If you’ve ever wanted to hold a girl’s hand and take long romantic walks in the moonlight, but could never actually find a girl to do that with, there’s now a high-tech device you can try.

Developed by a research team at Gifu University, in Japan, “My Girlfriend in Walk” is an ingenious device that aims to recreate the experience a girlfriend’s hand, without an actual girlfriend. The act of walking hand in hand with the opposite sex, be they partner or friend, can be very satisfying, but we don’t always have someone to do it with. Luckily, technology has evolved enough to provide a viable surrogate, kind of…

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Japanese artist Tomoko Sato honed her carving skills as a food sculptor, but has since transitioned to soap sculpture as well, creating some of the most eye-catching soap bars you’ve ever seen.

From elegant geometrical patterns to impressive flora motifs and traditional Japanese designs, there is nothing Tomoko Sato can’t etch into her medium of choice. Her craft requires precision, attention to detail, and mountains of patience. One wrong flick of the wrist and a perfectly symmetrical design is ruined forever. Luckily, Sato has over a decade and a half of experience, and is a true master of her art.

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Masahiko Kimura is a Japanese bonsai artist famous for pioneering the ‘bonsai forest’ trend, in which several bonsai trees are planted on interlocking wood or stone slates, forming tiny, whimsical forests.

Kimura started out in the world of bonsai art at the age of 15, as an apprentice to bonsai master Motosuke Hamano, at Toju-en Bonsai Garden in Saitama, Japan. After 11 years, a young Masahiko Kimura decides to pursue bonsai art on his own, and ends up creating some of the most controversial bonsai artworks ever. It’s hard to refer to bonsai art as ‘controversial’, but Kimura’s style did ruffle a few feathers among purists of the art at first, as many of them considered that he was breaking too many of the craft’s ancient traditions.

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Hidefumi Yoshida, a self-described ‘tear teacher’, encourages people to shed a few tears every once in a while as a way to relieve stress and lead a happier life.

Japanese are among the least likely of all nationalities to cry, and some would go as far as to say that there is a stigma surrounding crying in the Asian country. But according to Hidefumi Yoshida, a man who has dedicated the last eight years of his life to bringing people to people’s eyes, Japanese people originally had a predisposition to cry easily, but that all changed to the point where children and adults alike are discouraged from crying and they end up becoming closed off. Yoshida has been trying to change this perception, by educating people on the benefits of crying as a way of relaxing and combating stress. He claims to have helped over 50,000 people shed tears over the last seven and a half years.

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Claw machines are infamous for being deceptively easy, but actually excruciatingly difficult to master, and one Japanese man found out just how difficult after failing to win a single price after 200 consecutive tries.

Twitter user Ogarun, who happens to be a big fan of claw machine games, or “UFO Cathers” as they are called in Japan, visited an arcade earlier this month and was so frustrated with one claw machine there that he ended up calling the police. He reportedly tried his luck 200 times in a row and failed to catch a single price, and after getting into an argument with the staff at the arcade, he called the authorities. Interestingly, the police asked the arcade operator to demonstrate that the machine could be beat, but the guy failed 300 times in a row as well…

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The Japanese castle town of Himeji is home to the only known black cat café in the world, Nekobiyaka, where you can enjoy a refreshing drink in the company of about a dozen black felines.

There are hundreds of cat cafes all over Japan, but only one dedicated exclusively to black cats. Nekobiyaka opened in 2013 and has since become somewhat of a tourist attraction in Himeji. The owner, Ms. Yagi, came up with idea of a black cat café as a way of increasing the felines’ chances of finding a forever home. As in most places around the world, the rate of adoption for black cats in Japan is significantly lower than for all other colors, and many of them end up euthanized. At Nekobiyaka, visitors get to interact with black felines and discover that the stigma and superstition surrounding them is simply ridiculous.

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Nikken Kamisori, a Japanese company with a long experience of making razors and blades, claims to have created the ultimate ear hair tweezers.

Ear hygiene is very important in Japanese culture, which explains the existence of ear cleaning parlors where ear cleaning masters wield specialized tools like the mimikaki to remove just the right amount of ear wax. Considering the long-standing tradition of ear cleaning in Japan, it comes as no surprise that a Japanese company managed to invent what it calls the world’s best ear hair tweezers. Featuring a metal spring at the end, which helps catch hairs more efficiently, the innovative device has become a huge hit among middle-aged Japanese men who care about their ear cleanliness.

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Mikishi, a 25-year-old girl from Japan, has been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media lately, because of her drastic plastic surgery transformation.

Ever since taking to Twitter to confess that her appearance is the result of several bouts of plastic surgery, back in March of this year, 25-year-old Mikishi has become somewhat of a poster-girl for early plastic surgery. She had her first cosmetic procedure, a facial reshaping, on the first day after graduating high-school, and she has since turned to plastic surgery several more times, spending about 4 million yen ($40,000) in the process. But she considers it money well spent, as plastic surgery changed her life, giving her back her self-esteem and helping her lead a happy life, instead of sinking into a depression. Today, Mikishi actually advocates for plastic surgery for people who really feel like they need it, and she has even founded a company that provides consultancy  services to such individuals.

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A Japanese self-described “nerd” has been playing Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure for the Switch for over six months, and he claims it helped him go from overweight to impressively chiseled.

“This is the result of a nerd doing Ring Fit for half a year,” Japanese Twitter user ‘kzm’ posted, along with a picture of his toned torso. The post got a lot of attention back in late July, getting almost 24,000 retweets and nearly 400 comments, mostly from people congratulating him on his resolve. Apparently, kzm has been playing Ring Fit Adventure every day since November of last year, and relied on it to keep himself in shape during the Covid-19 lockdown. Only it helped him do much more than that, as a photo of him from November 2019 shows him looking overweight, at least compared to his new sculpted physique.

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Photos of a so-called “mushroom house” sitting on a narrow concrete staircase have been doing the rounds on Japanese social media and leaving viewers scratching their heads in disbelief.

The viral photos were originally posted by Japanese Twitter user Yuko Mohri, but have since been shared over 20,000 times on the popular social network alone. They show what looks like a one-storey house perched on a very narrow concrete staircase, somewhere in Japan. Such a sight would raise a few eyebrows anywhere in the world, but even more in the island country, where powerful earthquakes occur fairly often.

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After struggling to stay open during the Covid-19 pandemic, a sushi restaurant in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, has found success with an ingenious “macho delivery” service that involves using buff bodybuilders as delivery boys.

Masanori Sugiura, a third-generation owner of the 60-year-old sushi restaurant Imazushi in the city of Anjo, started working out at the gym when he was in his 20s, but he never imagined that his hobby would one day help him keep his family business afloat. The trained chef had seen his profits plummet from the usual 100 million yen ($940,000) for the April-June quarter, to just 10 million yen, because of the coronavirus, and at one point had cut his staff from 50 to just four. But then he had a wacky idea to put his muscles to work as a way of attracting new business, and the “Delivery Macho” service was born.

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Akiko Obata has been fascinated by plastic food ever since she was a child, and 10 years ago she started collecting all sorts of plastic food items, amassing a collection of over 8,000 individual pieces.

“Sampuru”, the fake food displays used by most restaurants to showcase their dishes to potential diners, is an important part of Japanese food culture. They are considered superior to menus, as they give customers a much better idea of what they’ll be getting on their plates, and also help restaurant owners better showcase their dishes. Sampuru makers often go above and beyond to make their products as realistic as possible, and some do really look good enough to eat. Plastic foods are so popular in Japan that some people have actually started collecting them…

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A Japanese cosplay enthusiast from Tokushima has been getting a lot of attention online thanks to his adorable collection of costume cat costumes inspired by characters in popular anime.

The talented artist, who goes by Yagyou (@YagyouNEKO) on Twitter, is the one-man-team behind one of the most adorable projects I’ve seen on social media in a while. After choosing a character from some of his favorite anime – he has an affinity for Studio Ghibli work- he starts working on the feline cosplay costume. He conceptualizes and designs the outfit, cuts and sews the material himself, dresses the felines and even takes the photographs himself. Looking at some of his costumes and the artistic photos he takes, it’s hard to believe he does everything himself.

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Most people are apprehensive about using public restrooms as it is, so making them completely transparent would just boost their anxiety, right? Well, apparently, the exact opposite is true.

Japanese public toilets generally have a higher standard of hygiene that other public restrooms around the world. I distinctly remember posting about Benjyo Soujer, a Tokyo social club whose members gather every Sunday morning to voluntarily clean public toilets around Japan’s capital. But even in this country, some people dread the thought of having to walk into a dark, smelly, dirty and possibly unsafe facility to do their “business”. But what if you could see how clean or safe this facility was before walking in?

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Authorities in Tokorozawa, a Japanese city located north of Tokyo, recently unveiled a total of 27 high-tech manhole covers featuring LED displays inspired by popular anime.

In an ingenious attempt to improve the image of the local sewer system and also hopefully prevent nighttime crime on the main boulevard of Tokorozawa, the city’s Waterworks and Sewerage department recently installed a total of 27 new manhole covers illuminated by solar-powered LED lights and featuring anime-inspired designs. The new manholes were laid on August 1, 2020, and are the first manholes in Japan to feature LED lighting.

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