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This is The World of Golden Eggs. I first saw this in a CD shop and stood in front of it laughing my ass off. There are subtitles in the original so I could follow it. A definite recommendation. I’m so glad I could find it on Youtube even if the subs are a bit hard to read.

I read an article in the Japan Times about the best Japan-related internet stories of 2007. The advertising campaigns caught my attention.

Unsurprisingly most of them completely passed me by including Uniqlock the quirky flash based clock you can have as a blog widget for Japanese clothes outlet Uniqlo that’s playing above.

Also is the Pepsi Nex Dance which if you can decipher a few kanji lets you create a character that dances to the music on the site. (Click start, then the green button in the bottom left of the screen. Then scroll down the menu and click on the left button which lights up to get into the designing section.)

Nike Cosplay involved a salaryman being chased around Akihibara by ninjas.

The butt-biting insect. Perhaps the most bizarre thing I have seen in the 3 years I’ve been on this island.

Isabelle loves it.

I`m not normally a fan of Japanese manga, anime or dramas but I recently got sucked into watching an 11 part drama called Proposal Daisukusen (Operation Love) and loved it.

The story is about a man who`s in love with his childhood friend. Unfortunately he`s attending her wedding to another man.

A male fairy appears and sends him back in time via the pictures in the wedding slideshow to see if he can change the future.

I got into it by the 3rd episode and was quickly hooked by the feelings of nostalgia the show emanates and by the unlucky antics of the main character.

The title song is also great. Ashita harerukana by Keisuke Kuwata.

If that sort of thing floats your boat and you can find a way of getting it, I highly recommend it.

Saw this on TV and just found it via TV in Japan. An almost sinisterly creepy performance for Johnny Depp promoting his third Pirates of the Caribbean movie by three very young and talented girls. Stick around for the second part.

This is in the series of The Japanese Tradition done by The Rahmens. I’ve posted the sushi one before. These are a spoof on Japanese culture.

Found via the ever excellent TV in Japan

Thanks to Japan Probe, I came across a YouTube video of a Japanese programme I’d seen on TV. It is about Japanese who marry foreigners.

It was about a slightly ditzy Australian woman who’d been in Japan for 7 years yet still could not speak Japanese. She needs her husband to help her with buying household goods - going as far as calling him up at work and asking him to talk to the salesperson.

7 years is a long time for her to be in a foreign country and not have an adequate understanding of the language but I can sympathize.

I recently called Reiko up to ask her for help in ordering an English textbook not on display. I have a moderate understanding of Japanese but get flustered when put in new situations or when the salesperson treats me as an honourable customer and uses excessively complicated turns of phrase.

Still 7 years.

And I don’t resort to songs about poo.

Yet another reason why Pythgoras Switch is the best children’s programme ever.

On YouTube there are a lot of soramimi videos. Soramimi is a program on Japanese TV which viewers send in foreign songs which have parts that sound like they are saying something odd in Japanese.

According to Wikipedia soramimi means a word used in the Japanese language to describe lyrics of a song that sound like the original, but are actually made up.

In the video above I can understand that he’s saying his eyes hurt. A commenter helpfully gave a full translation:

Mayday, mayday, day (X5), dutty (X5), Sean Paul this one is hot =

Me ite-, Me ite- , ite (X5), dochi (X5), Shampoo, Rinsu ga nai sa!

(MY EYES HURT! (X2) OUCH!(X5), Which one!? (X5) - Shampoo! There’s no conditioner!

There’s a whole load more under the soramimi tag.

I’ve written about famous people doing adverts in Japan before but I like this one of Gemma Ward for the Japanese fashion brand Indivi. I’ve never heard of Gemma Ward but this surreal advert set in a fairytale wood with magical speaking creatures appeals to me.

What I like the most about it is the threat at the end. “Check the new Indivi!”, she warns as if she’ll hunt you down and slit your throat if you don’t do as she tells you. It”s something I remind Reiko of everytime I pass one of their stores.