Awesome Japan

A brief, but well-executed promo animation for the 2019 Festival International Du Film D’Animation d’Annecy. Students from the Gobelins animation school envision a world filled with guys in kaiju costumes stomping around a tiny Tokyo, slapping each other about in a monster-sized wrestling match.

Make liquor bottles extra special with Tadayasu’s fancy bottle toppers. The Samurai Bottle Helmet comes in designs based on the actual helmets worn by some of the country’s most famous feudal warlords.

During Japan’s RoboCon 2018, high school students presented their designs for single-purpose robots made specifically to toss bottles filled with liquid, and land them perfectly with way more consistency than most humans could. There’s bottle-flipping action here.

This mirror-image video made from footage along one of Tokyo’s rail lines is more than a little reminiscent of Darwinfish105’s HyperDrive and the Tokyo Sky Drive series, but its slower and more relaxed pace lets us check out more detail of the surrounding environment.

Nowhere are KitKat candy bars more popular than they are in Japan. So we can think of no better place to see how the treats are made, then at the Nestlé Japan Kasumigaura factory. After viewing the whole playlist, we wondered if we just watched a Wes Anderson movie.

Drivetribe shares the mythical story of Japan’s most infamous street racing group, the Mid Night Club. Founded in 1987, the club was allegedly composed of rich businessmen and had strict requirements and rules about speed, skill, and safety.

The Atlantic shares Edwin Lee’s beautiful documentary, Wasabia Japonica. It’s about Shigeo Iida, a 75-year-old who’s an eighth generation wasabi farmer. Most “wasabi” is actually dyed horseradish. Iida’s crop is the real deal, and fetches up to $250/kg.

This robot kit from Japanese toymaker Tamiya lets you build a creepy crawly insect inspired by real-life giant centipedes. This 15″ long critter isn’t quite as indimidating as the real deal thanks to its blue body, but anything with this many legs creeps us out.

Tokyo-based shoe cleaning and repair shop The Way Things Go claims that its employee Naoki Terashima is “the winner of all Japan shoeshine championship 2019.” Watch him do his thing in this relaxing video. We await his anime biopic.

Japan has done it again. If you’re looking for a backpack that will easily break your back, check out the Backpacker’s Closet. This bag is so large it’s better to think of it as a beanbag in the form of a backpack. Believe it or not, it’s sold out.

Bandai Namco’s Jump Force is a 3D fighting game that feature’s some of the most famous anime heroes and villains from Weekly Shonen Jump. The characters include Goku, Luffy, Naruto, Gon, Deku, Ichigo, Yusuke and more. It also has a robust character creator.

From pickle tubs to washing machines, there are lots of unusual ways to create percussive sounds. But this clip from Japan’s Open Reel Ensemble is definitely the first time we’ve seen someone using magnetic reel-to-reel tape as a drum kit. More here.

Screen Junkies jumped into the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hype train in the best way. Presenting Toei’s officially-licensed take on Spider-Man in the 1970’s. He shoots guns, he summons giant robots, he says he’s from hell. Japan has weird spiders.

After renting himself a new family in Japan, Conan O’Brien explored the contents of some of its famed vending machines, then checked out Toyko’s colorful Harajuku neighborhood, where he got himself a flamboyant Kawaii makeover.

(PG-13: Language) “Oh… hugging, shaking hands, but no kissing. So just like my current marriage.” Conan O’Brien went to an agency that rents out fake families for lonely people. That’s some dark stuff right there. Thankfully, Conan managed to make it awkward instead.

Filmmaker Spike Jonze collaborated with The North Face’s Japan-only sub-brand Purple Label to make two wonderful bags – a shuttle roller and The North Face’s classic 3Way Bag. Both bags are made of Italian wool and come in two plaid color schemes.