine’s emergency shutoff system worked properly. Well, thank God for that.

A former finance director of Sanyo Electric Co. working in Vietnam was accused of embezzling a whopping ¥800 million from the company. The man, who has since disappeared, was responsible for administering an account used “for paying salaries and materials costs” in Sanyo’s Vietnam subsidiary.

Strange Japan

In Ishikawa prefecture, residents were perplexed when hundreds of tadpoles fell from the sky into a parking lot in downtown Nanao. Days later, a shower of 3-5cm-long crucian carp fell on Nakanoto, about 15km to the south.

A study by Keio University psychology professor Shigeru Watanabe has revealed that pigeons can, in fact, tell the difference between good art and bad art. Does that mean they only crap on ugly statues?

Three-hundred ¥10,000 notes were found encased in concrete collected from demolition sites in Gifu prefecture.

After a 60-year break, Kuroda Yoroisoroe, an event featuring guys dressed in samurai outfits putting on military performances, was held once again in Fukuoka.

Sadahiro Inoue, who runs a gyoza restaurant near a couple of major universities in Kyoto, has become a hit with local students after letting them pay for their meals by washing dishes for half an hour.