JapanSugoi

Cool Namba Parks なんばパークス  shopping mall in Osaka Japan.  Namba parks  consists of a 30 storey office building (called Parks Tower) and a 120-tenant shopping mall with a cool rooftop garden.

There are numerous restaurants located on the 6th floor and the floors below have shops. There is also an amphitheater for live shows, as well as space for small personal vegetable gardens and wagon shops.  If you’re visiting Osaka, make sure to stop by Namba Parks.

Namba Parks Video

Due to the many requests we received to post more of the wacky JRA (Japan Racing Association) Japan World Cup videos, we found out a bit more about the videos themselves.   The creative animations are the work of talented Japanese animation director Riichiro Mashima  真島理一郎 who is also known for his work Ski Jumping Pairs and Tokyo Only Pics 東京オンリーピック and the excited race commentator is actor and announcer Junichi Mogi  茂木淳一.

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Like stuff from Japanese store Muji? Play MUJI is a nice new blog widget calendar which every day shows a  different product with a video of the characteristics, way of use and/or a closer look at size and shape of the product.  The play Muji blog widget has great e-commerce potential and  was created by the Agency Tha in Japan.

Source:8 Tokyo

Attention Japanese graphic designers. Here are some great web icons designed by the folks at Messaliberty for the Japanese prefectures of Tokyo, Aomori, Hyogo, Kyoto, Okinawa and Shimane . They are in png format (256×256) and free to download from their site.

Tokyo

Aomori

Hyogo

Kyoto

Okinawa

Earlier this year, wanting to create some publicity,  Japanese hair fashion magazine HairMag.jp. hired some bald models to walk around Harajuku and Shibuya.  The Japanese girls with no hair (wearing bald wigs actually) created quite a stir everywhere they went.

Ever wonder why Japanese search engines are better for searching for gravure idols and maids? a) the results are geared for otaku b) they search in Japanese c) they don’t have family filters or d) they index content better than Google. The answer is probably b) searching in Japanese as most web content about gravure idols and maids is in Japanese language.

We base our answer on the following funny TV commercial from top Japanese search engine and portal “goo” owned by Japanese phone giant NTT. Type a search for “gravure maid” in your local area and get the following results.  Read more...