Transformer cars

Bandai will release a new series of toy cars, sure to be popular with children, on Nov 20. The new lineup, VooV, will feature cars that transform themselves. The 37-centimeter police cruiser, for example, can transform into a 74-centimeter bullet train. Left in mid-transformation, the vehicle provides a racetrack, ramp and gas station for smaller cars.

Actress Sayuri Kokusho celebrates Y1 mil lottery win

TOKYO — Actress Sayuri Kokusho, 43, reported on her blog this week that she took home a cool 1 million yen after winning the Japanese lottery recently. “You’ve never going to believe this but I actually won the lottery!” she exclaimed in the entry.
Coincidentally, the actress posed for a photo with comedy duo, London Boots, that was tinted gold last month. In her blog, she said that the photo may have foreshadowed the win.

Hiroshima not shy about its atomic bomb legacy

HIROSHIMA —

Unlike most of Japan, Hiroshima doesn’t shy from its wartime past.
 
This bustling port city, the target of the world’s first atomic bomb attack in 1945, made itself the main exhibit this weekend at an annual gathering of Nobel Peace Prize laureates—dedicated this year to abolishing nuclear weapons.
 
Hiroshima often links events it hosts to its tragic history, such as a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum earlier this year. It is bidding for the 2020 Olympics with Nagasaki—the other Japanese city hit by an atomic bomb—under a “Festival of Peace” theme.
 
Elsewhere in Japan, discussions of World War II are often tinged by guilt or nationalism. Tokyo’s only major museum on the war is housed within a controversial war shrine. Even Nagasaki typically takes a more subdued approach.
 
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba has increasingly circumvented Japan’s national government as a global movement against nuclear arms gains momentum.
 
He leads “Mayors for Peace,” with 4,300 member cities worldwide, and declared his city part of the “Obamajority” after the U.S. president’s Prague speech last year in favor of denuclearization.
 
“We are at the position where we can proceed from the city level and galvanize this trend,” he said at the Asia-Pacific forum.
 
With its A-Bomb Dome, a burned-out building from the attack that has been preserved, and sprawling Peace Park at its center, the city is a symbol of the dangers of nuclear weapons.
 
Japanese survivors gave heart-rending testimony at the weekend gathering of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the first time the summit was held outside Europe.
 
“The significance of being in Hiroshima is that we are here, where for the first time in history an atomic bomb was dropped, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and seriously injured and maimed for life,” said Frederik Willem de Klerk, the former South African president who won a Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for his efforts to end apartheid.
 
Overseas visitors to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum have roughly doubled over the last 10 years to about 160,000 per year.
 
The museum’s exhibits were altered in 1991 in part because some were considered too gruesome. Items on display include preserved scar tissue from radiation victims and a set of stone steps with the outline of a man who was incinerated in the blast.
 
But with the increasing interest, a plan is being considered to make them more vivid again.
 
“There is a feeling that the exhibits became too clean,” said museum official Shoji Oseto.
 
Hiroshima’s most powerful message comes from the survivors of the attack, known as “hibakusha” in Japanese. Most don’t discuss their experiences openly, but those that do retell them repeatedly and have been dubbed “special communicators” by the current Japanese cabinet.
 
After children gave the Nobel laureates colorful origami cranes at an opening ceremony on Friday, hibakusha Akihiro Takahashi took the stage and told how he watched friends die and made his way home through charred corpses as a schoolboy after the atomic bombing on Aug 6, 1945.
 
Some members of the press corps were moved to tears, and the English translators at times choked up and lost the narrative.
 
As the survivors get older, efforts are being made to introduce them to as many audiences as possible.
 
“Unfortunately we don’t have much time. If we lose this opportunity, we lose a vital part of the Hiroshima legacy,” said Yoshioka Tatsuya, founder of an organization called Peace Boat that has sailed hibakusha to various ports around the world.
 
Within the city, memories of the devastation fade with each generation. Authorities are trying to educate children, busing students to the Peace Park each year and sending special teams of educators to schools in the region.
 
“In Hiroshima we are all educated about peace,” said Maria Inoue, 16, who skipped school to attend the Nobel peace conference. “This is how it should be in all of Japan.”

Eijiro Miyamae, 75, shows his fashion style in Yokohama

New Fashion Style? "This is Art" as how he said this was...

NTT Com to launch IP service for global internal dialing

TOKYO —

NTT Communications (NTT Com) is set to become Japan’s first telecom carrier to offer multinational customers a voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) service for internal dialing between global offices, including Japan, beginning Dec 1. The company has also announced plans to launch other new IP communications services.

NTT Com’s new service will enable customers to establish high-quality global-scale internal dialing networks on a quick, low-cost basis using IP technologies. Making calls will be as simple as dialing the base’s extension and then the receiver’s extension. The service will be offered through NTT Com’s managed network service for enterprise customers, called Arcstar Global IP-VPN, which will help to eliminate connection failures sometimes encountered with Internet-based VoIP services. Linkage with existing private branch exchanges (PBXs) and NTT Com’s VoIP gateway service in Japan, as well as billing for calls on a fixed-rate basis, will help to minimize costs.

NTT Com also announced plans to launch three more high-quality global IP telephony services from or after April 2011, including Unified voice, video, web conferencing and instant/unified messaging; high-quality, low-cost external dialing and call receiving from worldwide bases; and cloud-based global call centers.

Japan Corporate News Network

Fukuoka cycling event to promote Japan-Korea friendship

FUKUOKA — A cycling event is being scheduled for late November in Fukuoka City, with about 300 riders from South Korea expected to participate to promote friendly relations between Japan and the country.
Tour de Fukuoka 2010, to be held Nov 28, is the first event of its kind. The Korean riders will come from the port city of Busan, which is linked with Fukuoka via high-speed ferries. Event organizers are calling on more people to participate to enjoy late fall in Fukuoka.
The event offers two categories—‘‘cityride’’ in which participants freely ride through various sightseeing spots and checkpoints to finish on an artificial island in Higashi Ward, and ‘‘criterium’’ in which participants race through a loop of about 1.5 kilometers around the island.
The criterium category has six divisions, including those for professionals, kids and people who ride the so-called ‘‘mamachari’’ bicycles often used by mothers in Japan for quick grocery shopping and for picking up kids.

The event’s action committee members say they are hoping that the event will bring in ‘‘Asian vitality’’ to the southwestern Japan city.
‘‘Fukuoka is a very pretty city. I’m looking forward to it,’’ said Kang Sung Min, who heads a women’s bicycle club in Busan.

Japanese man arrested for paying children for sex in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH — A 33-year-old Japanese man has been arrested on suspicion of purchasing sex with underage boys in Cambodia’s northern province of Siem Reap, a provincial court official said Friday. Ty Sovannthal, chief prosecutor at the Siem Reap Provincial Court, said that he charged Nobuyuki Oi on Thursday with paying for sex with the two child prostitutes aged 15 and 16.
He said Oi was arrested late Wednesday in Siem Reap after villagers reported seeing him having sex with the two boys. Ty Sovannthal said Oi admitted to paying the boys $10 each for sex.
If found guilty, Oi faces a jail term of between two and five years for abusing children, according to Cambodia’s Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation.
Oi, from Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan, entered Cambodia as a tourist on Nov. 5 and was due to stay in the country until Dec. 6.

Last month, a court in the capital Phnom Penh convicted a 41-year-old Japanese man of having sex with an underage girl and sentenced him to seven years in jail and fined him 400,000 riel (about $95).

Megumi Yasu appointed 'takoyaki' ambassador

TOKYO —

A theme park developer has appointed TV personality Megumi Yasu, 28, its ambassador of “takoyaki,” a popular Japanese dumpling made of batter, baby octopus, tempura scraps, pickled ginger and green onion, topped with okonomiyaki sauce, ponzu, mayonnaise, green laver and bonito shavings. 
Yasu attended an event in Odaiba to promote the Takoyaki Museum which opens Saturday. Yasu, known for her love of cooking, tried her hand at making some octopus balls herself after which the gathered press asked her who she would like to have feed them to her. Yasu replied, “Well, since I’m almost 30, so I guess it’s about time I found Mr Right.”

15-yr-old model Kawaguchi picked as 'Face of the Year'

TOKYO — Haruna Kawaguchi, a 15-year-old model who has been picked as a promising artist by a popular magazine, promised to work hard on becoming a good actress during a recent event. ‘‘My dream is to become a very attractive actress,’’ said Kawaguchi, after being selected as ‘‘Face of the Year’’ by the Nikkei Trendy magazine known for its in-depth reviews of products such as digital devices and home appliances.
Kawaguchi has already been picked as a promotional girl for Mitsui Real Estate Sales Co. Her appearances in TV commercials for the company may be a gateway to success in Japan, as with such predecessors as Rie Miyazawa, Yu Aoi and Chizuru Ikewaki.

Manami Konishi denies wedding report

TOKYO — Actress Manami Konishi, 32, said this week that she and actor Masaharu Fukuyama, 41, are just acquaintances and denied a report in Josei Seven magazine that they would be getting married.
Konishi made the remarks at an event to light up Tokyo Tower for the Christmas season. “I just worked with him for his radio program,” Konishi said.
Konishi was joined at the light-up event by actor Toru Nakamura, 45, with whom she is starring in the upcoming drama “Yukizuri no machi.” The story revolves around a teacher with a scandalous past, who meets a former student with whom he once had an affair.

R.I.P Takeshi Shudo

Well, I haven't blogged about anything for a while now... and here i am again...
but unfortunately this time, i'm back with a sad news...
Takeshi Shudo, the chief writer of the Pokemon anime for the Kanto, Orange Islands, and Johto arcs and also wrote the first three films of Pokemon, had passed away due to subarachnoid hemorrhage in the area of Kansai Main Line's Nara Station at around 6.00AM, and was immediately transported to Nara Hospital for emergency surgery.
He passed away on the morning of October 29 at the age of 61.