HOLY CRAP
A team of Japanese researchers has used an MRI to “successfully decode dreams by measuring brain activity during sleep.” It’s the first time scientists anywhere have been able to “read dreams.”

A cinema in Nagoya is planning to go “4-D” by allowing moviegoers to “experience wind, sprays of water, scents, light, fog and even soap bubbles.” We’re particularly excited about the bubbles.

After objections from the municipal labor union, officials in Nara ditched a plan to keep tabs on city workers via an ID authentication system “based on blood vein configuration.”

A letter carrier in Chiba who was arrested for stealing 2,100 pieces of mail said she did it because of “stress over her work.”

stats
9
Number of new high school textbooks in geography, politics and economics that the education ministry has approved for the 2014 academic year

8
Number of those textbooks that describe the Takeshima and Senkaku islands as “Japanese territory”

15,000
Number of free recording devices handed out to elderly Tokyo residents by the MPD in an effort to fight telephone scams

Neko Font: Let Cats Do the Talking for You!
yesterday by Oona McGee
If it’s taking up residence on beds of sushi, winning hearts with adorable poses or curling up on your face while you sleep, the cats of the world seem to be inching closer to world domination with each passing day. They’ve certainly got a hold of the netisphere, and now they’re writing their names all over it, turning their noses up at the alphabet of boring humans and replacing it with a much cuter one of their own. It’s a free font generator called neko font (cat font), and you can play with it too. It makes even the most boring of words absolutely adorable!

Angry Abe

To Hold Breath, Stomp Feet

China Called

They Want Okinawa Back

Clothes, Scissors, Remove

Moron

Kagoshima temple fails in bid to get loan to buy Chongryon’s Tokyo HQ

BY JUN HONGO
STAFF WRITER
The chief priest of the Buddhist temple that won the bid to acquire the Tokyo headquarters of the pro-Pyongyang group Chongryon said Friday he has failed to gather enough funds for the purchase, suggesting financial institutions were pressured not to extend loans to his temple.

“Today, Saifukuji has decided to give up the acquisition of the Chongryon building, which we won the bid for,” Ekan Ikeguchi, who heads Saifukuji Temple in Kagoshima Prefecture, told reporters.

TAKE COVER!
The government says if a major quake were to strike the Nankai Trough, it would cause ¥17 trillion in damage—more than 10 times the cost of the 3/11 disasters.

Officials at the defense ministry are in hot water for free-speech violations after asking applicants to provide info about their spouses’ nationality and whether they had undergone “treatment for alcohol, drugs or psychological disorders.”

The Japanese government lodged a complaint with authorities in France after a French company sold “a device to facilitate landing by ship-based helicopters” to China.

Meanwhile, a 35-year-old Japanese expat living in Singapore died while rock climbing in the Batu Caves outside Kuala Lumpur.

Virtual Reality: Taste the Sound Effects From Your Favourite Comic Book Moments
by Oona McGee
Your drink’s icy cold but the manga ice cubes in your glass are h-h-hot! Now taste the palpitating sound effects from your favourite comic books thanks to these new Manga Kōri, Comic Ice silicone molds from Runa Corporation.

Coming in three designs, ゴゴゴ (go-go-go, the sound effect for rumbling), ドドド (do-do-do, the sound of running, galloping and whirring machinery), and あ゛あ゛あ゛ (a-a-a, best translated as “Arrgh”), all appear in your glass in the same font that’s often scrawled over tense moments in a manga character’s storyline.

China Warns U.S. Japanese Nationalism

What About China’s: We Own Everything in The South China Sea

Japan’s Most Wanted

Vending Machine Thief

Shinzo Abe

Warmonger

Opponents face off over Constitution Day
Abe’s backers say now is their time; foes feel sense of crisis
BY KAZUAKI NAGATA AND TOMOHIRO OSAKI
STAFF WRITERS
With revising the pacifist Constitution rapidly emerging as the primary issue in the upcoming Upper House election, proponents and opponents of change alike used Friday — Constitution Day — to press their cases.

A group in favor of changing the Constitution held a major rally in Tokyo while thousands of its defenders held a protest march through the capital.

In the 66 years since its promulgation, the constitutional debate has rarely been this vigorous. The debate heated up after the Liberal Democratic Party took back control of the government in December, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looking to make it a focus of the Upper House campaign this summer.

STRANGE BUT TRUE
A Japanese man who traveled to Malaysia to marry a woman he met over the internet was rescued by police after being kidnapped by three Nigerians at the airport.

Officials in Hyogo suspended a prefectural employee for three months for “stuffing his backpack full of food at an all-you-can-eat buffet and trying to take it home.”

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision ordering a deadbeat mom to pay ¥50,000 to her ex-husband for “each time she denied him access to their daughter.”

Police in Kawasaki arrested a 19-year-old man for murdering his mother after finding “a head, a left arm and other body parts” in the apartment the two shared.

stats

230
Number of female participants at a ninja convention in Tokyo late last month

320kmh
New top speed of the Hayabusa shinkansen—the fastest in Japan—on its run from Utsunomiya to Morioka

206,800
Number of elementary school students who took the EIKEN English proficiency test in fiscal 2012—an 80 percent increase from 2002

Japanese TED Speaker Turns Yo-yo Performance into a Martial Art, Receives Standing Ovation
by Philip Kendall
The TED (Technology Education and Design) website is easily one of my most favourite places in the entire digital world. With talks from industry experts, innovative thinkers and creative individuals with something valuable to say, I’ve lost hundreds of hours on the site watching presentations and listening to talks, absorbing knowledge and expanding my view of the world, galaxy, universe.

Filmed in February this year at a TED conference in Long Beach, California, the following video sees a young man by the name of Black take to the stage dressed like a cross between a ninja and a rock star. After telling the story of how he first picked up a yo-yo and struggled to perform even the simplest of tricks, he goes on to talk about how mastering this simple toy gave him the confidence he always lacked. As if more proof were needed having already seen him calmly address thousands of spectators in English, Black then launches into a yo-yo routine that left us completely open-mouthed.

That’s A Lot

Of Noodles

Taking An Island In California

Piss’s Off China

Yes, Shinzo Abe

Is A Moron

Corporal punishment meted out by 840 teachers so far: survey

KYODO
A government survey says that 840 public school teachers used corporal punishment during a 10-month period starting in April 2012 — more than twice the 404 cases tallied in all of fiscal 2011.

The sharp rise came amid closer scrutiny by local education boards following the suicide of a high school student who had been frequently beaten by his basketball coach in Osaka, education ministry officials said Friday.

The tally of teachers identified as having used corporal punishment in the first 10 months of fiscal 2012, which ended in March, is already bigger than the full-year record of 494 cases in fiscal 2003.

MILESTONES
A blind Japanese acupuncturist who lives in San Diego is attempting to become the first sightless man to sail across the Pacific Ocean.

A research team led by scientists at the University of Tokyo say they may have found “a clue for developing drugs to kill multidrug-resistant bacteria.”

Researchers at the National Cancer Center recommend consuming 20 grams of saturated fatty acid daily to ward off strokes and heart attacks. That’s equivalent to “200 grams of milk a day and 150 grams of meat every other day.”

Headline of the Week: “Cat and Bird Corpses Left on Store Escalator Again” (via Mainichi Japan)

stats

60,421
Number of gas stations in Japan as of March 1994

37,743
Number of gas stations in March 2011

8
Consecutive months the number of people receiving welfare benefits has hit a record high, according to the welfare ministry

How not to meet women

Suspected of violating laws related to acts of violence, the first trial for company employee Yoshihito Harada, 25, was held at the Nagoya district courthouse on 16 April. Harada stands accused of puncturing the tires of parked cars that were driven by women in an effort to strike up conversations with the drivers. When asked if there was any truth to the indictment, Harada admitted, “It’s true, I did it.”

According to the opening statement by prosecutors, between April 2011 and December 2012, Harada used a screw driver or other sharp object to puncture the tires of five different cars. The cars had all been parked outside supermarkets in the cities of Miyoshi, Nisshin and Toyota, Aichi Prefecture. In all cases the stated reason was so that Harada could establish contact with the women.

Abuse?

We Didn’t See Any Abuse

Japan On Verge

Of Screwing Its Workers

As Trains Pass

Windows Shatter

7th-century horse tack unearthed in Kyushu
April 19, 2013
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
KOGA, Fukuoka Prefecture--A complete set of trappings and ornaments from a war horse likely ridden by a seventh-century chieftain in Japan have been found in southern Japan, a find so rare that researchers are already referring to it as a national treasure.

The gilt-bronze horse tack was unearthed close to a contemporaneous burial mound in this western city, the municipal board of education said April 18.

The site in the Taniyama district of Koga is the first-ever devoted exclusively to horse armor, officials said.

NICE WORK, FELLAS
A high school baseball coach in Chiba was suspended for breaking one of his players’ arms after the kid missed a fly ball in practice.

It was later revealed that the same coach had “hit another first-year [player] in the face with a bat, knocking out his front teeth and splitting his lip.”

The NPA said it dealt with a record number of cases of child pornography in 2012. Officials said that underage smut “is spreading via the internet.” Gee, ya think?

A Tokyo-based bicycle importer was ordered to pay ¥189 million in damages to a man who was paralyzed in an accident involving his Italian-brand Bianchi bike.

stats

$712.6 million
Amount of money donated by US citizens for 3/11 disaster relief

$570 million
Amount of money Japan will loan to the Philippines to develop a light-rail system and airport

16,387
Number of victims of child abuse referred to consultation centers last year by the NPA, a record high

As Stocks Rise, so do the Hem Lines: Japan’s New Incentive for Economic Growth
by Rachel Tackett
In the face of our global economy’s seemingly never-ending nosedive, Japan has come up with a hip, new way to stimulate growth in its local communities: by starting up a band!

Machikado Keiki☆JAPAN, a group name that roughly translates to “Street Corner Conditions JAPAN,” is the latest and greatest four-girl idol group to hit the media. I know it sounds a bit like a band full of hookers, but just wait until you hear their pitch! Basically, the better the nation’s stocks are doing, the shorter their skirts get! Clearly, the idea of having enough money for food and rent is not enough of an incentive to get some economic stimulus going; what the country really needs is more half-naked women!

The Judge

Gets The Sack

Japanese Election Campaigns

Exit The 19th Century

Hey Close the Door

Already

Tokyo Disneyland turns 30!

Japan Times — Apr 12
Tokyo Disneyland (or “TDL” as it’s known to the Japanese) turns 30 on April 15, but like George Clooney, or heck, even the famed Mouse himself, age hasn’t withered it a bit.
TDL means different things to the Japanese, but if you sift through all the memories and narrow it down to one sentiment, it would have to be happiness. The concept is ever elusive to the nation’s work-centric population, laboring under the burden of an economic recession lasting 20-odd years. Still, every Japanese has this stamped-on-the-DNA sort of knowledge that happiness will be theirs once they pass through the gates of TDL – which makes its publicity department the happiest of them all.

POLICE BLOTTER
Cops in Toshima-ku arrested four operators of a brothel called the Otsuka Cosplay Academy for employing a 14-year-old girl as a sex worker.

Authorities in Hachioji believe that a serial arsonist is setting fire to local vending machines in an effort to “steal change.”

A 35-year-old lieutenant commander in the Maritime Self-Defense Force was arrested for “touching a 20-year-old female college student’s lower body” on the Keikyu line.

An Osaka woman was busted for getting her 6-year-old daughter addicted to sleeping pills. The woman told officials that she wanted the girl to go to bed at the same time she did.

stats

221,000
Tons of debris from the March 11 tsunami that’s expected to wash up on the west coast of the US and Canada by October, according to the environment ministry

2
Rank of Panasonic in terms of international patent applications in 2012, trailing only China’s tech firm ZTE Corp

14
Number of prefectures that sent delegates to a recent education fair in Beijing to promote school trips to Japan

Alcohol Made with Fermented Wasps Gives New Meaning to the Phrase “Get Your Buzz On”
by Rachel Tackett
By all accounts Japan’s giant wasps are dangerous creatures. And yet, our team recently learned of one huntsman from Kumamoto Prefecture who has a hobby of fermenting these monstrous bugs in batches of shouchuu (Japanese liquor similar to vodka). It merits saying that even in Kumamoto, selling this kind of alcohol is not a common practice. If you do happen to come across some wasp-infused booze in a souvenir shop, it’s safe to say that you’ve strayed quite far from the mainstream marketplace.

Hearing about this peculiar home brew, we at RocketNews24 couldn’t help wondering what kind of a man would make shouchuu containing wasps. Our very own field journalist took a trip to Kumamoto to meet the man in his home and find out more.

Futenma Will Be Returned

Oh Never Mind

Up In Smoke

Always Up In Smoke

Where’s Your Brother?

In The Trash

Scientists say they can ‘read’ dreams

NATIONAL APR. 06, 2013 – 06:55AM JST
TOKYO —
Scientists in Japan said Friday they had found a way to “read” people’s dreams, using MRI scanners to unlock some of the secrets of the unconscious mind.

Researchers have managed what they said was “the world’s first decoding” of night-time visions, the subject of centuries of speculation that have captivated humanity since ancient times.

In the study, published in the journal Science, researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, in Kyoto, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to locate exactly which part of the brain was active during the first moments of sleep.

The scientists then woke up the dreamers and asked them what images they had seen, a process that was repeated 200 times.

HUH?
Osaka’s last remaining streetcar company introduced a tram line whose color scheme is meant to evoke “traditional Japanese aesthetic philosophy.”

Lawmakers have enacted measures to combat a fraud scheme known as oshigai, which involves bullying unsuspecting people into selling “precious metal jewelry and other items for unreasonably low prices.”

Police in Fukuoka say an employee at a work center for people with mental disabilities put a disabled man in a chair, placed a cardboard target above his head, and “threw an awl from about three meters away like he was playing darts.”

Headline of the Week: “Researchers Find Chemical in Male Mouse Urine that Attracts Females” (via Mainichi Japan)

stats

1,117,592
Number of counterfeit goods seized by Japanese customs officials in 2012—a record—according to the finance ministry

94
Percent of those goods that originated in China

¥900 million
Amount of money raised for quake reconstruction projects via a micro-funding plan set up by Tokyo-based Music Securities Inc.

Only 100 Limited Edition Matcha Green Tea Moon Pies On Sale, Cost More Than You Can Imagine
Japan’s version of the Moon Pie, the Choco Pie, is almost identical to the American classic – sweet filling nestled between two pieces of white cake covered in chocolate. They are made by Lotte and have been delighting Japanese sweet lovers for 30 years.

Much like the Japanese versions of Pepsi, Kit Kats and Pringles, Choco Pies are getting a new limited edition makeover. Marketed under the name “Wa Choco Pie” (Wa meaning both “peace” and, in this case, “Japanese-style”), these special Choco Pies have been supersized to 12 cm (4.7in) and filled with matcha creme. However, unlike most limited edition foods in Japan, these special Choco Pies can only be purchased by entering into a lottery draw. They will also be sold for a ridiculous price.

Number 2

Gets 6

No Money?

Stab Someone Go To Prison

Abe Vows

Continued Stupidity

World ninjas gather in Japan for women’s meet

LIFESTYLE MAR. 23, 2013 – 07:00AM JST
TOKYO —
More than 200 ninjas from around the world gathered at a Tokyo gymnasium Friday to kick off a two-day training seminar, especially designed for women.

The disciples of Grandmaster Masaaki Hatsumi, the founder of the Bujinkan school, gathered from more than 17 countries at the Tokyo Budo-kan martial arts gymnasium to sharpen their self-defense skills.

Gone are the days when the Japanese historical masked agents carried out espionage acts against opposing warlords, they said.

Mondern-day ninjas are ordinary people with normal jobs who practise self-defense skills, or “ninjutsu”, stressing use of balance and space to bring opponents to submission.