A Japanese civil servant in Osaka was recently forced to return 1.44 million yen ($11,000) of his salary after being found guilty of smoking during work hours more than 4,500 times in 14 years.

When people say smoking is an expensive vice, they are generally referring to the cost of cigarretes, but in cities like Osaka, smokers risk having important sums of money deducted from their salaries if caught smoking on the job. A director-level civil servant recently found this out the hard way after being hit with a fine of approximately $11,000 for thousands of cigarettes smoked during work hours for 14 years. The 61-year-old employee who was found to have smoked a total of 4,512 times in the past 14 and a half years while he was at work, the equivalent of 355 hours and 19 minutes spent not doing his job.

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A popular Japanese tailor and adventurer recently went viral on social media after climbing Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in Malaysia, in a three-piece suit and stylish leather suit.

One of the last things you would expect to see at the top of the 4,095-meter Mount Kinabalu is a Japanese fellow wearing a pristine three-piece suit, classy leather suit, and an office ID tag around his neck and carrying a messenger bag. And yet that was exactly the unusual sight that mountaineers at the top of Malaysia’s highest peak were treated to this week as Nobutaka Sada, a Japanese tailor and adventurer, posed for photos and videos to post on his popular social media accounts. Sada owns his own bespoke suit label and he often pulls this kind of stunt to promote his brand.

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The Japanese town of Tsuruta is famous for hosting a unique annual competition – a popular game of tug of war in which bald men attach suction cups to their heads and pull in opposite directions.

The Covid-19 pandemic threw a wrench in all aspects of Japanese society, but it’s fair to say that social gatherings and events were among the most impacted. Tsuruta, a town in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture, recently held its annual “Suction Cup Tug-of-War” tournament for the first time in three years, and it was just as fun as people remembered. Thought up by the Tsuruta Hagemasu Association as a way of shedding a positive light on baldness, suction cup tug-of-war is a fun game in which two people sitting opposite from each other attach suction cups connected through a string to their heads and pull. The person whose suction cup detaches first loses.

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For decades, the mummified remains of a creature resembling a small mermaid have been worshipped at a temple in Asakuchi, Japan, but scientists have long suspected that the mermaid mummy was actually man-made.

Allegedly caught in the Pacific Ocean, off the island of Shikoku, between 1736 and 1741, the famous mermaid mummy has been kept on display at the Enjuin temple in Asakuchi for over 40 years, attracting visitors convinced that the remains would bring them good luck. It is said that these tiny supernatural creatures were immortal and that whoever consumed their flesh would also enjoy eternal life. Somehow, no one actually tried, but a team of scientists did request a more thorough examination in order to confirm the many legends around the artifact.

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SpoGomi, a combination of ‘sport’ and ‘gomi’ (Japanese for rubbish) is a popular competition in which teams of 3-5 people try to pick up the most trash of the highest quality in a set period of time.

Japan recently announced that it would host the first SpoGomi World Cup in November of 2023, with teams from all over the world scouring the streets of Tokyo in search of trash to pick up. Each team of three players will have 60 minutes to gather the most trash from a designated area while trying to sort it correctly into color-coded bags for each type (burnable waste, recyclable plastic, metal cans, etc.). When the time is up, the trash will be weighted and checked for proper sorting, and the team with the most trash wins. In case of a tie, the winner is determined by the quality of the trash, with points awarded by type (cigarette butts win the most points).

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A Japanese garment company recently made international news headlines for its newest creation –  a wearable beanbag that allows you to comfortably sit or lay down anytime, anywhere.

When thinking about ultimate comfort, a giant beanbag that you can wear is probably not the first thing that comes to mind, but according to Takikou, a garment company based in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture, that’s exactly what its new wearable beanbag is about. The seemingly wacky invention was reportedly inspired by the concept of a “cushion that ruins people”, a rather popular idea among Japanese designers that basically revolves around offering consumers extreme levels of comfort that they don’t ever want to move, thus ruining their lives.

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AI Suitcase is a smart suitcase developed by a blind computer scientist to aid the visually impaired in navigating their surrounding more efficiently without the aid of white canes or guide dogs.

65-year-old Chieko Asakawa has been completely blind since she was only 14, following a tragic accident. A computer scientist and also the director of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, also known as Miraikan, in Tokyo she is living proof that the visually impaired can overcome their disability to achieve great things. But as someone who has long struggled with navigating unfamiliar and crowded places, Asakawa came up with an idea to help the visually impaired get around easier. In 2017, her own experiences inspired her to come up with the idea of a smart suitcase that could guide its user with the help of built-in sensors and cameras. Six years later, the AI Suitcase is almost ready for its commercial debut.

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The Tokay Stakes 2023 horse race at the Chukyo Racecourse in Nagoya, Japan was technically won by a racehorse that ran the entire race without a jockey.

While it’s true that a jockey can’t really help a slow horse win a race, their role in professional horse racing is undeniable. The jockey plays many roles during a race. They control the pace of the animal, either pushing it from the beginning in a race where setting the pace for the rest of the pack is important or conserving its energy for a final push. They are also responsible for how fast the horse comes out of the gates at the start and tactical movement during the race. At least that’s what most horseracing enthusiasts will tell you, but one animal recently proved that they are just dead weight…

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A restaurant in Osaka, Japan has built a reputation for serving traditional miso ramen with an unusual twist, like a slice of strawberry shortcake.

Franken, a Japanese restaurant specializing in miso ramen, first made international news headlines last January, when it started selling a unique variant of sweet-and-sour red miso ramen with a cone of soft-serve vanilla ice cream melting in the middle of the bowl. The combination sounds offputting, but the restaurant was so confident that people would love it that it only served its red miso ramen with the ice cream cone. Well, until this month, when Franken started selling another weird dish, a miso ramen with a slice of strawberry shortcake soaking in the hearty soup.

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Chu-hi-cha is the name of a new type of tea discovered by a Japanese researcher at Kyoto University. It involves brewing the droppings of caterpillars that have feasted on various plants.

Tsuyoshi Maruoka came up with the idea of caterpillar tea during graduate studies at Kyoto University’s Faculty of Agriculture, while researching the mysterious relationship between insects and plants. One day, a senior brought 50 gypsy moth larvae into the lab and told Maruoka that they were a souvenir. He didn’t really know what to do with them at first, but he eventually decided to at least keep them alive until he could decide, so he picked some leaves from a nearby cherry tree and fed them to the caterpillars. When cleaning the droppings left by the critters, he noticed that they had a pleasantly fragrant smell and was almost instantly inspired to brew them into tea.

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A Nagano-based company recently announced that it had created the world’s first noodle taste analyzer, a machine that can scientifically estimate the tastiness of soba noodles within seconds.

Japan’s Nagano Prefecture is well-known for its soba noodles, a popular variety made with buckwheat flour. To honor the prefecture’s soba noodle production, local tool-maker Yatsurugigiken Inc. teamed up with Shinshu University’s Faculty of Agriculture to create the world’s first noodle deliciousness analyzer. The high-tech device applies ultraviolet LED-induced fluorescence to around 2 grams of buckwheat flour and measures the levels of phospholipids, proteins, and other taste-related substances. Within seconds, flavor ratings in four different categories (taste, aroma, greenness, freshness) are displayed on an LED display.

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Daisuke Samejima is a talented Japanese artist whose amazing spherical paintings look like the view through a fish-eye lens, regardless of the angle you see them from.

Painting a hyper-realistic rendition of an object, animal or human is difficult enough, but imagine doing it on a spherical canvas instead of a flat one. Apart from making sure that everything looks real to the untrained eye, the artist needs to consider the warping necessary to make everything look perfect regardless of what angle the sphere is viewed from. To be honest, photos just don’t do Daisuke’s art justice, so it’s a good thing we also have videos of them…

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The Radar S-10000 measures 276 x 141 x 43 mm and weighs over 2.2 kilograms (5 pounds), making it one of the largest, if not the largest, commercially available erasers.

Japanese eraser maker Seed was founded in 1915, making it one of the oldest companies in the business. Its most popular product line, Radar, was launched in 1968 and quickly became a favorite in the Japanese market. The smooth texture and flawless erasing performance made the Radar a commercial success despite its premium price range of 20 – 50 yen, at a time when 10 yen erasers were the norm. The Radar line has been going strong ever since, with erasers of various shapes and sizes, including a gigantic 2,285-gram slab priced at an eye-watering 13,200 yen ($100).

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Lifte is a Japanese clothing brand that specializes in hospital patient gowns that are not only comfortable to wear but also look stylish.

Fashion is probably the last thing on most people’s minds when they need to spend time in a hospital, but Japanese clothing brand Lifte claims that dressing well is one important way to relieve stress as a hospital patient. You may not have your health, but that’s no reason not to dress nice. Lifte actually specializes in stylish, high-quality hospital gowns that not only look good on the wearer but are also considerably more comfortable to wear for long periods of time.

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Smartwatch manufacturers are constantly trying to one-up each other with feature-rich devices, but one Japanese company prides itself on making the world’s dumbest smartwatch.

The Stone Watch is not a smartwatch, it’s just designed to look like one. Created by Japanese capsule toy maker Tama-Kyu, the low-tech accessory doesn’t even tell time, let alone feature advanced tech like heart rate measurement, or smartphone connectivity. It doesn’t even have a display, it’s just a glossy, black piece of plastic with a silicone band that does nothing but look nice on your wrist.

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