It doesn’t get any scarier than this: [via Zaeega]

The quote in this post’s headline comes from an article in today’s Washington Post about Japanese women who choose to delay marriage and a “growing willingness to do without children — or childish husbands.” Most of the article covers Japan’s demographic problem, discrimination against women in the workforce, and government measures being taken to deal with the problems. There’s also a portion focusing on Takako Katayama, a 37-year-old unmarried woman that works at a cable ...

A man has been arrested in Tokyo for illegally keeping 51 poisonous snakes as pets. Here’s a news video showing police removing some of the snakes from his apartment: His collection consisted of black mambas, green mambas, cobras, rhinoceros vipers, and other very poisonous snakes. There were also a lot of live mice in his apartment, which he had been using as food for the snakes. Police found out about the snakes after the man ...

An expert demonstrates the secrets of facial yoga: Watch the video at this site, or on NicoNico Douga (login required). [via Zaeega]

The Olympics are ending tonight, so let’s find out who is the most beautiful Chinese woman doing Olympic-related work in Beijing! The following clip was from the same Japanese TV show that looked for the most beautiful girl in Italy, Colombia, France, and Taiwan. As in the previous cases, the idea is to find a pretty girl and have her introduce the host to a friend she considers better-looking than herself, repeating the process until ...

Over a year has passed since the brutal murder of English teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker, and chief suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi remains at large. Hawker’s family has renewed their calls for justice: “My daughter was horribly murdered,” a tearful William Hawker recently told Kyodo News. “I don’t want the people of Japan to forget that.” “Please do not forget our Lindsay. She was a lovely girl,” he said. “She met evil and our lives have been ...

The World Air Guitar Championship was held in Finland over the weekend, and Japanese comedian Ochi Yosuke (pictured above) lost to an American performer with the stage name of Hot Lixx Hulahan: Wearing tight black pants, satin shirt and elaborate armbands, Hulahan — real name Craig Billmeier — crushed his competition on Friday night to capture the world air guitar championships in Finland’s western city of Oulu. “The two-year reigning Air Guitar champion, Japan’s Ochi ...

Some DNA testing of fish from various sources in America, including sushi restaurants, has found that consumers may not be getting the fish they’re paying for: The results showed that 25 percent of the girls’ samples were mislabeled: half of the restaurant samples and six out of 10 grocery store samples. In every case, less desirable or cheaper fish was substituted for its more expensive counterpart, Stoeckle said. She and her father would not divulge ...

Pretty fake-looking, but amusing nonetheless: Hoax, or a case of mistaken identity? (From a Japanese television show originally aired in 2006) L

There was a bit of unexpected chaos the other day at the Tokyo premiere of “Hancock,” reports Japan Zone: For the red carpet walk, producers had set up a mock up car that Smith was supposed to use his “super powers” to send flying into the air. But the car was blown over by a strong gust of wind and the helium gas balloon inside ended up in the nearby Suidobashi train station. Smith joked ...

The Guardian reports that a Kanikosen (Factory Ship) 79-year-old novel about exploited workers has become popular in today’s Japan: Written by Takiji Kobayashi in 1929, the novel quickly became Japan’s answer to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell’s critique of capitalism. But Kobayashi paid for his radicalism in 1933 when he was tortured to death by the secret police at the age of 29. Since its release as a paperback in 1953 the novel, which ...

Check out this gory claymation film called “Chainsaw Maid” (チェーンソー・メイド): [note: zombie movies have lots of blood and guts. If you can't handle fake blood, don't watch the video.] Some behind the scenes info about this film can be found on this page (Japanese). There are also a few other claymation shorts on their website. [via BoingBoing]

A man threw a flare at the Russian Embassy in Tokyo yesterday: Kazuhiro Takahashi, 32, who said he belonged to a right-wing activist group, took a taxi to the Russian embassy at around sunrise and threw a flare, a police official said. He was arrested on the spot and no one was injured, the official said. Takahashi told police that he wanted to avenge the Soviets’ treatment of his grandfather after World War II, without ...

If you’re a non-Asian foreigner living in Japan, chances are you’ve been compared to a foreign celebrity at least once, and that celebrity probably looks nothing like you. But have any of you experienced something like this: [Via Brian in Jeollanam-do]

A wild monkey was spotted inside Shibuya station this morning, but police failed to capture the beast: “It’s a monkey - it’s not like it did anything bad,” a police spokesman said, adding that the animal was still on the loose. The monkey was spotted hopping around by the automatic ticket gates at a train line in Shibuya Station in central Tokyo at about 9:40 a.m. . It then ran downstairs to the entrance to ...

Stars & Stripes doesn’t want us to be afraid of the big scary insects that inhabit Japan: “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “This bug was prehistoric.” Big. Quick-moving. More than 10 pairs of legs … having just one of these endearing qualities is usually enough to make an insect unwelcome, let alone all of the above, says Hideomi Kakimoto, a Yokosuka base environmental engineer. But “geji,” or household centipedes, are known as ...

The Japan Times had an article on Friday about Schick’s attempts to convince Japanese men that beards are cool: In February, Schick’s Japan unit started the Web site hige-chen.com that lets users upload their photos and experiment with 1,000 different forms of facial hair, including amusingly shaped ones such as hearts and numbers. The Web site, which can be viewed in 3-D, helps users work out which style of facial hair looks good on them. ...

According to the Ramen Blog, this movie was filmed back in 2006 but has seen its delay released and might end up going straight to DVD: An American woman (Brittany Murphy) is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a ramen noodle chef under a tyrannical Japanese master… The Ramen Girl looks like it will be: an absolutely horrible movie. a good movie. a ...

Reuters/The Guardian report that a Japanese term has taken on a new meaning in China: Chinese media has even given its army of TV Olympic spectators a name — otaku — a Japanese word that means “venerable house” and usually refers to someone nerdy who is totally devoted to a hobby to the point of not leaving home. The article goes on to mention how fast food and video games are leading to an unhealthy ...

While searching around on Google for news about immigration in Japan, I stumbled upon an editorial in a Nashville newspaper defending an initiative that would require that city’s government to stop spending money on interpreters and insist that immigrants learn English. The creator of the initiative is city councilman Eric Crafton, an American who graduated from one of Japan’s top universities: It’s not that Crafton advocates discouraging the learning of different languages. Crafton is fluent ...