Foreign minister shows off non-existent nuclear power.

Like most alpha males, Taro Aso feels the need to show off his power--especially after his sweeping defeat in the prime ministerial elections in September. So now the foreign minister is strutting around in parliamentary committee meetings, telling people that Japan has the capability to produce nuclear weapons. "But we are not saying we have plans to possess (them)," he adds. It's kind of like when boys on the playground say, "I can kick your ass in hopscotch...but I won't because I'm nice!" or when the editors at work say, "I can kick your ass in Fight Night....but I have better things to do, like copyfit a feature." Boys will always be boys. Full story here.

Vagina book is the new Akiba bestseller.

You just never know what Akiba geeks will get obsessed with next. First it's robots. Then it's Gundam. Then it's PDAs. Now it's medical books about female genitalia. That's right, the newest craze is over a book called "A Guide to Pain and the Female Reproductive System," which, on the streets, is simply referred to as "the vagina book." Why a bunch of nerdy guys who have probably never touched a woman--never mind experienced reproductive pain--would be placing orders at geeky Akiba bookstores for the already-sold-out, 12-page, 1,900 yen medical guide book is totally beyond me. "We started selling it in September and news spread over the web, which sent sales skyrocketing. Salarymen in their 20s and 30s are buying most of the copies. But I still have absolutely no idea why it's selling so well," says a bookstore keeper. One brave 30-something year old salarman shared his thoughts with us. He says:

I thought I'd buy it to give me some help seducing any women I could bring back to my home.

IF you ever bring a woman home, that is. Good luck to you Mr. Salaryman. Full story here.

Abe meets Bono and tries on his shades.

Nah...they look better on Bono. But at least the attempt impressed the singer, who said:

George Bush never put them on. The last Pope, John Paul, he put them on, and Prime Minister Abe. Very cool.

Bono and Japan's new prime minister met to discuss the alleviation of poverty this week in Tokyo while U2 was on tour there. Story here.

Little Black Sambo cell phone strap

The Story of Little Black Sambo was every Japanese kid's favorite bedtime story until it was removed from the shelves in the late 80s, presumably because it was racist. The book was written by a Scotswoman living in colonial India in 1899 and illustrated by an Austrian years later. Little Black Sambo was about a little African boy who chased a tiger around a tree until the tiger was running so fast he melted into butter. Then the boy used the butter to put on his favorite food--pancakes! I don't remember the book word for word, so I can't tell you whether I believe the book was really racist or not. The main character is a black African boy with bright red puckered lips. But for Japanese kids to love the book, I don't think it really mattered what color the kid's skin was. On the other hand, while there aren't that many black kids living in Japan, I'm sure the few who did were frequently taunted for resembling the famous character and for turning tigers into butter. You can now buy replicas of this controversial children's book character as a cell phone strap here.

Girl with very hairy fake eyelashes.

This is not a cut from an audition tape for The Ring. Blogger Geisha Asobi was just fucking around after a haircut, and decided to make several strands into fake eyelashes. They fall off a few seconds later, but homegirl didn't grow 5 years worth of hair only to have it cut off and discarded like a heap of trash. Here are some more pics of her having fun with it. [via Boing Boing]

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire host wins Guinness Record

Mino Monta spends an average of 21 hours and 42 minutes on live television every week. That's more than anyone else in the entire world, so the man was awarded by the Guinness Book people in Tokyo yesterday. Mino Monta hosts the Japanese version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." The show is crafted to be almost exactly like its American counterpart--the host even looks kinda like Regis. Anyway, homeboy's ecstatic to have won the award. "I'm touched. I want to die talking," he told the COO of Guinness. I guess he'll be pop quizzing the nurses at his deathbed--or he'll jump off a cliff asking himself if that's his final answer. Full story here.

Device allows paralyzed people to "talk" with their brains.

A new device from Hitachi allows severely paralyzed people to "talk" via measurements of changes in their cerebral blood flow. The device, called "Kokoro Gatari" (Mind Talk), aims to help those with Lou Gehrig's disease communicate, and will be presented at a symposium on Sunday. Cerebral blood flow increases when people intentionally think about something. The doctor who invented this device instructs patients to do math calculations in their head when they want to say "yes" and to relax their thoughts when they want to say "no." Full story here.

Announcing the Kami-Robo contest winner!

Thanks to all of you who entered my Win a Kami-Robo Crafting Kit contest! While I'm sure each and every one of your imagined paper robot fighters would kick ass in a hot-and-heavy paperfight, my judging team and I have decided to award Unagi Fury for his a hot-headed nature, slippery tendencies, a phallic shape, and a big mouth. Hey Unagi, I wish I could see you and your tag team partner Pumice in action. Must be hot and heavy like your temper. Congratulations, you've got a paper robot crafting kit coming your way.

Top 5 Coolest Japanese Products 2006

Nikkei Trendy's December issue includes its annual countdown of products that made it big in Japan. The editors of this comprehensive tech/trend-tracking magazine made their picks from various genres of consumer products--electronics, books, food, Web sites, McDonalds seasonal menu items--that went on sale between October 2005 and September 2006. Here are the Top 5: 1. Nintendo DS Lite and Brain Games Brain Age and other "brain training games" opened up the world of handheld game consoles to a whole new demographic--old people trying to prevent the early onset of boke, or the slowing of cerebral functions. 2. Minicars, like the Honda Zest With new parking rules and the ever-increasing number of new car buyers, the compact, lightweight, inexpensive minicars are dominating the auto market in Japan. This year, 1 in 3 new cars purchases were minicars. 3. Shiseido's Tsubaki hair care series A massive 50-billion yen ad campaign featuring 12 super-hot Japanese celebrities took Shiseido's new shampoo and conditioner to unprecedented heights. With the tag line "Japanese women are beautiful," Tsubaki quickly brought Shiseido to the #1 spot on the shampoo market after 2 years of not being able to top fourth. 4. Social networking sites, like Mixi It was a big year for social networking sites in Japan. Mixi reached close to 6 million users, and international favorites like MySpace and Cyworld also launched their Japan sites. For more on my take on the SNS trend, read <this. 5. Sharp's W-Zero3 This slider-type PDA's has a touchscreen LCD and runs Windows Mobile, and it has continued to capture the hearts of many Japanese businessmen since its release in December 2005.

Mother mutilates baby, gets 5 years in prison

A mother who cut off part of her 4-month-old's genitals two years ago was sentenced to five years in prison today. Sick bitch! 27-year old Shizue Tamura slashed her baby boy's wee wee off with a razor. Her defense? She wanted revenge on Baby Daddy, who beat her and didn't pay child support. The presiding judge said:

It is an outrageous, grotesque crime targeting an innocent infant. The sorrow and pain the child may suffer when he grows up and comes to know what happened is beyond imagination.

I just hope they take the kid away and hide him somewhere far, far away from Mama and her Razor. Full story here.

Kewpie dressed like Bruce Lee.

It's Kewpie dressed like Bruce Lee! Bruce Lee's starring in a new movie in 2008. Director Rob Cohen, who made Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is planning a digital resurrection of the kung fu superstar. FYI: For those of you who voted Jackie Chan into the Famous Japanese People List...Bruce Lee is also Chinese...NOT Japanese. I know some of you think we all look the same. As a half-breed between the two races, I have to disagree. Kewpie is a Japanese mayonnaise mascot dressed like a Chinese actor. Get this cell phone strap for 500 yen here.

The Rubix Cube for Dogs

Ruby is smart and crazy and conniving. That's why I bought her the Everlasting Treat Ball yesterday, because it's like a Rubix Cube for dogs--really hard to solve unless you were in the Math Club or something. The idea is that you have to get to the cookies in the middle by gnawing through the chew-forevers on both ends of the rubber ball. Ruby barely graduated puppy kindergarten, but she's a wise-ass so she figured out how to hack the toy in ten minutes. Next step up is the Everlocking Treat, which locks the two end chewies with a screw-like stick, which they supposedly have to remove first. I'm pretty sure she'll figure out how to get around that, too, but I think I'll buy it for her anyway.

Korean BBQ Dinner Strap Series.

Japanese people love everything Korean. Korean soap operas, Korean boys, Korean shopping, Korean skin cleansing techniques...But I think the biggest winner is Korean BBQ. We love Korean BBQ, so much so that we made an entire meal into cell phone accessories. Here are some of my favorite dishes: Beef tongue in salt and lemon. My parents fed me "tan" for over 12 years until I one day realized that this was actually beef's tongue. By that time I was too in love with the flavor to be grossed out. The Japanese love beef tongue so much that you can buy it in a box. Stone pot bibimbap. This is one of the most inventive, delicious rice dishes one could ever imagine. As you can see in this perfectly replicated plastic model, it has a plethora of cool ingredients including bell flower roots, bracken, bean sprouts, spinach, raw beef and raw egg (both of which are cooked in the heated stone pot). Needing almost no explanation, galbi, or beef short ribs, are often seasoned with fruit juice, rice wine, soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, and sugar. The bones are awesome to take home to your puppy. Thank you, Korea, for your awesome contributions to my gastronomic indulgences! Here's the product page for these strappies, although if I were you I'd put that 200 yen towards the real deal.

QR codes track vegetable quality.

These days, Japanese housewives aren't just buying any vegetable. They're using QR codes to track the path of the eggplant on display to see if it's locally grown, organic, and priced right. Treehugger writes:

After a breakout of Mad Cow in 2001, Japan's Food Safety Commission began to tag more and more foods with radio frequency or QR tags that contain information on the origin of foods.

When you first step foot in a Japanese supermarket, you might be surprised at how expensive produce is. But everything is so much fresher that I think it's probably worth the price difference. You might only be able to afford one meal instead of two, but at least you know you're not having pesticide-and-beans for dinner. Link

Electric eel lights aquarium Christmas tree.

In a small aquarium in Hokkaido, an electric eel is tasked with lighting the Christmas tree. A small sensor placed inside his tank is activated when it detects the eel's bioelectric discharges. This in turn switches the tree's lights on. Visitors can watch the eel snake around the tree it lit until Christmas. Story here.

Cute little pea mosquito repellent strap.

This cute little smiling pea in a pod is actually a mosquito repellent that works for up to 6 hours straight. Just put one droplet of the peppermint-ish extract that comes with it into the little guy's back, clip it onto your backpack, belt, cell phone, or briefcase, and you won't get bitten by mosquitos. Don't rely on this alone if you're going into the villages of India or the jungles of Malaysia, though. You'll need 100% DEET and malaria pills there. This is just for little excursions in cities where mosquitos don't kill people, like Tokyo or San Francisco. Available here for 500 yen.

Prostitution: Exploitation of women or a tool of exploitation for women?

Dirty older man pays young innocent underage girl for sex. Statutory rape, right? Most of the time, it's not so simple in Japan. Case in point: yesterday, 4 minors were arrested for extorting money from a 27-year old opthamologist who paid a 17-year old girl 10,000 yen for a night of fun. After she collected her cash, the girl and her friends blackmailed the doctor into giving them 130,000 and his million-dollar watch. The doctor turned the kids in, getting himself in trouble for violating the Anti-Child Prostitution and Pornography Law but ending the cycle of violent exploitation that could have ensued. This type of blackmail is actually fairly common. This instance ended with just one extortion, but there have been previous cases where the blackmail went on for months, and for millions and millions of yen. I like this story because it reverses the conventional idea that prostitution is an exploitation of women. Story here.

Beard Papa Cream Puff Video.

Beard Papa started as a small pastry shop in Osaka. Now, it's an international franchise that has a cult following of cream puff-eaters across America (kinda like what Chick Fil-A is for chicken sandwiches, man that shit is good!). They just opened a couple of stores in San Francisco, and people line up for hours to get a scrumptiously custardy-crispy ball of deliciousness of their own. There's an animated video about the origins of the Beard Papa Cream Puff, which you can watch by following this link.

Gynecologist arrested for being a sick bastard.

Ugh! Every woman's greatest nightmare comes true in the story of Kazuhiro Sekiguchi, director of the Sekiguchi Maternity Clinic in Saitama Prefecture, who was arrested this week for violating child prostitution laws. Sekiguchi went on an online dating site, met a 15-year old schoolgirl, and paid her 50,000 yen for sex. You know, I always assumed that male gynecologists had some kind of natural exemption from being sick fucking bastards. Otherwise how could they do their job? Mr. Sekiguchi has definitely made me rethink that assumption.

Hot law student wins Miss Keio 2006

They're all pretty and smart, but it was 20-year old Yoshie Takeuchi (front, right) who won the beauty-and-brains pageant yesterday. Keio's one of the top 3 Japanese universities, and many Miss Keio contest winners have gone on to become famous TV anchorwomen, etc. In Japan, reading the news on TV is considered one of the most prestigious female professions. You have to be pretty and smart and proper. Really pretty and smart and proper. People like me who talk shit and dye their hair red would never make the cut. Full story here.

Dragon Ball Z Character Flashlight.

Having a miniature flashlight on your keychain is a really good idea. Having a miniature flashlight that flashes images of Dragon Ball characters on your keychain is an even better idea. This LED flashlight comes in four colors--Piccolo Green, Son Goku Red, Son Gohan Yellow, and Vegeta Blue. Each one flashes an image of its namesake when you push the little silver button on the side. Available as both a keychain and a cell phone strap for 600 yen each. Get yours here.

Poison convict's post-mortem art exhibit.

On a cold winter day in January 1948, a public health official walked into a bank and offered some people a potion that would cure dysentery, claiming that the epidemic was sweeping the neighborhood. 12 of the 16 people who tried it died soon thereafter from poisoning. A man named Sadamichi Hirasawa was convicted for the poisonings and handed a death sentence. In Japan, those sentenced to death can be terminated with almost no notice, but Hirasawa lived for 40 years until his hospital death in May of 1987. He lived until he was 95. 20 years after his death, Hirasawa's art work is being displayed on a busy Shibuya street, thanks to the efforts of his adopted son--who, interestingly enough, was adopted by the Hirasawa family mainly to advocate for the father's innocence. Link

Robot joins temp agency at $450/hr.

This is Ubiko. Ubiko signed up with the temping agency Ubiquitous Exchange recently, and will soon be dispatched to companies at a whopping 50,250 yen an hour. ($450) That's a lot more than I ever got temping--and I have a masters degree! WTF? Now that I think about it, I don't understand why anyone would hire Ubiko over me. She's 44 inches tall. She's made of plastic. She speaks in a high-pitched robotic monotone. Sure, she come with a camera and IR sensors, but I could totally get that stuff installed in me if I knew it would get me paid at those rates. And all she does is show DVDs on her forehead and hand out balloons with her wireless remote-controlled arms. Tsk, that's nothing. Read more here.

LED Scanner Pen cell phone strap.

Remember those awesome doodles you made on your homework notebook in the 5th grade that you kept in your little secret treasure box forever? You've never drawn anyone as precisely as when the 11-year old you drew that mean-ass French teacher who threw chalk at your face. Well, now you can show off that and other impromptu doodles (I ALWAYS draw on restaurant placemats) with this LED scanner pen cell phone strap. All you have to do is take the thing, slowly scan your image while pressing the yellow button on the top, and--when you're done--swing the pen back and forth to see the image pop up in front of you. Awesome, right? The image you're scanning can't be larger than 20cm x 7.5cm, and you have to use a black and white pen/pencil that's more than 5mm thick. Get yours here.

The "W11111!" whistle that looks like a Wii.

The Wii came out last weekend, but the W11 won't be released until December 2nd. This miniature parody version of Nintendo's newest craze is actually a cell phone strap that looks exactly like the real thing, is made by a mock manufacturer called "Nitendo" (niteru means look-alike in Japanese), and goes "wheeee!" when you blow into it. It's a whistle! Buy yours here for 570 yen.

The penguin who goes shopping.

This is Lala, a Japanese penguin who likes to carry his Penguin Backpack to the fish market. The cutest part is when the old lady at the fish store says: "See you again tomorrow, Lala-chan!" and the penguin nods furiously. When he gets home to his rescuer fisherman's home, the bird just walks into his little refrigerated room for some down time.

Man kills cat to do justice to mice.

A 20-year old man is facing animal abuse charges today for killing a cat and posting pictures of its deadness on the Internet. His excuse? He felt it wasn't fair that cats were always chasing mice. So he took justice into his own hands. I think this dude just keeps an old Tom and Jerry video on repeat or something. And eventually it brainwashed him and drove him crazy. For more crazy cat killas, click here.

The 21-year old Revolutionary Gal.

Shiho Fujita looks like just another Shibuya gal, but this 21-year old is actually a big-time entrepreneur who sells cosmetics, shoes, video games, a book she authored, and all kinds of other gal-geared paraphernalia. Her company, SGR Inc.--stands for Shigo Gal Revolution--made 70 million last year. Being a gal isn't easy. Beyond the routine tanning salon, hair bleach, and eyelash perm appointments, they withstand mockery at school and harassment by cops who assume this punk ass chick is up to no good. Fujita hopes to change that image through her efforts, which include plans to start a gal vocational school by 2010. Full story here

Update: More suicide letters from bullied kids.

A total of 36 suicide letters have reached the Ministry of Education since the first one was publicized two weeks ago. Some could be hoaxes--like the one written by a lady employee at the Nagano municipal education board, pretending to be a suicidal teen--but others were actually signed by real kids at real schools. Ministry's scrambling to find these kids to stop them from their fatal jump. Like most things in Japan, it looks like suicide reportage is quickly gathering momentum as the new trendy thing to do among depressed kids. This time, though, it's not about portable digital pets or cell phone straps. It's a communal cry for help for deep-rooted societal woes.

New transparent household electronics.

Check out these cool new products from National Electronics' Invention Station, part of their new campaign hosted by these three hotties. The dryer uses natural dry air instead of loads of energy to do its job, and the fridge has a special "low waist line" to facilitate the transport of heavy juice cartons and big pickle jars (if you're a pickle freak). Just make sure you don't have your leopard thongs or moldy cheese or human body parts in there when you have your boss over for dinner.

Portable Ashtray Museum

In Japan, smoking is treated more as an environmental problem than a health problem. In the past few years, laws banning street smoking in certain districts have been passed, and designated smoking booths have popped up all over major cities. The Osaka municipal government claims to have spent 10 million yen last year on cleaning up cigarette butts off the street. That's why Japan Tobacco--the world's #3 tobacco company--is trying to revamp the image of smoking to be something trendy and clean. This is Japan Tobacco's new Mobile Ashtray Museum, part of the company's latest campaign for "clean" smoking. It sells over 300 kinds of portable ashtrays. Apparently, 70% of Japanese smokers own one, and 27% carry theirs around for daily use. The goal of JT's campaign is to up the latter figure to 30% by the end of next year. Keep checking back for more featured mobile ashtrays! Read more here.

The Roppongi Hills Hamburger.

This is how hamburgers are served at the very shmancy, very expensive Roppongi Hills Club. (In Japan, non-fast food hamburgers usually come on a plate with some kind of wonderful sauce and no bun.) This plate of egg and ground meat cost $60, and I'm sure that sounds completely ridiculous to you. But having it once was enough for me to remember it for the rest of my life. Now, whenever my Trader Joe's rice and bean dinner starts to taste boring, I just pull up this picture and let the memories of titillated taste buds tease my yawning tummy.

Green Santa and Swimming Santa.

In Japan, Santa Claus doesn't just sit on a big cozy chair in a fluffy red outfit saying "ho ho ho." Pictured above is National's electric green Santa Claus exhibit that just went up this weekend in Tokyo. And pictured below is Swimming Santa, who's hanging with the sharks and stingrays at an aquarium in Osaka until Christmas Eve. And scaring the crap out of that poor little kid in yellow.