Japan

China Just Commissioned the World’s Fastest Elevators

Today, the Japanese tech giant Hitachi announced a contract to build two of the fastest elevator in the world for a forthcoming skyscraper in China. Seems innocuous enough, right? But buried within the press release are a few fascinating details that illustrate how China’s skyscraper boom is affecting the global economy—including the fact that it…

9 Transportation-Related Jobs That Only Exist In Certain Cultures

Would you get paid to act as a third passenger in a vehicle so the car could drive into a congestion-restricted area? How about signing up to pack people into crowded subway cars? Dress up as a zebra and walk the streets, preventing cars from running red lights? These are actual gigs which you could…

How Native Americans were crucial to defeat the Nazis and Japan in WW2

This is Chester Nez, the last of the original Navajo 29, being honored at an April 4th ceremony. If it weren’t for him and the other 28 Native Americans who created the secret code language used in the Pacific theater during World War II, America would have probably never won the war against Japan. Their…

This Insane Anime Is A Japanese Take On An American Take On Ninjas

Supposedly, the new anime series Ninja Slayer is based on the novels of American writers Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez. Instead, the books were actually written by Japanese “translators” Honda Yu and Sugi Leika. Either way, this first trailer is delightfully insane. Basically, as far as I can tell, a bunch of evil ninjas…

London’s plan to grow up might go down, Elon Musk’s quest to make electric cars cool, and funny anti-Rob Ford ads appear in Toronto. Plus: Learning from streets in Vietnam, Paris, and Manhattan. All this and more in this week’s Urban Reads. A large and influential group of Londoners have launched a campaign against 200…

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is taking a very, uh, literal approach to his $23.5 million Mount Fuji World Heritage Center. The building’s wooden lattice is designed to look like the volcano’s inverse—reflecting its silhouette in pool that will surround the building when it’s finished in 2016. [DesignBoom]

A map of how the WWII bombing of Japan would have impacted the U.S.

How severe was the bombing of Japan during World War II? This map, which translates the damage to cities in the U.S. that had similar population sizes in 1940, gives a better sense of the scale. The map is the work of Alex Wellerstein, a historian at the American Institute of Physics who explains, “When…

The architects of this tiny pharmacy in downtown Osaka didn’t have much to work with—just a skinny alleyway between two hulking buildings. But the resulting structure is so cool, it almost looks as though it was there first. You’d be surprised how far back it goes, too, so click through for an aerial shot. The…

Fukushima Could Make Japan a Leader In Nuclear Cleanup Tech

The idea that a nuclear disaster could actually drive innovation is definitely a new way to look at Japan’s ongoing Fukushima debacle. But a new report from the AP does just that, suggesting that the long-term cleanup effort that Japan now faces will make it a world leader in decommissioning nuclear plants. This Tuesday will…

13 Gorgeous Travel Posters From 1930s Japan

These extremely rare, previously unseen travel posters make me want to travel back in time and visit a Japan of another era. These beautiful graphics were recently rediscovered, and they’ll auctioned off at the Vintage Movie Posters Signature Auction this month. According to Collector’s Weekly, the posters were found in by an unwitting student, and…

These Amazing Illustrations Are Like Google Maps For 1900s Japan

Many decades before satellites even existed, a Japanese cartographer named Hatsusaburo Yoshida was drawing cities as though he was floating thousands of feet above them. His vivid, colorful drawings are almost 100 years old now—but they’re just as exciting as they were in 1914. Today would’ve been Yoshida’s 130th birthday. Born in 1884 in Kyoto,…

Japan makes awesome anime of their latest rocket launch with NASA

Today the NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched a Japanese H-IIA rocket with the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory onboard. The joint mission will collect data to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours. And there is an awesome anime about that. Because Japan. See for yourself: (Thanks for the tip…

This video shows how Japan is a mystical world set in modern times

This video, shot and made by Scott Gold, plays like a dream. It depicts Scott and his wife’s trip to Japan in January but to me, it shows how Japan is maintaining its illustrious history and mystical culture amidst the fast paced, beep beep, every person cross the intersection right now modern world. You’ll see…

China invades Japan’s skies with their dangerous pollution

This is terrible. Japan is getting under China’s blanket of gross air contamination. The situation is getting bad pretty quickly—proof that we need to think globally about gas emission controls. It’s not just about raising sea levels in the future. It’s about getting cancer now. https://kotaku.com/chinas-pollution-is-making-japanese-air-all-crappy-1531371641

Japan’s Transformers-themed hotel room transforms fandom into despair

Do you love Transformers but hate yourself? Then why not fly around the world to Japan, and stay in a special Transformers-themed hotel room that you could easily recreate by yourself at a Holiday Inn with $50 and a quick trip to Target? The room is in the Asahikawa Grand Hotel in Hokkaido, and as…

Japan’s insane Marvel Super Heroes anime/disk game is hilariously awful

We’ve told you about Marvel Super Heroes: Disk Wars, the anime series and about its Pokémon-esque, accompanying collectible disk game, that it’s basically just a commercial for. But did you know the game itself is basically pogs? Bandai has released this promo for the anime along with instructions on how the game, called Bachicombat, works,…

The Time the U.S. Invaded a Japanese Submarine Base… in Alaska?

An absolutely fascinating but little-known story—described as a “forgotten theater” by the U.S. Navy itself—is the tale of Kiska and Attu, Alaska: two remote Aleutian islands where the Japanese military established a submarine base during World War II. The islands—surprisingly close to the outer edge of the Japanese archipelago—were to serve as a landing point…

I’d love to watch a Game of Thrones set in beautiful feudal era Japan

Game of Thrones is one of the most beautiful shows on television because of its expansive sets, elaborate costumes (and lack thereof), obsession with detail, intimidating weather and anything dealing with the world of Westeros. It’s such a magnificent place that even if the characters disappeared I could watch the golden glow of King’s Landing…

Meet the magic bra that can only be opened by “true love”

Ladies! Do you find yourself exposing your bosoms for pretty much anybody you have a small amount of affection for? Then do I have good news for you! Japanese lingerie maker Ravijour has developed a bra whose clasp will only open when its wearer is experiencing true love. How does it do this, you ask?…

Artist brilliantly reimagines Game of Thrones as classic Japanese art

In the game of Game of Thrones fan art, you either win or you keep on drawing pictures of Jon Snow cuddling with his direwolf Ghost. Artist Seiji has clearly won with these phenomenal recreations of key GoT scenes and characters translated to feudal Japan, and rendered in that unique style. I don’t even want…