Awesome Japanese

TY KU, the world’s only sake-based beverage, is a liqueur filled with a bouquet of 20-odd flowers and fruits, including elderflower syrup, yuzu, plum and green tea, packaged in a self-illuminating bottle.

We love the sleek modern styling and multi-function display on Citizen’s limited-edition 80th anniversary timepiece. Too bad you have to go to Japan if you want one. Let’s hope for exports.

We don’t care that it’s in Japanese. This horror / action flick looks awesome. The story centers on a man who loses everything and becomes an iron-celled-metal-man hell-bent on revenge.

Online Japanese shop Blue Lug is offering the simply designed owl backpack. The outer belt is adjustable to offer increased amounts of storage. Made of water resistant nylon; offered in 4 colors.

Normally we wouldn’t consider studding up a pair of kicks, but the truly attention-grabbing Honja high and low top Studs Pack from Yohji Yamamoto’s Y-3 are making us rethink that idea. Out later this year.

We are enjoying the hyper-saturated colors and dynamic perspectives in these vintage monster movie posters by Japanese artist Takayoshi Mizuki. He created this work between 1965 and 1972.

Weird-wonderful combo: a secret live performance in Tokyo from Japanese breakbeat maestros Hifana. In the video they’re playing music with Nike Free Run+ shoes. Dig those shoebox speakers.

This pocket-sized camera looks like a roll of old 110 film, but the Harinezumi 2+ is actually a 3MP digital camera. It won’t beat your Nikon – it’s built for shooting stylized stills and short videos.

When Sony released the PS3 Slim, they definitely cut down on the bulk of the original.The guys at Japan’s Hori have decided to make the console “portable”-(ish) with this 720p PS3 display.

Tiny two-wheelers pimped out to the next level, these scooters break boundaries with bodies and seats as wide as those found in choppers, huge tires, and loud designs and color schemes.

The 59-foot Gundam may have been dismantled, but it’ll get a second lease on life (and some Minovsky particles) in July: it’ll be rebuilt outside Shizuoka station with a beam saber.

It’s a pity that Porter’s Sanforized Denim Wallets are Japan-only, because we’d love to cop a few to match our dark-wash jeans; each features a white canvas interior and snaps shut.

The recording is a bit grating on the ears, but we appreciate that Yoshi Akai literally lets you build music: his 3-channel, 8-step sequencer uses LEGO bricks instead of synthesizer keys.

We’ve known from the get-go of Yakuza 3’s emphasis on cinematics and storytelling, but this Characters Trailer gives us the low-down on the game’s good, the bad, and the really bad.

With Yakuza 3 due out 3/9/10, this Early Influences doc gives us a glimpse into the mind of producer Toshihiro Nagoshi; he discusses facial details, cinematics and Japanese style.

Molten metal speaks louder than words in this Japanese Debut Teaser for Armored Core 5; due out late 2010, this iteration will shift the focus from speed to violent mech-on-mech action.

Whether or not you believe that this Bad Apple video was made without photo-editing, it’s still a pretty badass stop-motion piece; it was created with 6,566 printouts captured on a webcam.

Get a double-dose of Akira Kurosawa’s legendary samurai-meets-spaghetti western flicks with the Yojimbo & Sanjuro two-pack; it’s an HD 1080p 2.35:1 transfer with Dolby Digital 3.0.

Sorry, Ash, you’re not the first to try and catch ’em all, and you won’t be the last: Squirtle and gang go really old school with this collection of Pokemon as traditional Japanese art.

We could do without the over-emphatic narrator, but this Combat System Walkthrough for White Knight Chronicles is actually a decent overview of the game’s UI, mechanics, and gameplay.

Earthy both in terms of design and eco-friendliness, Design Hara’s HTPC is a mini-ITX unit with recyclable cypress or rose wood chassis; it also uses 1/3 the energy of desktop computers.

There’s no gameplay footage in this trailer for Fist of the North Star, but we’re still plenty excited: the Dynasty Warriors-style game is due out next year on PS3 and Xbox 360.

Ultraman: The Complete Series packs all 39 episodes of the legendary 1960s live-action TV show into a budget-priced 4-disc set; it includes both Japanese and English audio and subtitles.