Nipponbashi Street Scene

One of the major streets in Osaka’s Den Den Town, an area with loads of electronic stores and similar in atmosphere (though smaller in scale) to Tokyo’s Akihabara. Like that area, Nipponbashi is also famous for its maid cafes.

Pseudo-beers
In addition to producing several brands of beer each, the major breweries also produce numerous pseudo-beers, a concept that is unique to Japan. Since beer tax is only applicable to beverages with a malt content of over 67%, these pseudo-beers are brewed with a lower malt content to avoid this tax and appeal to people drinking on a limited budget. (more…)

A skirt that transforms into a Coke machine to help women evade muggers? Whatever next?

The best things I’ve found on other people’s blogs recently:

I found the picture above and more information about kodomo no nomimono kids’ beer on the kilian-nakamura.com blog and this myspace.com blog. Quite understandably the kids in the photos seem rather genki. Apart from the surly one in the top right of this photo who presumably just heard he’s missed last orders.

Another product that must also have been a hit with kids is ‘Bilk’, pictured on the left. Made by brewing beer from milk, Japan Probe has the full story.

Finally, continuing on the subject of beer, I also found this great photo of a frozen beer bottle that exploded in a freezer.

Check out these other beer-related articles: Slang Expression #5 - Turbo Shandy, Beer and the Mother Tongue, Beer In Japan - Part 1 and Beer In Japan - Part 2.

Ask any Japanese student returning from a homestay or holiday (US=vacation) in England what they thought about the food there and you’ll invariably get the response “mazui” (tastes bad). Compared to food in their own country English food understandably seems basic, lacking the variety of ingredients and cooking styles that sets Japanese cuisine apart from that of most nations.
(more…)

Earlier in the year I wrote a piece about deodorant in Japan called The Axe Effect. In it I talked about the launch of Axe in Japan and I included some Japanese Axe TV commercials I found on YouTube. Since then, a load more have appeared so I thought I’d include three of the more interesting ones here:

Mobbed By Geisha
A continuation of the earlier viral videos I mentioned in The Axe Effect.

(more…)