Tomomi Sasaki · June, 2009

Latest posts by Tomomi Sasaki from June, 2009

Japan: Shiso-flavored Pepsi

  29 June 2009

Pepsi Shiso (Japanese for perilla or beefsteak plant) went on sale a couple of days ago – Curzon loved it while Darg thought it was nasty.

ISS: Photos and a Poem from Koichi Wakata

  28 June 2009

Astronaut Koichi Wakata on the International Space Station posted some photographs, including one of Sarychev Volcano while it was erupting (Also part of NASA's Image of the Day Gallery), and a tanka poem: “My home planet enwrapped / The blue light of the atmosphere shines”.

Japan: News in Japanese for Iran Election Protests

  27 June 2009

“You can't get really the details of the Iran election protests from the Japanese newspapers and TV stations, but the situation is updated by the minute on Twitter.” – Hiroto Kobayashi set up iranelection, a Digg-style news aggregator specifically for this topic, where users are submitting links to content in...

Japan: Chinese Translation of 2channel

  27 June 2009

Takeshi Yamaya links to 2ch Kan Riben (2ch看日本), a blog that posts Chinese translations of interesting threads from the Japanese Internet forum 2channel. He appreciates the thoughtful observations made by their commenters.

Japan: On How to Perceive the Japanese Web (Part One)

  23 June 2009

Reporter Yuka Okada from the Japanese tech news site ITmedia brandished her well-regarded interviewing skills for a one-on-one session with Mochio Umeda. The result was “The Japanese web is ‘disappointing': An interview with Mr. Mochio Umeda” Part One and Part Two [ja]. In reaction, the Japanese blogosphere had to give...

Japan: HBS on Japanese Anime Industry

  15 June 2009

Matt Alt links to a Harvard Business School working paper (pdf) on the state of the Japanese anime industry: “If Japan wants to bank on its ‘Gross National Cool’, it will have to overcome the inertia of system that has essentially reduced its most talented architects to the level of...

Japan: Wrongfully convicted man released with new DNA tests

  6 June 2009

Having serving 17 and a half years of a life sentence for the alleged abduction and murder of a four year old girl, Toshikazu Sugaya was released from prison after new DNA test results proved his innocence. Japan Video News links to an NHK news video with English v.o. Tokyo...

Japan: JActionScripters

  3 June 2009

Flash developer extraodonaire Takayuki Fukatsu has set up JActionScripters, a group blog that covers the Japanese Flash scene in English. “More than 20 Japanese flash coders share the blog/ You will be junkie for this crazy Japanese Flash news”

Japan: Akira Kurosawa Digital Archive

  3 June 2009

Johnny at Spoon & Tamago excitedly introduces a digital archive of film director Akira Kurosasawa from Ryukoku University: “Consisting of over 20,000 photographs, manuscripts, notes and other artifacts, this is easily the most extensive database of memorabilia related to the director and his work, as well as a fascinating look...