Christ Matsuri

This might come as a shock to a lot of you, but it turns out the Mormons got it wrong! The truth is that Jesus didn't die in Judea. His kid brother Isukiri took his place when they tried to crucify him. Then Jesus fled to Japan, specifically to Aomori-ken. He lived to be 106. In 1935, his tomb was discovered. 29 years later the first Christ Matsuri (matsuri=festival) was held. You can see the cool dance they do at it above. It just screams Jesus, doesn't it? The other cross is there for Isukiri, but he's not actually buried there (unlike Jesus who is for sure buried there).

Lotteria's Ramen Burger

Japanese Food Review #52

 I wrote about another ramen burger where the bun was replaced by noodles. Well, Lotteria took that interesting idea and changed it into a horrible one: "What if the patty is made of noodles!" Yes, this is bread with noodles, sauce, and a piece of pork in the middle. You also get a bowl of soup and can buy a kaedama (extra thing of noodles) for 100 yen. The burger is not only offered for a limited amount of time, but each store sells a limited amount each day. For example, only the first 150 lucky folks can get one at the Lotteria I visited. The soup was probably the worst ramen broth I've ever had. The burger was okay when I got enough pork in my mouth, but it shouldn't exist.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 3 It's kind of fun to eat something that you know you will never eat again.
Girlbot: 2  She would rather have ramen.
Overall: 2.5

Momoiro Clover Z's Ice Cream Commercial

The gals from Momoiro Clover Z are back at it again promoting an ice cream called Soh (basically meaning refreshing). Two of them say they want to enjoy vanilla. The others of course retort that they want ice. Then a giant human (biblical symbolism much?) says they can have both. Soh is ice cream that has little bits of ice in it to make it kind of crunchy! And I'm assuming it also makes it cheaper to make!

Only One Man Born in the 1800s Alive

Jiroemon Kimura of Kyoto Prefecture is the oldest person in the world at the age of 116. In fact, he's the oldest man in the history of men. Luckily for him, a James Sisnett died making Mr. Kimura the only male born in the 19th century who refuses to die. He is said to eat three small meals a day consisting of red bean cakes and rice and spends most of this day in bed. So the key to living a long life seems to be making this world a living hell. Here's a video of him a month ago on his birthday. He received a message from the prime minister. Look at the wisdom in those eyes!

For Your JUST

I can only assume that "JUST" is some sort of code for "private parts" in Japan.

NEW SMART MIST CM FINALLY HERE!!!

Remember the first Smart Mist commercial? I pointed out that having two orange pandas and a girl witch promote your car cleaning product seemed a little nonsensical. Well I feel like an idiot. It turns out that when you spray Smart Mist, it's basically like unleashing an army of tiny orange pandas that mop your car. So that's why those pandas have those spray bottles on their heads when they dance.

Hot Air Balloons and Fat

Chicks dig a bit of fat. Also hot air balloons, cursive handwriting, and a checkerboard in the corner of things.

Public Service Announcement

This little dude is saying, "Don't become like me." At first this gave me pause. I am an overweight, alcoholic smoker, and my skin is shockingly pink. Then I realized that I have some hair and usually wear pants, so I'm probably still cool.

MOS Vegetable Burger

Japanese Food Review #51

MOS Burger is a fast food chain that competes with McDonald's. The food is of a higher quality than McDonald's, but the price is quite a bit higher. MOS Burger's menu always has some strange items. There are different rice burgers to choose from (sticky rice instead of bread), for example. The vegetable burger isn't always on the menu, but it's around every once and awhile (the McRib of Japan?). It's not a veggie burger. The patty is still beef (it's hard to see in the picture), and there's extra lettuce instead of buns. You use the paper wrapper it comes in to hold it. I guess it's good if you're worried about carbs.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 5 It's a fine burger, but it's still fast food and I couldn't help but think that it would have been a little better if there had been some bread involved.
Girlbot: 8 MOS Burger is her favorite fast food restaurant in Japan. She noted that she would also give the standard MOS Burger (with bread) an 8. As a reference point, she would give a Whopper a 7 and an In-N-Out Burger a 9.
Overall: 6.5

76-Year-Old Stalker

Visual approximation of stalker.

Yomiuri Shimbun reported that a 76-year-old stalker was arrested on  May 21st. I'm sure his grandchildren are totally "jazzed" that gramps is still "hip" and continues to "try to have sex with 37-year-old waitresses." It seems the old man in Hyogo Prefecture had become friendly with an employee at a restaurant. He asked her out and was surprisingly turned down. Then during the two days of the 15th and 16th, he called her phone 62 times. He later said that he was in no way threatening her. He was simply calling because she wasn't answering. One would tend to believe this sweet old soul with a broken heart, but according to the other employees of the restaurant, he showed up and said, "I'll never forgive her," and, "If she shows her face, I'm gonna stab her." Anyway, file this one under, "Boyz will be boyz!"

Dragon Ball Cider

Cider in Japan is neither an alcoholic beverage or made from apples. It's just a sweet soft drink. I've heard people say it's similar to lemonade, and that may be true if you were to make lemonade without any natural or artificial lemon flavor. If you ever buy Japanese candy that looks cute and is for little kids, you'll probably taste something that's kind of sweet and awful but with no real distinguishable flavor. That's cider.

Anyway, DyDo has teamed up with Dragon Ball to make special cider cans. There are six different cans with six different characters. I, of course, got Goku. On the back of the can you can see his stats (I'm taller, older, and heavier than him). Girlbot thought this was a delicious treat. I'd mark it down as one of the worst non-diet sodas I've ever had. Certainly in the bottom 10%. There are seven vitamins in the drink, so it's got to be super healthy.

Boat Race Rap

Remember this boat race commerical? Well, Akkinya is back and just a hair more gangsta than you remember! Just from this 30 second commercial you can tell that Japanese hip hop is light years ahead of its American counterpart. American rap used to be good, but it peaked at "The Bartman" and now pretty much everyone is just trying to do their version of that song. Thank god the Japanese are trying to take the genre to bold new places.

Instant Boobs Video

I wrote about instant boobs last month. Now, at the request of no one, I've made a video chronicalling my adventures with the product. Believe it our not, the song just suddenly came to me. And unlike Paul McCartney changing the lyrics from "scrambled eggs" to "yesterday," these are the original lyrics that floated through my head. Basically, I have more talent than McCartney. And I don't mean to brag, but I still haven't been accused of stabbing a one-legged woman with a broken wine glass, so I might be a better person than him.

Anchor

"Beauty." When you hear that word, you probably picture some sort of an anchor if you're like most humans. But the real "beauty" of this shirt is the message on the top. (I'm pretty sure that could be classified as a witty play on words.)

This is the perfect shirt to wear when you don't have the balls to say, "You can't get mad if it turns out I have a secret husband in Peru, cool?"

Kyary and KFC Krushers

Doesn't this just make you want to swallow too much peyote and try to eat LSD with your eyes... I mean go to KFC? I believe this is actually the second time Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has made a commercial for KFC Krushers, and this time you can hear her song Kura Kura. The slogan is, "Do you kura kura?" As far as I know, kura kura means dizzy or excited. Maybe it's some new slang I'm not aware of. It sounds like she's saying "Chu chu kura kura." Chu is the sound of a kiss, so it's probably about the giddiness of kissing. You for sure didn't need to know any of that. Basically, the ad campaign doesn't make much sense.

Luxurious Chocolat Strawberry Potato Chips

Japanese Food Review #50

 I wrote about vanilla chips over a year ago if you want to read up on the zeitaku series. This time the white chocolate is strawberry-flavored. That's not all, the flavor comes from powder made from real amaou strawberries (the bag seems to indicate that that means something, though even girlbot didn't know what they were). Anyway, they're big and sweet strawberries. Exactly the kind of strawberries you'd want to mix with white chocolate and drizzle on your potato chips.

Ratings: 
Gaybot: 2  Again, they're not quite as bad as you may think, but they are much worse than even the vanilla ones.
Girlbot: 0  Same score as last year, though she agrees these are worse.
Overall: 1

Crab Stairs

Mayor: As you know, we only have $5000 to make the new playground, but you have full control of the money. Could you come up with a proposal by the end of the month?
Playground designer: Would it blow your mind if I made a proposal at this very moment?
Mayor: Wh-wh-whaaaat?!
Playground designer: Get this... Crab stairs.
Mayor: (A single tear rolls down his cheek.) Surely you are simply a vessel an angel is using to speak.

El Fin

Smellophone

Great news! I finally found out why I'm so depressed! It turns out that there aren't nearly enough smells coming from my phone! Luckily, this will soon be a thing of the past. Japanese scientists have developed a product that will release smells from your phone during video games or when a text message is received. We all thought Brett Favre was a fool for sending those crotch shots, but it turns out that if he had simply waited a few years to send them, that chick would totally have been into them.

Giant Taiyaki

Taiyaki is a small fish-shaped cake filled with beans, custard, or whatever else. Tai means sea bream, and yaki means cook. This giant taiyaki isn't a breaded dessert. It's a huge amount of salt covering an actual sea bream.

Here it is before being baked.

And here's the real fish inside. It tastes like salty fish. You can play a fun game I've named, "Try not to eat a mouthful of salt." It's really difficult, and your blood pressure gets higher the more you lose.

Kids Clothes

If I found this in my mailbox in America, I would assume it's a right wing flyer warning what will happen to the youth of the country if gay marriage becomes a reality. In Japan, it's just an ad for kids clothes because you should already want your boy to look like this.

Aliens Develop Vomiting Technology

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu becomes a vomiting fountain in her latest GU commercial. I don't need to tell you how turned on I am right now. I mean, seriously, you'd be super grossed out if I really explained how turned on I am. I have to say, this is brilliant marketing by GU. I guarantee the next time you see a girl projectile vomiting the thought, "Man alive, I could really go for some GU short pants right about now," will suddenly come in your head.

Lucky Bastard

Hokkaido Ramen (Soy Sauce)

Japanese Food Review #49

Everybody knows I like my ramen like I like my women, ripe 'n' dry (or am I thinking of bread fruit?). The package has pretty much everything you want. There's a bunch of poetic, nonsensical English. It also says "Beware of bears," in Japanese. And of course there's the winner of the "Best Bear Drawing" contest from some junior high school in Hokkaido (I'm assuming). Also the ramen is pretty good.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 7.5  An extra point five for the package.
Girlbot: 10  She originally said the noodles were restaurant quality. She then decided that was going too far, but they were still of a higher quality than other instant noodles. The soup also didn't taste cheap. Furthermore, she usually doesn't enjoy soy sauce ramen, but the flavor was excellent.
Overall: 8.75

Naive Hand Soap

I'm not sure if Naive is looking for some new English slogans, but I've come up with a couple anyway.

Naive: So you're wife will never know the filthy places your hands have been.

Remember that dead hooker? You're wife doesn't... thanks to Naive!

Raccoon blood? What raccoon blood? Honestly, you should see a doctor. You've for sure been hallucinating again. Now go back to bed, eight-year-old son. (Wink. Thanks Naive.)

Invader Invader

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's latest single, Invader Invader, will come out on the 15th, but the video is already up. It's the same song used in all the GU commercials where she plays an alien taking over the world with her style. Basically the same thing is going on here. I think Kyary says it all when she says, "Wow, wow, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, wow, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm an invader." The verse that she sings twice is also quite poetic. I'd translate it as:

Lasers from my eyes.
Missiles from my ears.
I telepathically send you a heart.
Extend the antenna. Rainbow-colored UFO.
If that is said...

(back to the chorus)

Stylish  Let's take over the world.

And so on.

So, yeah, it might seem a little confusing if you don't understand the lyrics, but if you speak Japanese, you've probably already been moved to tears and aren't able to read this.

Trash Can

A: Here's the deal guyz. Our solid color garbage cans just aren't selling at all. We need to come up with some interesting images to sell them. But here's the catch, and you guyz are gonna love this... We only have 20 seconds to give the graphics department our idea. Ready... Go!
B: Ahh! Soft serve ice cream!
C: Penguin like creatures!
D: Chatting?!
B: Yeah! I like chatting and believe others do as well!
C: Oh! Optimistic views of the future!
A: You're doing great! 5 seconds!
B: Butterfat!... Ahh, pure!
C: Is that a thing?!
D: We've got no time man! Just put it down!
A: And done! Great job boyz. You just moved a ton of trash cans for the company.

Happy Children's Day

May 5th is Children's Day in Japan. It used to be Boy's Day, so all the decorations are male oriented. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

The most prominent decorations are flying carp, or koinobori. They're supposed to make your child become a great person and are flying all over Japan well before Children's Day.

Samurai armor is also often displayed in houses with boys. Here's some armor girlbot's grandfather purchased many years ago.

It's incredibly expensive and takes up a lot of space, so if you're poor, you can buy a small cardboard one.

And it's good to know that some traditions are the same in every culture. For instance, we can all agree that children love dolls wearing helmets riding on giant carp.

The Shame of Public Bowel Movements

It's hard to say if this dog is more embarrassed about crapping outside or the fact that his master seems to be getting off by picking it up.

Japanese Bull Fighting

The above video is pretty boring if you can't speak Japanese. It says that a 40-year-old man was gored to death by his own bull in Kagoshima-ken in a bull ring. Most people don't know this, but bull fighting, or 闘牛　(togyu), is practiced in Japan. It comes from Okinawa, but it has spread to other parts of Japan. It's not like Spanish bull fighting where a bull is killed by a man. It's more like a crossbreed of cock fighting and sumo. Bulls are trained by their owners to push other bulls to the side of the ring, and it is non-lethal. I'm guessing some bulls' eyes are lost. The matches end when one bull runs away, is gored, or is too tired to continue. Here's an example from Uwajima in Shikoku. Don't worry, no goring in this clip.

Grill Salt Chips

Japanese Food Review #48

I'm not going to do a better job of describing these than the above photo. I will add that it claims to be salt a pepper flavored, but it tastes like that cheap chicken ramen powder. You know, "grill salt." Truly an exciting flavor.

Ratings:
Gaybot: 4  It was incredibly salty.
Girlbot: 3  They weren't as good as she expected.
Overall: 3.5

Swastika

You've gotta admit, it's way easier to raise your child as a Nazi sympathizer in Japan.