They say the secret to a successful career is doing what you love, but paying monthly bills when the thing you love most is playing video games all day has got to be pretty darn hard. Not for Moru-chan, a Japanese gamer who is currently earning  a decent $10,000 for basically spending three months of his life playing a video game and broadcasting his experience online.

If you enjoy spending your free time playing massive multiplayer online games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft of Guild Wars, Moru-chan’s arrangement must seem like a dream job. Truth be told, there are probably thousands of gamers out there who do the same thing for free, but he is one of the lucky few who are able to support their livelihood by killing monsters, upgrading their virtual character and performing quests in a fantasy online universe. A long-time fan of online role-playing games, Moru Chans was chosen by the development team of Japanese MMO ArchAge to be the recipient of a ¥1 million ($10,000) check for spending three whole months cooped up in a one-room apartment provided by the company playing the video game and streaming it to Japanese video-sharing site Niconico. He spends all night in front of the computer, playing the game, and his days sleeping on a mattress on the floor, cooking in his very small kitchenette and doing the laundry.

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Most people would rather their bladder burst than walk into a public toilet to do their business, let alone to clean it, but the members of Tokyo social club Benjyo Soujer do it for free, with their bare hands, as a therapeutic hobby.

On Sunday mornings, a group of 35 adults and children gather at public lavatories around Tokyo, to clean them. They are members of Benjyo Soujer, a social club founded on Facebook, and their main mission is to clean themselves by cleaning cubicles. They start by mixing their own cocktails of cleaning agents, then huddle into the toilets spraying and scrubbing everything from the urinals and toilet bowls to the facility’s walls and floor. By the time they’re done, the place is as clean as the day it first opened its doors, maybe cleaner. The 35 members of the unique group don’t think of themselves as volunteers helping the local administration keep public restrooms sanitary, instead saying they do the work for themselves as a sort of spirit cleansing ritual similar to the ones practiced by Buddhist monks to find peace of heart. For some, it’s also also a fun way to blow off steam before the coming week.

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If you’ve recently run out of things to spend your mountains of cash on, you may want to try the outrageously expensive Hanebisho toilet paper. It’s considered the most luxurious and most expensive toilet paper in the world.

From the $91,500 crocodile skin t-shirt to the $97,060 GRV goldRally car wax, we’ve featured some pretty outrageous things the world’s rich and famous like to spend their money on, but none as crazy as the Japanese exclusive toilet paper known as Hanebisho. For people who feel their derrière deserves the best money can buy, there’s simply no alternative to this beautifully adorned work of art. As you can see in the photos below, a three-pack of Hanebisho will set you back ¥5,000 ($51), while the eight-pack can be yours for ‘just’ ¥10,000($102), which means a single roll ranges from $13 to $17. That’s a whole lot more than what the average person spends on toilet paper, not to mention the darned thing is just 2-ply. At this stage, you’re probably wondering what on Earth makes Hanebisho toilet paper so special that people are willing to spend a small fortune on it? Where do I begin?

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Designed to replicate the relaxing experience of resting your head on a woman’s lap, the Himazakura Lap Pillow is still very popular in Japan, years after it was launched.

On the popular online store Japan Trend Shop, the Himazakura Lap Pillow is described as” soft and elastic to the touch, and perfectly suited to lying your head on. You’ll be surprised at how comfortable and real it feels!” Shaped as the lap of a woman kneeling in Japanese style, the polyurethane cushion recreates the comfortable feeling of resting your head on a woman’s lap, be it your mother or your loving wife. Launched during the mid 2000’s by the Trane Corporation and advertised as a homesickness-healing accessory, the lap pillow was an instant hit with lonely shoppers, and it’s still proving a best-seller today. The item is sold out on both Japan Trend Shop and Amazon Japan, and it’s flying off the shelves of duty free shops in Tokyo and Narita International airports, where most people buy it as a novelty gift for friends.

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There’s no shame in being single, but if you’d like your friends and acquaintances to think you’re in a loving relationship, you can follow the example of Keisuke Jinushi, a young Japanese photographer who has mastered the art of making his right hand the perfect photo girlfriend.

Being single can be pretty uncomfortable, especially when all your friends are in relationships and can’t seem to shut up about their perfect girlfriends and the good times they have together. Of course, that’s not the case of Keisuke Jinushi, the guy in the photos below. He obviously has a very caring girlfriend who loves to feed him delicious treats, wipe the corners of his mouth of ketchup or grab his mouth in a very affectionate manner. She’s the one who took the photos, so she must be real, right?  No, not really. It was Keisuke himself who took the photos, and that’s actually his own right hand feeding his mouth. But why would anyone do something like that? Apparently, the talented photographer just wanted to share his “selfie” tricks to show everyone just how easy it is to share a romantic moment even if they’re sharing it with themselves.

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Tokyo is such a crowded place that even finding a place to park your bicycle can be a daunting task. But leave it to the Japanese to find a genius solution to this growing space problem. The ECO-Cycle Park is an automated bicycle storage system buried 11 meters under the city streets that can hold up to 200 bikes.

Although Japan is one of the world’s leading car manufacturers and its public transportation system is probably the most advanced on the planet, the bicycle is still a very popular means of getting around in the busy traffic. Unfortunately parking spaces are at a premium, and owners are often forced to leave them on the sidewalk where they become obstacles for pedestrians. To solve this problem, Japanese company Giken Seisakusho, which specializes in tidal and flood protection systems, created ECO-Cycle, a series of five underground storage bicycle storage facilities where owners can safely “park” their bikes in just 8 seconds. The buried cylindrical structures are only seven meters wide, but deep enough to safely store up to 200 two-wheel vehicles each.

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There are plenty of smartphone covers and screen protectors out there, but they all leave your phone’s most thumbed area, the home button, exposed. That’s where the stylish smartphone panties or pantsu come in. They stretch over the base of the device and cover it private parts.

If you haven’t figured it out already, these cheeky accessories were invented in Japan, by the world’s largest toy-maker, Bandai. They lacks any kind of functionality, and actually make it really hard to operate your phone, but Japanese teens thought they were cute and snatched them up quickly when they first hit the market back in march. Following the SmartPants’ success, Bandai has recently launched a new range of silicone smartphone underwear, featuring all kinds of patterns, from animal print to banana and Mount Fuji. There are also a variety of models, from skimpy bikinis to jockstraps and briefs. The stretchy gadget undies are made of silicone to fit most smartphone models and cost ¥200 ($2) a piece. You can find them in Gashapon machines (Japanese vending machines) across Japan. If you’re interested, sets of 7 panstu are available on the J-Box online store for $38.50. Kind of expensive for a useless accessory, but they’re guaranteed to make your phone stand out.

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It’s not every day you get to see people dragging vegetables on a leash in the street. Unless you live in Japan, that is. Over the last year, photos of a well-dressed man walking all kinds of produce through Tokyo like they were pets have been surfacing on various social networks. Known as “Cornman”, he has become one of the human attractions of Japan’s capital city.

Until recently, no one really knew who Cornman was or why he was walking produce on a leash. The first known photo of him dragging an ear of corn outside a subway station was tweeted in May of 2012, and ever since then people started sharing pics of the elusive character with all kinds of produce, from cauliflower to radishes. There was a lot of speculation surrounding Cornman and the motives of his bizarre habit. Some people said he was crazy, others that he was just looking for attention, and there were those who claimed he was the loser of a batsu game (a competition or a bet where the loser has to do something embarrassing), but no one knew for sure. Then, a few days ago, Cornman appeared on a Japanese TV show and talked about himself and his produce pets.

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At the request of students who wanted to avoid lunchtime socializing, Japanese universities in Kyoto and Kobe have replaced regular tables with so-called “lonely seats” featuring 50-cm dividers in the middle.

In most cultures, going to lunch with friends or co-workers is a great way to take your mind off the job and relax, but it seems that’s exactly what the students at Kyoto University are trying to avoid. They are busy people who don’t always have time to sit around and make small talk with their peers, so in order to avoid this kind of uncomfortable situations, they’ve asked the university for a practical solution. There are always empty tables where they could eat their meals in peace, but according to one 22-year old engineering student “If you are sitting at a big table by yourself it’s like you don’t have any friends and that is embarrassing.” So to solve this predicament, the university replaced the regular cafeteria tables with “bocchi seki” or “lonely seats” that have an opaque divider across the middle so the person on the other side can’t see you slurping your noodles or engage in a conversation.

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What would you say if I told you losing those extra pounds is as easy as taking a nice long breath and exhaling for just 2 minutes a day? Only it’s not me who is saying it, it’s Miki Ryosuke, a Japanese actor turned dieting guru and inventor of the famous Long Breath Diet.

Miki Ryosuke discovered the Long Breath Diet completely by accident. He was practicing breathing techniques to ease back pain, but noticed he was losing a lot of weight, which eventually amounted to 28 pounds and 5 inches in 50 days. Realizing the potential of his discovery, Ryosuke came up with a series of more effective ways of breathing in and exhaling, and created the now famous Long Breath Diet. The name is a bit misleading, because his weight-loss techniques have little to do with dieting and more with exercising. Basically, you have to have a certain posture, inhale through the nose for three seconds and than exhale aggressively through the mouth for seven seconds, while using your whole body to push out all the air. Apparently, repeating the process for 2 to 5 minutes every day will help you lose weight, or breath away the extra pounds, if you will.

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Palmistry, the art of predicting the future by reading palm lines, has always been very popular in Japan, only now modern day believers are taking matters into their own hands by using plastic surgery to alter or extend their life, love and success lines, and hopefully change fate.

Do you want to live a long and healthy life, find the man/woman of your dreams or win the lottery? Changing your fortunes may seem impossible, but an increasing number of Japanese are confident it’s as easy as altering your palm lines through plastic surgery. A reporter from The Daily Beast sat down with Takaaki Matsuoka, a plastic surgeon at the Shonan Beauty Clinic, who has so far performed 20 of these palm-line altering surgeries. Matsuoka knew nothing about palmistry until two years ago, when a client walked into his office and asked him to change some of her palm lines. Unsure he could pull off such a procedure, the doctor started searching through medical journals and found it was already practiced in Korea. He studied the methods and after the patient confirmed what she wanted altered, he performed the surgery for ¥100,000 ($1,000). It turned out alright, and since then 37 clients have had their palm lines changed or added at the Shonan Beauty Clinic alone.

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Japan is known for its selection of weird foods, and today we can add one more item to the ever-growing list. The Black Terra Hot-Dog is one of the most popular fast-food delicacies sold in the Akihabara district of Tokyo. It’s over 30 centimeters long and looks like it’s been cooked a few hours longer than necessary.

Black hamburgers have been around for about a year now, ever since Burger King launched its Premium Kuro Burger in Japan. It has black buns and dark ketchup, but the meat patty and vegetables retain their natural colors. But the people over at Vegas Premium Hot-Dogs, in Akihabara, Tokyo decided to one-up the giant fast-food chain by creating a food item that is entirely black as charcoal. Vegas was already famous for the size of its delicious hot-dogs, which span over 30 cm in length, but ever since they introduced the Black Terra Hot-Dog, in March, their popularity has grown even more. You would expect clients to be turned off by the rubber-like sausage, but apparently people who see this delicacy advertised on the billboards in front of the fast-food joint just can’t resist the urge to try it.

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Snail slime is believed to have an anti-ageing effect on human skin and beauty product companies have been using as an ingredient for around two decades. Now, a Japanese beauty salon is taking things to a whole new level by offering a treatment where live snails are put directly on clients’ faces to cover them in slime.

For a lot of women, having snails crawling on their faces is the stuff of nightmares, but the owners of Tokyo-based beauty salon Ci:z Labo are hoping some will actually be willing to pay for it. According to Ci:z Labo spokeswoman Manami Takamura, snail slime removes old cells from a person’s skin, moisturizes it and treats sun burn effects. The treatment, called the Celebrity Escargot Course, costs Y24,150 ($241) and involves four snails bought from an organic snail breeder in Japan and kept in sterile conditions. An assistant gently places the snails on the patient’s previously washed face and let’s them crawl freely. If they get too close to the person’s mouth, eyes or nostrils, she picks them up and places them back on an area where they feel less uncomfortable. The slimy facial is a central part of this 60-minute treatment and is followed by a series of massages, masks and electrical pulse machines using creams infused with snail mucus which ensure the secretions penetrate the skin properly.

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Out of all the impressive fireworks celebrations held annually all around Japan, Tezutsu Hanabi is by far the most eye-catching. Experienced masters hold large bamboo tubes filled with black powder in their arms as flames gush out towards the sky. Did I mention they explode at the end?

Tezutsu hand cannons are believed to have originated as a form of long-distance communication smoke devices called Noroshi. With the introduction of smokeless gun powder, these Civil War era tools started being used as fireworks and later as a form of prayer at Yoshida Shrine, in Toyohashi. The Tezutsu Hanabi fireworks display has been carried out for the last 300 years, as part of the Gion Festival, attracting tourists from all over Japan and beyond with columns of flames up to 20 meters-high piercing the night sky. Seeing dozens of men walking around nonchalantly with 80-cm-long, 10-cm-wide bamboo cylinders filled with over three kilograms of ignited black powder is indeed quite the spectacle.

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They are called Z Machinese and they are about to take the Japanese music world by storm. This unique rock band is made up entirely of futuristic automatons able to play guitar, drums and keyboards better than any human.

Z Machines is the brainchild of Yoichiro Kawaguchi, an IT professor at the University of Tokyo, and mechanical designer Naofumi Yonetsuka, who wanted to liven up the music scene by creating something futuristic and exciting. So they created Ashura, a six-armed drummer who can actually play 22 drums simultaneously and sounds like four people playing the drums at the same time, Mach, a metal-and-wire guitarist who uses 78 fingers and 12 picks allowing him to challenge even the most gifted human guitar players, and Cosmo, who is literally wired into his keyboard and shoots lasers from his eyes. Z Mazhines certainly sounds like a very impressive band, but can they really play a gig? They answered that question on Monday, when they teamed up with Japanese human duo Amoyamo, for an electrifying performance at one of Tokyo’s most popular night clubs.

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