The creator of the extremely popular anime, “Crayon Shin-chan” was found dead in a mountain range near the border of Gunma Prefecture and Nagano prefecture. He had been missing since September 11th. The body was positively identified as that of Yoshito Usui, who is famous for creating the irreverent and controversial anime based around the…
I’m not going to explain the obvious ones like and but I’ll go down a little list of some that I think people might find interesting or useful… refers to the Japanese version of the expression “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” good for “sorry” or “pretty please” (although it looks like…
In a recent poll of 2032 people aged from their teens to their sixties were asked what Japanese celebrity was the most beautiful both inside and out. The winner was actress Norika Fujiwara who recently divorced comedian Tomonori Jinnai. Number two was Becky, an extremely well-liked tv personality who boasts one of the largest portfolio…
I didn’t know this news would be so popular when I first wrote about Billy Blanks getting married and deciding to settle in Osaka, but it seems to be a story people are really interested in. I also put up pictures of the happy baby of Billy and Tomoko Blanks (the photos were on the…
This video is shown as part of the chair themed NHK children’s show I mentioned in the NHK Cactus Kids Show post. This is an awesome song for kids. It has enough rock n roll to it for parents to enjoy. It’s written and sung by the lead singer of Ulfuls, named Tortoise Matsumoto. He’s…
A new Kids show called “Mitsuketa” or “I found it” has started up on NHK. For some reason, the show’s main theme is… CHAIRS! There are skits of interactions between a real live girl, a giant talking cactus, and a chair. The cactus plays kind of a fatherly role, settling little arguments between the little…
It seems that people are really interested in Billy Blanks and his move to Japan so I thought I’d follow up on my previous story about Billy and Tomoko Blanks. Billy Blanks and Tomoko Blanks had a baby daughter born at Iwasa Ladies Clinic in November of 2008. A photo of the baby, named Angelica,…
If you are in Japan and want to take your mind off all this crazy H1N1, you might want to rent a movie to relax. People have lots to choose from, starting with “Outbreak”, or the miniseries made from Stephen King’s “The Stand”. If you’re feeling a little science-fictiony, you might even try Attack of…
It seems that Hitoshi Matsumoto was not as forthcoming as he could have been in his press conference yesterday when he described his new bride as “an everyday person”. She is actually a 26 year old (19 years his junior) former tv announcer and television personality named Rin Ihara pictured below. Their baby is due…
Forty-five year old Hitoshi Matsumoto from the Japanese comedic duo “Downtown” has gotten married. The new bride is not in the entertainment industry. Not much has been reported about her except that she is currently pregnant. Many people in the entertainment industry had Matsumoto pegged as a lifelong bachelor, however in a press conference he…
toothpastefordinner.com Toothpaste for Dinner, predicting the future. You gotta love it when there’s something on the net about Japan and the person who wrote it seems to have a clue. This is one of my favorite online comics so I was especially pleased to see a mention of Japan. If you like things like this,…
I just read some tabloid news saying that Billy Blanks of Billy’s Boot Camp has married a 39 year old Osaka woman named Tomoko Sato who works as an interpreter. A ceremony is scheduled to be held in Osaka in June. The woman is also reported to have given birth to their child in November……