Awesome Japan

Being the land of vending machines, it’s no surprise that Japan loves frozen meals and snacks as well. Life Where I’m From shows us some of the frozen noodles, soups, vegetables, fried rice, pasta, and traditional dishes that you can buy in a Japanese grocery store.

Tokyo has experienced explosive population growth. To help cram more people into limited space, a famed Japanese architecture firm came up with the idea to build an enormous pyramid to house a million residents. Kento Bento explains their unusual idea and its challenges.

Hong Kong toy designer Lock Lai creates vintage-style robot toys which will look awesome on your shelf. Their articulated body parts are held on by magnets and can be stored inside of their metal bodies. Find more TinBot designs, including a DIY blank one on Storenvy.

Great Big Story’s short profile of master blacksmith Yasuhiro Hirakawa, “the only traditional scissor maker left in Japan.” It takes him one week – working 10 hours a day – to make his bonsai scissors, which can sell for as much as $32,000.

Developed by engineers from Keio University, this wearable exosuit allows a remote operator to control its arm movements in order to provide guidance to its wearer. The instructor wears a VR headset so they can see the same thing as their student.

When we were in Tokyo, we were fascinated that when we wanted some “vanilla ice cream,” we had to ask for “Baniraaisukurīmu.” Double Yolk looks at how Japan incorporates English words and deeper meanings into their language in some truly wonderful ways.

Yoyoka Soma may be just 8 years old, but she already knows more about drumming than most musicians three times her age. Listen and enjoy as she rocks out a cover of John Bonham’s rhythms from Led Zeppelin’s Good Times and Bad Times.

(Loud) Engineers from Japan’s Tohoku University and National Institute of Technology are developing a truly unusual firefighting device. The machine self-balances on its water stream and can snake its way into difficult to reach locations as it sprays water on flames.

Kento Bento shares five different robberies in Japan that remain unsolved to this day, including a movie-style caper involving a single perpetrator and on the other end, a massive nationwide heist across 14,000 7-11 ATMs in just 2 hours.

DC Comics‘ latest Batman animated movie is now available on digital, Blu-ray and DVD. Batman Ninja is a decidedly Japanese and anime-flavored take on the Caped Crusader, featuring various anime styles of imagery and over-the-top action sequences.

Created by POOL inc., DENTSU, and Taiyo Kikaku Co. this Japanese commercial for the Sony PlayStation 4 is packed with creativity, with players not just dreaming about their superpowers and abilities from video games, but actually living with them.

(PG-13: Language) Despite their heritage, commercial success and inherent coolness, giant robots are not as popular today as they once wer. Gigguk charts the history of the mecha genre, its influence on anime and why it’s not as popular as it used to be.

UNIQLO is teaming up with Japanese manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump for a collection of t-shirts. The tees include some of the manga’s big hits, such as Hunter x Hunter and One Piece, as well as classics like Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragon Ball. That Yamcha shirt!

(PG-13: Nudity) Jared Leto stars as an American soldier imprisoned in post-WWII Japan and who ends up serving as a Yakuza enforcer as a way to earn his freedom. Based on a concept by Sons of Anarchy Executive Producer John Linson. Coming to Netflix on 3/9/18.

3DSage got their hands on this nifty mechanical device from Japan – it’s a hand-operated gadget which follows the outlines of a stack of disks to move its arm, which in turn draws a corresponding image. A web-based conversion tool is used to design disk templates.

Techmoan takes a look at another fascinating bit of retro technology, an alternative approach to portable audio tapes that was being developed by Sanyo at the same time that Philips was working on the cassette tape. We love the heft of that old player.