Ninja Train, originally uploaded by [douglas japonicus].

In case anyone still had any doubts about whether pirates or ninjas were better, the little town of Iga Ueno in Mie prefecture puts forward its argument - the Ninja Festa 2008. JapaniCan describes it thus -

Wearing loaned ninja clothes, you can have an experience of learning ninja skills at ninja schools.

And you even get free travel on the Iga Tetsudo (see picture) if you’re dressed up like a ninja. Sweet.

Beat that pirates.

The Ninja Festa 2008 started on April 1st and runs until May 6th. Break out dem shurikens.

You can also see a rather mad video by going to the Iga City website here.

(WARNING: contains mind melting images of dogs dressed as ninja.)

… but this commercial really appeals to me. Well, except for the giant furry pink bear. The less said about that, the better.

Owing to staff shortages, Mount Fuji will be closed to climbers this summer - but only on Sundays. The authorities have been having trouble finding people willing to spend the whole season on the mountain, and so have decided to restrict access on Sundays. This effectively means that those who want to do a weekend climb have to be off the mountain by midnight on Saturday, although the most detailed news report I found made no mention of penalties. Perhaps they’ll leave you stranded up there…

I’m also not sure if this means the Self Defence Forces will have to find somewhere else to train as well, although to be honest, no-one really cares about them. Especially North Korea.

(more info here.)

Japan is internationally renowned for its love of cute. This is oft exaggerated, but isn’t entirely without merit. What is often missed is the side effect of this obsession, whereby nearly every business, organization, event - or indeed, just about anything - irrespective of size or purpose, seeks to get itself a mascot.

The Aichi expo had these guys -

The Japanese police have this guy -

Hikone Castle has this guy -

The Japanese military settled, famously, on this guy (the one on the left, who won’t be fingerprinted on coming to Japan) -

Nara, one of Japan’s most popular tourist destinations, site of the ancient capital, and famous for deers and temples, didn’t have a mascot. This oversight needed correcting, obviously, so the city government contracted themselves a nifty looking logo that they thought would sum up the charms of their city as cutely as possible.

This is what they got -

According to Yahoo news, there have been a few complaints that it isn’t cute enough. I’m inclined to agree.

source - Yahoo news (only Japanese)

The International Herald & Tribune reports on a new suit available from Konaka in Japan, from February next year.

By utilising a special fabric that remembers its shape, the boffins at Konaka have managed to make my dream Christmas present - all you have to do, according to a PDF posted on their website, is reverse the jacket and trousers, put them in the shower for a few minutes, then turn them the other way around, repeat the process, then wait for them to dry.

Awesome.

It’s just the kind of thing I’m looking for, what with all the interviews I’ve been going to lately and dry cleaning being as expensive and time consuming as it is.

(picture from nicolette wells’ flickr stream, used under the creative commons license)

Anyone else see this and think of Evangelion?