motogaijin comments

I have never met a person from Tokyo who was actually born in Tokyo.

I have, but that's beside the point. I think every one in every country believes this about people who live in their biggest city--A bunch of people who come from the middle of nowhere and put on airs to distance themselves from their less than sophisticated roots. People have written countless novels and plays about this very theme.

@susieuk

Twitter and FB aren't really the same thing. Facebook is a way to keep in touch with people you actually know, Twitter is about connecting with people that you've never met.

@my2sense

I actually know a good number of my Twitter contacts. I met them and we began interacting via Twitter. Likewise, I've come to meet people I follow on Twitter, face to face and have beer and exchange card. I have social skills and enjoy the company of others--some people who use Twitter do not, and that has little to do with Twitter in and of itself.

Gotta love pseudo-science!

I could personally never pay 1,000 yen for an Asahi/Kirin/Sapporo quality beer. No mass produced, watery, urine-colored beer for me. IPA? APA? Stout? Maybe.

It could finally open the door for an app that gets rid of all the dozens of shopping cards one carries around these days, as nearly any shop offers one.

They don't have one of those in Japan yet? We've had a point/loyalty/discount card app in the US for at least a year now.

That just goes to show that the NAACP has strayed far from its original beginnings. When a Black man can't even disagree with the so called "party line."

Really? Tell me what you know about the beginnings of the NAACP (here's a freebie, it was actually founded mostly by non-blacks), and then I'll tell you what I know, and we'll exchange notes. No Wikipedia.

Also I heard that you can buy it and then return it anytime for 30 days.

This is not true to my knowledge, at least in the US. Maybe Japan as special laws in regard to the app store.

I wouldn't take anything about reception coming out of the US too seriously--you have to know that the only carrier, AT&T, ranks just below two tin cans tied together with string for reception and signal strength.

It's not just otakus in Japan who buy them either, geeks everywhere want to buy this crap.

"Crap"...right. Because I'm sure that there's NOTHING that you own that someone else doesn't see any value in...

iPad isn't a notebook, it's a tablet. If you need a notebook, then yes, an actual notebook would be better for you by definition.

Watanabe Ken is a great actor and respect him not only for his acting ability, but for his perseverance in learning English so that he could expand his appeal. People whine and cry about Chinese actors/actresses being cast as Japanese in American films, but this is only because very few Japanese bother to learn English, where as many Chinese do. If more kids payed attention in English class instead of looking at themselves in the mirror and sending text messages, there could be more Japanese in Hollywood.

What the gentleman quoted in the begining of the article doesn't seem to understand is that he is not going to get a lot of Americans and Britons--our countries (still) have high standards of living and there's not much incentive for all but the most enthralled with Japan to go there. The people who have incentive to come are the people who the Japanese seem to detest-other east and southeast Asians.

The concern seems to be that giving foreigners the right to vote could undermine Japan in the sense that said foreigners might vote in ways that could be damaging to Japan. However the people who think this way don't realize that most of their "foreigners" are 2nd, 3rd and so on, generation Koreans who are as Japanese in language, mannerism, and thought as they are. These are people who should not and in any other civilized nation would not be considered "foreign". I have said before and will say again--Drop the stupid "Japanese Name" provision for citizenship and offer full citizenship to all zainichi Koreans who can prove a birthright to Japanese citizenship. After this is done, the issue of foreign sufferage is mute--I personally do not care whether or not some whiney westerner (and sorry, but it's always westerners, who whine about this issue in Japan) with a Japanese wife and kids, but who can't be bothered to apply for citizenship is represented in the government. If you've "been here for 11 years", that's long enough to have gotten a lawyer and started filing citizenship papers.

If it makes you all feel any better, there were apparently similar problems here in the U.S., and the Apple and AT&T site went down a few times, so it's not just Japan/Softbank.

America can't make smartphones much smaller because Americans like to watch videos, surf the internet, run whatever apps or games they fancy, etc. with it. They want large enough screens with HD. There's no point in getting that high quality if the screen is too small.

Without those features, you no longer have a 'smartphone' you have what is colloquially known as a 'dumbphone'. So you're right in that America can't make a 'smartphone' with a 2 inch screen. The Japanese can't do it either; just because a phone can access the internet does not make it a 'smartphone'.

I'm guessing that the simple 'buy.com' URL was one of the things that Rakuten was most interested in--this is a web address that is easy to remember, easy to type, and which can be understood easily even by people who don't speak much English, so is suitable for use outside of the Anglophone world.

These fireworks are very expensive toys. Their biggest use is to make girls feel romantic and later get laid.

I don't see any problem with this, unless of course if you're not one of the people getting any, in which case I could understand your dislike of fireworks.

it's a business.

Anything, even junk, is OK in moderation. These look good, kind of like 3-cheese Cheetos. They probably won't be around the next time I make it to Japan, but I'd like to try them.

I think the character's 'glamor' if you can call it that, and their independence speaks to Japanese women. The show is a kind of wish-fulfillment for that demographic.

I remember hearing once that there is some country or culture where being cross-eyed is considered very beautiful, so while some of us might think Mao needs "fixing", there's someone out there who thinks she's fine just the way she is.

This movie is supposed to be so bad that even the fans of the series didn't like it, not to mention the total lack of any critical acclaim.

Kind of that how Apple users and Apple themselves never belittle "PC" users buying a something with windows on it.

"They do it so, I can too". Funny that in 6 years of being a mac user, I've never met one of these strawman Apple elitist that everyone complains about.

What's up with all of the hate on this site for Apple/Apple products? If you don't like them, or don't feel that they are worth the money, then you of course have the right not to buy them, but why waste time belittling people who have the money and the desire to purchase them?

Chinese = African slaves of the 21st century.

Hardly. These worker are not being treated well, but you might want to do some research on the trans-Atlantic slave trade before you make another asinine comment like this.

I'm going to assume the writer is a travel authors who's trying to hype foreign tourists up.

Is it just a coincidence that this guy's last name is 'Coke'?

In both groups must be sufficient men and women suited to close the gap, if there is really a will to do so. The problem is that nursing is not a fashionable, rewarding and well payed job.

You're only partially right. As I understand it, nurses in Japan are well paid. That said, it is not a glamorous job. It is a 3K job, and it can be very thankless--sick people are not always fun to deal with.

What do you think needs to be improved Sarge? Do we not already have bleeding edge technology and highly trained personnel?

Lots of typical "blaming the victim" going on here. Had this happened in the suburbs, our right-wing members would be howling about police overstepping their bounds, but since this case involved poor, inner-city blacks, it MUST be their own fault, right?

I love (and miss) Chu-Hi, but I never got into any of these other "mixed drink" canned beverages. The mixed cocktails tended to be too sweet, and the quality of whiskey in the highball drinks tends to be really low.