Until today, if you tried to watch a Youtube video over a certain length in Japan, you were probably given an error message. Starting today Youtube Japan is offering the longer videos broken up into sections, so that videos of any length are now available on all three mobile carriers. Most Softbank and AU KDDI…
I know, I know, I love these top 10 lists that come out. Even if they don’t mean anything they sure put a little spotlight on Japan for us. This poll is especially fun because if you’ve been here going on fifteen years like some newzjapan bloggers I know, you learned Japanese watching some of…
I was talking to a friend the other day… I was very surprised that he didn’t know about some of the sites that host links to places where American tv shows are hosted. I think the biggest and most useful is SurfTheChannel. I would probably even use this site if I lived in the US…
OK, if you don’t live in Japan and watch a lot of tv you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. If you don’t watch a lot of tv but know some Japanese words you can see the humor in Hello Kitty (a cat) being grouped in with Nezumi Sempai (nezumi meaning mouse). For…
Takahisa Masuda, member of the Japanese singing group NEWS came on an afternoon tv show to show off his super speed and strength by doing over one hundred push-ups in one minute. They made a little stage for him. Prepared some timers and click-counters and devoted some time on the program to shine. After you…
Pika Pika in Japanese describes illumination or something bright. It can also describe a flashing light. It’s another one of the ubiquitous Japanese onomatopoeias (which I happen to love). This is a pretty cool video that was on tv last night. I’m sure a lot of people saw it already, but it’s definitely worth putting…
In my previous post I showed the Mecha Ike Japanese Comedy Egashira 2:50 version of the Ponyo on a Cliff song. The song is big and was featured on the Red and White Song Battle this year. It features a little girl singing a bit out of tune and later an older guy in a…
This year, Jero will be one of the featured performers on the annual Red and White Song Battle which is televised on NHK every New Year’s Eve. The show is considered a Japanese tradition (although ratings have been dropping in past years). Jero is an American guy with a Japanese grandmother who grew up loving…
Have you ever watched Japanese tv and wondered, “How much does THAT guy make?” Well, here’s one example of a guy: This is Yoshio Kojima, one of the big strange character type comedians going around. I think he’ll have more staying power than the others because he’s a smart guy (Waseda University grad) and there’s…
The craziest comedy show of the year (and a lot of the runners-up) are on during winter holidays when a lot of people around the archipeligo are at grandma’s house watching tv on an old tv set. It’s the season for singing contests, impersonation battles, manzai comedy shows, and the king of all wackiness, “Downtown…
If you want to read books online, you have several options. Google recently announced a new deal with several authors and publishers to increase the available digital library. Although it remains to be seen how this will affect users from outside of the United States (international publishing rights will still be a speed bump for…
Called the “Calbee Potato Maru” (maru designates a ship), the Calbee company best known for making potato chips has a ship designed entirely for shipping potatoes. This picture above can be found at this ship lover’s home page here.