Take two things Japan does very well -- and combine them! Just when you think there isn't much more room for innovation with the world of karaoke, along comes FamilyMart with a new branch, ...

Another day, another intriguing Hatsune Miku collaboration. From expensive opera productions to every piece of merchandise an otaku can get his hands on, Hatsune Miku is not just a virtual idol, ...

Blackface or a clever marketing campaign? Imagine a female minstrel show with svelte legs and you might have the right image of this Astigu, a Japanese tights brand. The ads feature 11 ...

Nissan has created a fun film of an eight-year-old giving his mom a very nice surprise. Hinata and his mom take a drive in a Nissan Dayz Highway Star. Mrs. Masuda thinks she is going to be ...

Top Japanese design studio nendo has designed this coffee mugs for Starbuck's in Japan. Sold at Starbucks branches throughout Japan, the mugs have a print on the bottom that makes it look like the ...

Dutch artist Jeroen Bisscheroux installed a brilliant swimming pool artwork in Osaka as part of the Namura Shipyard Creative Center Osaka's artist-in-residency program. "POOL loss of colour" was ...

This article by Frances Maeda first appeared on Tokyo Cheapo. At last -- hanami season is here! Grab your camera, pack a picnic and prepare for your anime moment under the falling petals. We’ve ...

These are guaranteed to be a hit at any bachelor party! The Mousou Mapping Bra T-Shirt are a series of tees with a difference. Their fronts are decorated with the object of every man's daydreams ...

Yesterday an extraordinary thing happened. A man who had been in prison since the 1960's finally went free after nearly five decades behind bars for a crime he almost certainly did not ...

While Japan's beauty and skincare product designers have produced no shortage of original and sometimes alarming-looking face masks, this might just be the most intriguing we've encountered in a ...

When Sharp first released its Cocorobo, the world was pretty impressed. Here was a low-cost robotic vacuum cleaner that could respond to its owner's commands and be controlled by Android and iPhone ...

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has been awarded the top award in architecture, the Pritzker Prize. Ban (56) has been given the accolade primarily for his humanitarian work, such as in the 1995 ...

In between pushing through a controversial secrecy bill and annoying its Asian neighbors, the Japanese government is hoping to combat the country's chronic birth decline in a pretty unexpected ...

Condos aren't the only thing rising in Tokyo's bayside area. Following on from the life-sized Gundam robot already standing proud in Odaiba, Patlabor is getting in on the act as a promo for an ...

While the Japanese media always seems to be dominated by upbeat reports of the "millions" of sales that AKB48 ostensibly achieves, the real story of the Japanese music industry is one of serious ...