Competition In Japanese Digital Comics Gets Bloody; Mamoru Oshii haemophobic?
Blood-Stained Mai Love by Mamoru Oshii is a black comedy about a high school student with a fetish for donating blood and his strange friendship with Mai, a wandering Transylvanian…
“Hashbrowns” are the 2012 Food of the Year says Japanese Diners Association
Hashbrowns refers to a dish of cooked potatoes, typically with onions added, that have been chopped into small pieces and fried until a golden brown. They are often served in…
Bamiyan, The Destroyed Buddha Images & Meditations on Art
You see, the Japanese are sometimes called the world's great antiquarians. And they can trace their own tradition of Buddhist sculpture back to Bamiyan. So they --like many people-- find…
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How The CIA Helped The Yakuza & The LDP Get Power & Promote Nuclear Power
Chapter 12: "We Ran It In A Different Way" is a must for anyone interested in the shadow history of Japan. It details how in post-war Japan, the CIA, using…
Habanero Kimichi Potato Chips: Review
Tohato's latest culinary masterpiece is a delicate blend of habanero, garlic, powdered kimchi, ginger and some other things that I'm afraid to look up. Surprisingly, the taste is relatively mild…
Salt and Butter Caramel: Morinaga’s Masterpiece Raises The Japanese Caramel Bar Tenfold
The Morinaga Salt and Butter Caramel (森永塩バターキャラメル） was first released in a limited edition on March 6th 2012, and quickly became legendary amongst Japan’s obsessive caramel fans known as キャラメルマン*.…
日本の小顔コルセット使えば本当に３分で可愛くなれるの？ Small face, great beauty
これは、世界中でも有名になっている日本人女性の願望だ。しかしこの夢、どうやら「1日3分巻くだけ！絶対小顔コルセット―整形レベルのW巻き（主婦の友)」と付属本で叶えられるらしい。それには、1日3分、激痛を味わうだけでいいのだ。A wonderful translation of our review of this beautiful for human life beauty product.
Lingerie designer by day, yakuza by night: Shizukanaru Don (The Quiet Don)
By Gilles Poitras Screenshots courtesy of Michelle A. Hoyle Nitta Tatsuo’s Shizukanaru Don (静かなるドン), translated into English as The Quiet Don, began publication in November 1988 in the men’s manga…
Tatsumi: Not all comics (or movies) are for children. The Post-War Life & Loves of A Manga God
Tatsumi is an animated gekiga film of sorts, inspired by and based on Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s life. In order to create the film, director Eric Khoo had his animators reproduce specific…
Book Review: Introduction to Zen
英語対訳で読む禅入門, or Introduction to Zen with Accompanying English Translation, was written by Priest Souen Ozeki and translated by a one Elizabeth Mills (whom I suspect may be using a pen…