A Japanese man reportedly spent a whopping 3 million yen ($23,000) on a handmade wolf costume to fulfill his dream of becoming a wolf.

Zeppet, a Japanese company specializing in special effects and special modeling, made international news headlines last year, when it revealed that it had created a special dog suit for a client who had always wanted to live like a dog. The high-quality rough collie dog costume, which Zeppet claims was designed to adapt human anatomy to that of a canine, got a lot of attention after going viral on Twitter. Recently, that same company announced that they had received an even more challenging order from a person who wanted to live out their fantasy of becoming a wolf.

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Momotsuki, a 20-year-old artist from Japan, blends her love of gardening and fantasy into a unique art form she calls named “Fairy Dress“.

If you think about it, flowers make perfect dresses for fairies, but you need the skill and imagination to turn them into functional garments, and Momotsuki, the talented artist behind the ‘Fairy Dress’ brand, has plenty of both. A passionate gardener with over 14 years of experience, the 20-year-old woman had the brilliant idea to combine her passion for plants with her love of fantasy, fairies in particular. She uses flowers like pansies, morning glories, roses and carnations to create beautiful dresses that any fairy would call herself lucky to wear.

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Todoroki, a 30-year-old Japanese woman known as Japan’s plastic surgery idol, has spent over 13 million yen on plastic surgery over the last decade.

Posting as 整形アイドル轟ちゃん (Plastic Surgery Idol Todoroki-chan) on YouTube, Todoroki is one of the few vloggers who not only focuses on a topic that is still considered taboo in her home country but also shows the dark side of going under the knife. She has had dozens of plastic surgery procedures since she turned 18, and has always been upfront about the results. For example, even though she claims that she has no regrets about her plastic surgery journey so far, Todoroki doesn’t hide the fact that one procedure left her with a numb upper lip.

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A Japanese semiprecious stone processing company is selling a $450,000 yen ($3,400) office chair made out of a giant L-shaped piece of amethyst.

Factory-M, a Saitama-based store specializing in semiprecious natural stones, got a lot of attention after posting photos of its most recent offering on social media. The Japanese company shared three pics of what many mistook for a photoshopped meme or some sort of instrument of torture and needed to put out a statement clarifying that it was indeed a real product. Looking at the photos it’s easy to see why so many people thought it was some sort of meme, rather than an actual office chair, but factory-M insists that you can actually sit on it if you can afford to buy it.

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The AcryPhone is a rudimentary device designed to mimic the look and feel of a smartphone in order to help users conquer their handheld addiction.

As much as we try to deny it, most of us are addicted to smartphones. We try to limit the time we spend looking at them, but we constantly find ourselves instinctively reaching for them in search of that little dose of dopamine our brains crave. That’s just one of the many signs of an addiction that’s much more serious and difficult to overcome than we like to admit. Luckily, we will soon have an alternative that looks and feels just like a smartphone but has none of the features that got us hooked to it in the first place.

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An elderly Japanese man was recently arrested after calling a police precinct 2,060 times in nine days to yell at the staff there and call them “tax thieves” and “big stupid a-holes”.

Between September 30th and October 8th, the 67-year-old man from Saitama Prefecture called the Prefectural Police Headquarters a total of 2060 times to yell at the staff there and tell them that they should all be fired. That’s an average of one call for every six minutes and a total talk time of around 27 hours over the nine-day interval. Eventually, police raided the man’s house and arrested him on the ground of obstructing police business. He admitted to the charges and said: “I knew the police would come for me someday”.

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Izumi is a young Japanese food artist who specializes in detailed cake icing artworks inspired by popular manga and anime characters.

We’ve featured some incredible cake artists over the last 12 years, from the super-talented Sarah Hardy, who can create edible replicas of just about anything, to Chinese patissier Zhou Yi, whose creations look more like porcelain dolls than sugar paste, but when it comes to anime-inspired cake art, Japanese artist Izumi is in a class of her own. One of her latest projects, an edible, three-dimensional rendition of Kaoru Hakaze from the Ensemble Stars! video game recently went viral, and that’s how most people discovered her impressive portfolio of cake decorations.

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A Japanese mother has come under fire for having her 9-year-old daughter undergo double eyelid surgery in order to become more beautiful.

In Japan, plastic surgery is legal for anyone under the age of 18, as long as they have the consent of their parents or a legal guardian, and according to a recent report by VICE Asia, some parents are actually encouraging their children to undergo cosmetic procedures in order to enhance their physical appearance. In a recent episode of its “Deadly Beauty” series, the online magazine featured Rucchi and Micchi, a Japanese mother-daughter duo whose YouTube channel focuses on makeup and plastic surgery. In order to help her 9-year-old daughter become more beautiful, Rucchi had her undergo a blepharoplasty operation, aka double eyelid surgery.

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A Japanese girl sparked controversy recently after revealing that she has been getting plastic surgery since 5th grade and that she has so far spent over 10 million yen ($72,000) to change her appearance.

Zirazyo_ is an up-and-coming Japanese influencer whose shot to fame came when she revealed that her current appearance is the result of plastic surgery. The young girl recently posted a TikTok video where she claims to have had her first cosmetic procedure in the 5th grade (10 or 11 years old), and that she has been altering her appearance ever since, spending over 10 million yen in the process. Zirazyo_ confessed that she has been struggling with criticism for her plastic surgery her entire life, but that she is fighting to break the stigma that plastic surgery is a negative thing.

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Japanese convenience store chain Lawson recently launched a rather intriguing new product – flavorless candy that apparently tastes like emptiness.

Whether it be sweet, sour, salty or even spicy, candy has always been associated with a type of flavor. Well, at least until now, because flavorless candy is a thing these days. Lawson, one of Japan’s largest convenience store chains is currently testing a number of products, including the aptly-named Aji no Shinai? Ame (Tasteless? Candy), which apparently tastes like nothing. As you can imagine, the marketed lack of flavor has been raising eyebrows in Japan, and for good reason, after all, can you even imagine sucking on a candy that doesn’t have any taste?

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It’s hard to believe, but your eyes are playing tricks on you. The black liquid you see being poured into the cup in the photo below is actually just expertly sculpted and painted wood.

A year ago, Japanese wood carver Kibori no Konno (@kibori_no_konno) took to Twitter to share photos of some hyper-realistic coffee beans he had sculpted out of wood and then painted. They looked just like the real thing, and people couldn’t stop praising his talent. Since then, he has created all sorts of interesting sculptures, and to celebrate the piece that really kickstarted his year-long artistic journey, the Japanese artisan decided to do something really special. And that he did…

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Japanese clothing and housewares company Nissen recently launched its most intriguing product yet – a line of bed linens and blankets that try to mimic cat fur.

Studies have shown that petting a cat for just 10 minutes reduces the levels of stress hormones, and any cat lover will tell you just how relaxing the experience can be. But what about people who would love to have a pet cat, but are living in rented apartments that don’t allow pets? Or how about people who are allergic to cats, what are they supposed to do to relax? Well, that’s where the new Neko Feel (“Cat Feel”) material developed by Nissen comes into play. The Japanese company just launched a line of bed Neko Feel linens that it claims mimics the feel of cat fur.

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Mayutamu, a 16-year-old male teenager from Japan, has been getting attention for his ability to pose as a girl, using makeup and female clothing.

The 16-year-old teen rose to fame thanks to his job at a unique maid cafe in Tokyo’s Akihabara district. Maid cafes are really popular in Japan, with Akihabara alone being home to dozens of them, but none quite like ‘NEWTYPE’. This establishment is known as a ‘pseudo-girl’ maid cafe, because all the waiting staff is actually made up of boys posing as female maids. Among all the maids, Maytamu stood out as the most feminine of all, with many people confessing that they would have never guessed he was a boy.

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Devised by a Tokyo hair salon during the Covid-19 pandemic to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the ‘Silent Cut’ service is becoming increasingly popular in Japan.

As a way of curbing the spread of the coronavirus during the Covid-19 pandemic, authorities in Japan started promoting “no conversation” or “less conversation” policies in schools, shops and supermarkets. Less talking meant fewer risks of spreading the virus via saliva droplets, so everyone understood and complied, but the two policies seemed incompatible with businesses like hair salons and barber shops, where conversation is basically part of the service. However, one Tokyo salon decided to implement the ‘silent cut’ service and it proved so popular that others quickly followed suit and kept it even after pandemic-related restrictions were lifted.

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Science, a Japanese technology company specializing in bathroom and kitchen innovation, recently unveiled plans to produce a washing machine for humans.

Believe it or not, the concept of a human washing machine isn’t new. At the 1970 Osaka Expo, Japanese electronics giant Sanyo Electric showcased its ‘Ultrasonic Bath’, a human washing machine that cleaned, massaged, and dried the occupant in a fully-automated 15-minute cycle”. The concept never really took off as a commercial product, but now another Japanese technology company wants to take a shot at it, promising to deliver a modern take on the human washing machine by 2025.

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