Bouncing Red Ball

2009, the Year of the Ox, is coming!
Each year, the Japanese send millions of nengajo (Japanese New Year postcards) to family and friends; they’re the equivalent of Christmas cards that we send during this festive season. The message on a nengajo is usually “Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu” or “Happy New Year” and may be added with [...]

In the winter of 1992, All Nippon Airways (ANA) held a contest to design one of its Boeing 747 jets. The result was Marine Jumbo, a whale-shaped airplane decorated with sea creatures and designed by Yukie Ogaki, then a 6th-grade schoolgirl.
The highly successful and much publicized design was soon followed in 1996 by another 747 [...]

The Media Arts Festival Executive Committee, composed of people from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, the National Art Center and CG-ARTS Association, has announced the winners of the 12th Japan Media Arts Festival. 2,091 works from 43 countries and regions were evaluated to come up with winners in Art, Entertainment, Animation and Manga. [...]

Those who came to Japan in the late 80’s or early 90’s probably have fond memories of telephone cards. Those were the pre-Internet years when the only means of long-distance communication was the telephone; when one 1,000-yen telephone card will get you just a few minutes worth of time to talk to your family back [...]

Pink Tentacle has posted a nice collection of photos of manga-decorated trains in Japan. Here are three cute samples:
Anpanman Train on JR Shikoku from Aizu no SL no Heya

Kitaro Train on Tottori Line from Sasazuka Nakano Douri

Pokemon Train on Tohoku Shinkansen from Dai Fukuya

More photos at Pink Tentacle.

Awesome photo galleries from Mainichi, Asahi and Response about the recent anime car festival in Odaiba called Itasha G Fesuta and covered by major news media. {Also check out this great gallery by Otasuke. Thanks for the link Yamatologic!}
The festival features more than 400 cars adorned with anime and game characters. Surely an event that [...]

Hell in many religions is a place where sinners are condemned in the afterlife. In Christian mythology it is usually depicted as a fiery place: “raging fire” (Hebrews 10:27); “eternal fire” (Jude 7). The Book of Revelation describes Hell as a lake of “burning sulphur” where sinners will be “tormented day and night for ever [...]

Autumn is my favorite season in Japan. The cool air in the morning, people wearing new fashion, the new possibilities of exploring the outdoors.
Here are colorful photos of outdoors in Japan that exemplifies the season of autumn. They were chosen with no particular criteria in mind. Just a pleasure to look at. Looking at these [...]