kawachi comments

That's funny.....I thought "catatsu" was the Japanese word for "stepladder". (脚立)

The mountain town of Tsunan, near the Sea of Japan (East Sea) coast....<

"East Sea"?!?.....disappointed to see that being used on this site.

Looks like it might not be released in any format whatsoever:

<>http://deadline.com/2014/12/sony-hack-the-interview-release-vod-1201328791/ <>http://deadline.com/2014/12/sony-scraps-the-interview-1201328639/

This was certainly not a triumph for the manufacturer. Anyway, thanks for the funny headline!

@TrevorPeace1

"Makes me wonder how it's transmitted on a global basis. "

Migratory birds is the obvious answer.

@TrevorPeace1

All the news programs I saw called it a paraglider, But yes, you are right....what he was using was not a paraglider.

Yuri Ebihara is a lot more attractive than fish-eyed Miranda. I really don't get what the Japanese see in her. And her fabric softener commercials here are so annoying!

I haven't been to Nagoro, but I've been to Kamiyama many times. It's a beautiful place and only one of two areas in Tokushima where the population is growing (the other is Aizumi). In addition, the man mentioned in the article, Ominami-san is a friend of mine and he has been a savior to the area. He is Stanford educated and a wonderful person.

Never heard of "Youn-a" and don't understand how Zawachin won when she only shows everything above her eyes. But egads....Becky and Yonekura Ryoko. Can't stomach either of them. It's bad enough that such inane awards exist, but to give it to Becky and Yonekura Ryoko. Ugh!

Oh, my.....the Japanese title for that movie certainly leaves a lot to the imagination. (lol)

"In general, when Japanese think of Indian cuisine, they tend to think of nan, tandoori chicken and butter chicken. "

That's hard to believe. I would imagine that for most Japanese people, curry would come to mind when they think of Indian cuisine.

SimondB & dcog9065: When I was a travel agent in the US, many of my Japanese friends living here in Japan would e-mail me to make them hotel reservations for rooms in Japan because the computer reservation systems we used were not set up for making hotel reservations based on the number of people in the room. That may have changed since then (that was 2007), but I could often save them 1/3 to 1/2 of the room rate (some hotels charged higher rates than in Japan which is why it wasn't always 1/2 the rate.) However, if my friends insisted on two twin beds instead of one double, the rate wasn't always cheaper.

@lucabrasi: No, but the Kanos aren't on TV nearly as much....Mori Izumi is a regular guest and even a co-host on more than one show. But the fake Kanos (who aren't even real sisters) are truly mind-boggling!

Ugh! The Mori sisters are two of the biggest airheads on Japanese TV. Spoiled rotten with NO brains. It was bad enough having to see Izumi on TV a lot and now her sister Hikari is beginning to appear on TV as well.

I heard the first election campaign truck in my neighborhood this morning. I truly despise those things. Now that Internet campaigning is allowed, I was hoping that those campaign trucks would be abolished, but I guess not. I truly wonder if anyone really likes them. I haven't met anyone who does.

The bus from Tokushima to Tokyo and back isn't called "My Follower" but "My Flora". Either name is a bit odd, but the bus is very popular and often sold out. Sometimes if there is enough demand they add a second bus to the route.

@DeDeMiura And to further that, after this election there'll just be more of the same...as in the Japanese lyrics to to "Let It Go"...."ありのまま"

@papigiulio

"I heard there is some artificial tuna being served/sold nowadays, anyone have more info about that? Anyone tried that?"

Not "artificial" tuna, but farm-raised tuna done by Kinki University. I haven't tried it, but they have some of their own restaurants that serve it and it is available elsewhere as well, <> http://www.flku.jp/english/aquaculture/tuna/

@FightingViking

I wasn't talking about distinguishing just by appearance. I'm talking about actually meeting someone and knowing the foreigner was born and raised in an English-speaking country. I have foreign and mixed nationality friends here in Japan who do not speak English who have experienced the problem you raised as well.

@sensato I recently had someone who said they wanted to be friends so they could practice English. I told them that wasn't something I felt was a good enough reason to become friends and they started to backpedal with other reasons. I doubt there are many of us native English speakers here in Japan who haven't been used in that way.

I guess everything in Japan IS fast like the Shinkansen. In the rest of the world, fame lasts 15 minutes, not 15 seconds.

As soon as I read the headline, I remembered this odd scene in "Lost In Translation" in Bill Murray's hotel room:

<>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSXEhsySylk

A Suzuki Hustler would be a great car for someone to pimp-out. (lol)

I haven't seen ANYTHING on any of the TV news programs about this.....and I watch many of them. Typical....

@gogogo SMBC Aviation ? Another airline I wont be flying

SMBC is not an airline. It's a leasing company. MANY airlines lease some of their planes rather than buy them.

sighclops "I am absolutely sick to death of Emi Takei. Flavour of the month, put her absolutely everywhere, line the next one up. Wash - rinse - repeat - the Japanese media in a nutshell."

THANK YOU! I most wholeheartedly agree. That is one of the worst things about Japanese pop culture. I wonder if that will ever change. I hope it does!

I have a few friends here in Tokushima who try to attract foreign clientele by adding English pages to their websites or their business' Facebook pages. I see the errors and they make me cringe. I used to offer them FREE help in proofing things, but they get offended, so I just stopped offering.

How funny that two people commenting here used the word "Eikaiwa" in their comments. I don't understand why they must use that rather than "English school" or "English conversation school". I would never use "Eikaiwa" in an English sentence.

Rather than posting stories using romaji versions of katakana words, I would prefer you use the spelling of the original word so we can understand it. The one burger you wrote about "Shinshu Jibie Venison Burger" should be "Shinshu Gibier Venison Burger" as that's what "Jibie" is taken from. It's a French word for "game" or "game meat".

This story has been reported incorrectly. According to quite a few stories I have seen on/in the Japanese news, the Chinese men were not arrested for buying the diapers.....they were arrested for doing work other than what their visas were issued for. They were hired to work as cooks in a Chinese restaurant in Akashi, Hyogo but they have never worked there.....their entire time here in Japan was spent buying diapers to be held in a warehouse and then sent to China. I really wish the media would report the whole story. Here's an article from jiji.com, a Japanese press agency.

http://www.jiji.com/jc/zc?k=201410/2014101500911