#japantoday

[clnclm]

wagashi that look like they might be glycerine soap

[waybackwanderer]

Japan Today Japan News - Shukan Post Watcher - Keiko Takeshita remains Japan's ideal wife - Japan's Leading International News Network Nov 2002 Archived Web Page

[findingprostocks]

[nobrashfestivity]

In 1803, a round vessel drifted ashore on the Japanese coast and a beautiful woman emerged, wearing strange clothing and carrying a box. She was unable to communicate with the locals, and her craft was marked with mysterious writing. This story of an utsurobune, or “hollow ship,” in the province of Hitachi (now Ibaraki Prefecture) is found in many records of the Edo period (1603–1868), and Tanaka Kazuo, professor emeritus at Gifu University, has studied the topic for many years. What drew him away from his main research area, applied optics, to investigate this curious episode? And what really took place?

“Like a Flying Saucer”

Tanaka says he began to research the ship after the deadly subway sarin attacks in 1995 by the Aum Shinrikyō cult. “There was a lot of coverage of Aum founder Asahara Shōkō's prophecies and claims to be able to float in the air. Yet the cult’s senior members were part of the scientific elite. I started giving lectures considering paranormal phenomena from a scientific perspective, which meant that I was collecting all kinds of materials for teaching, such as about UFOs in the United States and Japanese folklore. While doing so, I came across the utsurobune legend.” He adds, “Long before the American UFO stories, the craft depicted in Edo-period Japanese documents for some reason looked like a flying saucer. This was fascinating to me.”

UFOs became a modern sensation after the media reported US businessman Kenneth Arnold as having witnessed “flying saucers” on June 24, 1947. A flood of similar stories followed from around the world. Most famously, a UFO was alleged to have crashed to the ground near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. “In the end, though, no wrecks or alien bodies were recovered,” Tanaka says. “There was only the ambiguous testament of witnesses. It was the same with all the other UFO stories from around the world—they were mysteries without any substantial evidence. The utsurobune legend, however, has a number of documents to examine as leads, so in this sense, for researchers it’s a mystery with substance.”

A book published in English by Tanaka Kazuo on his research.  There are similar oral traditions about “hollow ships” across Japan in the Edo period. Tanaka’s research is focused on the various documents that describe the 1803 incident in Hitachi and include illustrations of a beautiful woman and a strange vessel, although they cite different dates. One of the best-known sources is the Toen shōsetsu (Toen Stories), an 1825 collection recording fantastic rumors, which was written by the Toenkai literary circle and edited by Kyokutei Bakin, famous for his lengthy historical romance Nansō Satomi hakkenden (The Eight Dog Chronicles). Others are Nagahashi Matajirō's 1844 work Ume no chiri (Plum Dust), as well as collections like Ōshuku zakki (Ōshuku Notes), Hirokata zuihitsu (Essays by Hirokata), and Hyōryūki-shū (Records of Castaways), which gathers stories of foreign ships washed up in Japan and of Japanese sailors who came ashore overseas.

Picture 1-  Hyōryūki-shū (Records of Castaways) by an unknown author. The text describes the woman as being around 18 to 20 years of age, well-dressed, and beautiful. Her face is pale, and her eyebrows and hair are red. It is impossible to communicate with her, so it is unclear where she is from. She holds a plain wooden box as though it is very important to her and keeps her distance. There is mysterious script written in the boat. (Courtesy Iwase Bunko Library in Nishio, Aichi Prefecture)

Pictures 2 and 3- Unknown (maybe  Mito bunsho)

Picture 4-   From Ōshuku zakki (Ōshuku Notes; around 1815) by Komai Norimura, a vassal of the powerful daimyō Matsudaira Sadanobu. (Courtesy National Diet Library)

Picture 5-  From Hirokata zuihitsu (Essays by Hirokata; 1825) by shogunate retainer and calligrapher Yashiro Hirokata, who was also a member of the Toenkai circle. (Courtesy National Archives of Japan)

This post is mostly sourced from  nippon.com and japantoday

[tokidokitokyo]

おともれちゅうい

音漏れ　おともれ　sound leakage (out of headphones, etc.) 注意　ちゅうい　caution, attention

Be careful of sound leakage Keep it down.

やさしいマナーでいこう！

やさしい　kind マナー　manner いこう　let's go

Let's go on with good manners! Kindness goes a long way.

音楽や動画などの音量は控えめに

音楽　おんがく　music 動画　どうが　movie など　things like 音量　おんりょう　volume 控えめに　ひかえめに　discreetly, unobtrusively

Be unobtrusive with the volume on things like music and movies Sound leaking is not music to other people's ears.

Photo From JapanToday

[ethanisdoing]

Tracing Back A Viral Photo

This took me quite a while, and I made a lot of wrong turns, but got there in the end. I'm going to try to be concise, as there are a lot of steps.

While scrolling Reddit, I found this image of a woman giving handshakes from a distance with a toy claw.

Now, this was posted to mock people who would pay money to meet a "teen idol (a very corporate Japanese celebrity)," but not even being able to shake her actual hand. Obviously, there's more to the story here. So, lets delve deeper.

Initially reading the comments on that post, many users speculate that this is because of increasingly creepy fans doing gross things. Mostly, the comments repeat their laments for how creepy and gross people can be.

So, to double check, and doing a reverse google image search, we find an article that almost confirms those suspicions.

With the search, the only English article I could find was from JapanToday. In their article, they claim that the teen idol band AKB48 had to start taking further precautions for their handshake-centric meet and greets due to a fan pulling out a foldable saw and attacking the girls.

Well, that's pretty morbid. But still, I am skeptical of the image, and it still isn't sourced or labeled. No need to check the validity of JapanToday (I did anyway, not to much avail) as they cite their source at the bottom,

An original author, Asahi Shimbun. Awesome, so lets plug that in and see where it takes us!

Almost nowhere. I had searched many variations of the above, with no new sources or upstream work to be found. In the mean time, I checked that AKB48 were a real band, and of course they were, so there needed to be more out there about such a crazy story and curious photo.

I finally just searched "Asahi Shimbun akb48" just generally to see if I could find any English articles on either subject (I should say, doing all of this was made much harder due to the source material being from another country and in another language).

A bit of scrolling, and I was able to find an article by The Guardian about it, and out of anything, they were the most trustworthy source so far. It wasn't really related, but it was the next link, I thought. I looked down to see related articles, and bam.

It seemed to be the perfect next step, but still, no mention of a toy claw and revisions to make things safer with distant handshaking.

At this moment, I actually couldn't find anything else, and realized I had to give up on this line of research. I looked up some other things close to this, but nothing further was revealed, and I just found myself on other Reddit posts of the same picture with more speculations told as fact about creepy fans. I'm sure the fans are creepy, I just don't have proof that the lady with the claw arm is related.

I went back to square one and did something I should have done a long time before. I decided to reverse Google image search with the oldest known dates in mind, and went to the first occurrence of the image I could find in a sea of Japanese websites.

It was just that easy. Everything else I was reading was from 2014, and this article from Oricon News was from 2009. It revealed a whole lot, and after translating the website, the true story unfolded.

A really good sign, other pictures from the same event. Supposedly an event held about the release of a new book.

I followed the website's designed path to find out more about the lady in the picture, Miyuki Torii, the author said book.

Here, I think was the final thread of information I needed.

She's a comedian and actress. It was just a book release, and she was being comedic about it. It has nothing to do with teen idols or creepy fans, no new restrictions on distancing herself from people; she just wanted to be goofy with a toy claw, and people on the internet are using the image for many different things.

To verify further, I checked the news source, Oricon News, and as far as I can tell from their public information, they seem legitimate.

I also further verified by looking up "Miyuki Torii books" and finding ones that matched the images from the event in the photos on the Oricon webpage.

I think this is as far as I could go with this without being pedantic, and I'm satisfied with the result. Totally not what I expected, and ended up being quite different from what was initially being purported.

After putting the couple hours of work in, though, I went back and found the the original Reddit post has a comment now clarifying that it's a comedian, which defeats the purpose of what I just did. They solved it for me before I could type this all out,

but I still enjoyed the journey.

[flange5]

have mixed feelings about this but i offer you krispy kreme japan making rabbit donuts for the new year in their holiday mix japantoday com/category/features/food/krispy-kreme-japan-marks-year-of-the-rabbit-with-auspicious-doughnut-lineup-for-2023-1 mostly i feel bad for the workers having to pipe *at volume on deadline* at least it's not too elaborate. oh and warning for cute

I unabashedly love them.It's also nice that the rabbits and snowmen are the exact same shape. The snowmen actually require more deco work. that said this makes me want to make cute rabbit macarons, which, if on this model, would be pretty doable.

[mainssouth]

World of sol

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of. All of the space crew members that are part of any Mars mission are given these unique wristwatches that help keep track of the Martian local time. Get all 24 Sol Invictus releases available on Bandcamp and save 40. This special clock has 2.7% longer hours, minutes and seconds than that of the Earth’s solar day. The spacecraft that are sent to Mars have a unique clock known as "The Mars Clock." It helps project and keep a track of the solar local time. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like what is an archaeologist, what identifies ages of ancient material, what was the form of. It is roughly about 40 minutes longer than the Earth day. The average Martian solar day is 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds long, whereas, the sidereal day is about 24 hours, 37 minutes and 22 seconds. Come and enjoy the best All Games: World Of Solitaire, Spider Solitaire 2 Suits, Spider Solitaire One Suit, Spider Solitaire 4 Suits, FreeCell Solitaire. The solar day on Earth is slightly shorter because the Mars orbit around the sun requires it to turn a bit further on the axis.Īlso Read | Good News: From NASA's Mars 2020 Rover's 'go' For Launch To Dogs' Mask Demonstration How long is a Sol on Mars? Mars has a similar daily cycle as the Earth, and the term Sol is used to distinguish it for its longer solar day than the Earth by roughly 3%. It refers to the time that it takes for Mars to revolve once around its own axis. Sol is a NASA term for Solar day and is essentially used by the planetary scientists. NASA currently employs three spacecraft in the orbit, including a lander and a rover on its surface.Īlso Read | NASA Eyes nuclear Power Plants That'll Generate Energy on The Moon And Mars What does Sol mean on Mars? Since 1960, a total of 56 missions have been launched to the red planet, where some of the most notable ones include the Mariner 9, Viking 1 and 2, Mars Odyssey, the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers, Japan's Nozomi Mars Probe, Europe's Mars Express and Beagle 2 Lander, Phoenix Mars Lander, Mars Pathfinder Spacecraft and Sojourner Rover, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It also has 10 times lesser mass than the Earth, however, it has twice the mass compared to Mercury. World of Solar Ltd is A company Registered in England & Wales, Company number 11645001, Registered address: Exeter House, Lower Ground East, City Fields Way, Tangmere, Chichester, West Sussex, England, PO20 2FU. Mars has a radius of 3200 km as opposed to 6400 km of the Earth. CLC World Costa Del Sol remains to be one of the most popular holiday destinations among all CLC World Spain resorts. JapanToday Gleams Akihabara 703 2-8-16 Higashi-Kanda Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101-0031 Japan Tel: +81 3 5829 5900 Fax: +81 3 5829 5919 Email: 2022 GPlusMedia Inc. It is situated between Jupiter and the Earth and is the fourth terrestrial planet from the Sun.

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Solve Solitaire puzzles of easy, medium, hard and very hard levels for free on your Mobile, Desktop or Tablet. Mars is the most explored planet in the solar system after the Moon. Play unlimited free easy Solitaire Game online.

[christinamac1]

Statement: Protest the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Approval of TEPCO's Plan for the Oceanic Discharge of Contaminated Water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Statement: Protest the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Approval of TEPCO’s Plan for the Oceanic Discharge of Contaminated Water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

July 22, 2022International Environmental NGO FoE JapanToday, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) approved an application for modification of the implementation plan for the installation of an offshore discharge facility for treated contaminated water from the TEPCO-Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. We believe that the following points should be taken into consideration: 1) radioactive…

[nippon-com]

For those Studio Ghibli fans out there.

[clnclm]

[aaoposts]

Today in Japan - March 14: White Day

So, White Day is exactly one month after Valentine’s Day, which in Japan is a very widely celebrated day during which women gift chocolates to the men around them. There are two types of chocolates: Giri-Choco (which translates to obligation chocolates - no romantic meanings) and Honmei-Choco (which is given to significant other’s in these womens’ lives and are often handmade to show their true love). 

So, White Day is the day that men give women “return” gifts (for want of a better word) to the women that gifted them chocolates one month before. More often than not, the chocolate that’s given is white (you’d never guess why...) but other gifts such as flowers, candies and a whole range of other more obscure gifts are also given. 

So, to everyone in Japan I wish you a happy White Day and guys, please don’t forget to show your significant other that you love them, because think about it... they handmade you chocolates a month ago!

[honeywoo1986]

🤦トイレットペーパーと冷凍食品急速になくなった😱 なぜかシュウマイ人気ない🙉 So it is true that you can't buy toliet paper and fewer frozen food is lefted now in Japan supermarket? No wonder my friends keeps sending me message that I should just buy buy buy today😅 #corona #toiletpaper #japantoday #トイレットペーパーない (川口駅) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9HHqf0HkCo/?igshid=4c80vgrkt4b3

[me4kids]

#旅行中一定要給自己一天或2個半天的ShoppingTime #爸爸們請自告奮勇_自力自強顧小孩_才是愛妻的表現 😘橫濱車站結合最大的購物中心～JOINUS😍 🏢400多間店舖～超多間主婦們最愛逛的生活雜貨 🤓連鎖眼鏡店～JINS超快速30分鍾就配好一副眼鏡 🧚‍♀️印花控的人一定不要錯過～Cath Kidston 🥐麵包放題！多款精典麵包吃得好開心～BAQET #JOINUS #橫濱必逛 #JINS #Cath_Kidston #BAQET #japantravel #japantoday #japanphoto #kidstagram #eyes #me4child

[storedejava-blog]

Best day with cute Micha...! . Accept international custom bulk order. . #clutch #woven #bag #bags #leather #purse #instadaily #instagramhub #fashion #style #japan #japantoday #magazine #suriname #holland #netherland #korea #tokyo #osaka #jakarta #malaysia

[theculturedmarxist]

US secretary of state declares “military response” to Iran “being considered”

     By    Peter Symonds    

       17 June 2019  

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday continued the Trump administration’s belligerent threats against Iran, declaring in an interview on CBS “Face the Nation” that the US was “considering a full range of options.” Asked if that included “a military response,” he declared “of course.”

Pompeo blustered his way through the interview, dismissing any suggestion that the US had no evidence to prove that Iran had attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last Thursday. He insisted that a grainy video released by the US Central Command showed a small boat of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) approached and removed an unexploded limpet mine from the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous.

Last Friday, Yukata Katada, the president of the Kokuka Sangyo shipping company that owns the Kokuka Courageous tanker, rejected the claim that the ship had been damaged by limpet mines. “The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They saw something flying toward them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel. Then some crew witnessed a second shot.”

Confronted with these remarks yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Pompeo simply dodged the question, declaring that “the intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence” and “the American people should rest assured we have high confidence with respect to who conducted the attacks.” He provided no evidence or data, however.

The Secretary of State gave a similar response when asked on CBS about comments by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas that the video was “not enough.” Pompeo baldly declared that Maas had seen “a great deal more than just the video” but did not elaborate. In a not-so-subtle swipe at Germany, he added that “there are countries that just wish this should go away and they want to act in a way that is counterfactual.”

Germany is not the only country to question the lack of evidence. Japan Today reported yesterday that the Japanese government had also requested further proof. “The US explanation had not helped us to go beyond speculation,” a senior government official said.

Another source close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the website: “These are not definitive proof that it’s Iran. Even if it’s the United States that makes the assertion, we cannot simply say we believe it.”

The source also noted that the attacks on the tankers took place as Abe was meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during his trip to Iran to try to mediate between Tehran and Washington. He said the attacks had “severely affected the prime minister’s reputation” and “making mistakes when determining facts is impermissible.”

Clearly Japan and Germany simply do not believe the US allegations and suspect that the incident could well be a provocation organized by the US or an ally to provide the justification for war against Iran. Commenting on US claims that the sophistication of the attacks “proved” it was Iran, a Japanese foreign ministry official told JapanToday: “That [argument] would apply to the United States and Israel as well.”

Iran has emphatically denied any involvement in the incident. In rejecting the allegations, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani branded the US as “a serious threat to the stability of the region.”

The Trump administration deliberately ratchetted up tensions with Tehran when, in breach of UN resolutions, it abrogated the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. The US has re-imposed and intensified crippling economic sanctions on Iran with the express aim of reducing its energy exports to zero.

The US decision to confront Iran is not just aimed at Iran but at allies such as Germany and Japan, as well as open rivals such as China and Russia. In the wake of the 2015 agreement and the partial lifting of sanctions, these and other countries have been developing economic and political relations with Tehran. Largely excluded, Washington is exploiting sanctions and the threat of brute military force to sabotage these ties.

In what amounted to a blunt threat, Pompeo implied that the threat of war would force other countries to line up with the US. On Fox News Sunday, he noted that “very little of our crude oil comes through the Gulf,” then added that other countries—China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia—were highly dependent. “I am confident that when they see the risk, the risk to their own economies and their own people… they will join us,” Pompeo boasted.

At this stage only Britain and several Gulf States have backed the US claims. Crown Prince Mahammed bin Salman, who is implicated in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October, declared over the weekend that Saudi Arabia “will not hesitate to deal with any threat to our people, sovereignty and vital interests.” Yesterday, US F-15 fighter jets flew in formation with Saudi warplanes in the Gulf region.

Last month, the Trump administration ordered the USS Lincoln’s carrier battle group, a bomber strike force led by nuclear-capable B-52s, along with 900 additional ground troops and a Patriot missile battery into the region. Leaked plans also revealed that up to 120,000 troops could be deployed to the region.

On Friday, according to the New York Times, Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton, a notorious warmonger, met for three hours with acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Joseph Dunford, to discuss the tanker attacks.

The Pentagon is reportedly weighing sending as many as 6,000 additional troops to the Gulf region, along with warships and fighter jets. Washington is also trying to assemble an international coalition to provide warships to escort tankers through the Gulf. Asked about these plans yesterday, Pompeo refused to comment.

When pressed on CBS as to whether Trump had the legal authority to attack Iran, Pompeo dismissed the suggestion that the US Congress would have to approve such action. He declared that “the American people should be very confident… [that] we will always do the hard task it takes to protect American interests, wherever they are.”

The Trump administration is engaged in a reckless drive to war against Iran on the basis of lies. The US military build-up in the Gulf region, including the prospect of military manoeuvres in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, sets the stage for provocations that provide the trigger for a catastrophic conflict that would draw in other powers.

Burn down recruitment centers. Kill anyone you see in an American uniform. Bomb federal buildings. Do the world a favor and execute these worthless people from Trump on down.