Archives for the ‘Japan’ Category

Choke Sleeper’s self-titled success

By Shay • Nov 10th, 2007 • Category: Features, Japan, music, rock1 comment

Choke Sleeper’s multifarious influences have led them to produce music that isn’t very easy to classify. Their recent album is no exception.
The Yokohama-based quintet was originally formed in 1997 and have since released 5 mini albums and 2 LPs. Chu (vocals), Shige (guitar & vocals), Toru (guitar), Azumi (bass), and Kenken (drums) have taken [...]



localizer by plane

By Shay • Nov 9th, 2007 • Category: Features, Japan, indie, music, rock4 comments

The music on plane’s new album localizer is good but the most impressive thing about the album is its super-cool cover art.

localizer is the second full-length studio album from Japanese indie rock band plane. plane (プレーン) consists of Kikuchi Yusuke (菊地佑介, vocals & guitar), Hisamitsu Masaaki (久光正昭, guitar), Kida Yoshifumi (木田佳文, bass), and Kamimoto [...]



SEAMO’s Round About

By Shay • Nov 8th, 2007 • Category: Japan, Reviews, hip-hop, music, pop0 comments

SEAMO’s latest album Round About has been runnin’ around the charts since its release on October 30th.
Round About is the Japanese rapper’s third album. It’s packed full of upbeat and thoughtful rhymes and definetly leads further into ‘hip-pop’ territory.



The Mass Missile’s new line up

By Shay • Nov 6th, 2007 • Category: Japan, music, news, rock3 comments

A few months back, it was reported on The Mass Missile’s official website that three of the five members left the band. Not much else was known until recently, becasue The Mass Missile have a new website. It’s like they broke up and have now regrouped.



Be a Sushi Bar Tycoon with “Sushi Go Round”

By Shay • Oct 6th, 2007 • Category: Japan, internet, video games13 comments

If you’ve ever wanted to be a sushi bar tycoon, here’s your chance.
“Sushi Go Round” is a fun game on Miniclip.com that has you, the player making and selling sushi to your customers.

Its combination of delightfully cute pixel graphics and increasingly fast-paced gameplay make “Sushi Go Round” pretty addicting. As far as flash games [...]



“SUPER LOVE” Action by B’z

By Shay • Oct 3rd, 2007 • Category: Japan, Videos, music, rock3 comments

The best-selling Japanese musical act of all time is back with “SUPER LOVE SONG”.

The wonderous duo that is B’z (ビーズ) released their latest single, “SUPER LOVE SONG” on Oct. 3. B’z, which consists of Tak Matsumoto (guitar) and Koshi Inaba (vocals), have sold some 75 million records in Japan according to Oricon.
“SUPER LOVE SONG” [...]



Japanese-themed iPod skins

By Shay • Oct 1st, 2007 • Category: Japan, Technology, art12 comments

Of course iPods naturally look cool but if you feel the urge to trick one out, you can do so with some of these cool skins.
AudioCubes offers quite a few Japanese-themed iPod skins by GelaSkins.

One of the artists behind some of these cool skins is Aya Kato from Aichi, Japan. Her partial bio [...]



Facebank eats money for lunch

By Shay • Sep 29th, 2007 • Category: Japan, Technology, humor, toys1 comment

You can forget about your dad’s classic piggy bank because Facebank is here.
The Banpresto Facebank is a fun little innovation in moneybox technology. Yeah, leave it up to a Japanese designer to find a way to make coin storage cool again.
How does it work? Simply feed it your coins and watch it eat.
Facebook? How [...]



SOUL’d OUT’s “Tongue Te Tongue”

By Shay • Sep 29th, 2007 • Category: Japan, Videos, hip-hop, music, pop4 comments

If someone ever kept track of the most times the word “tongue” (タン in this case) was said in a song, SOUL’d OUT should win. Beyond that, the hip-hop trio’s latest single is cool, catchy, and the PV is a visual treat. Tasty I say.
SOUL’d OUT’s “Tongue Te Tongue” is the 2nd of a [...]



Still no boundaries for Yuzu

By Shay • Sep 28th, 2007 • Category: Japan, Videos, music, pop3 comments

The popular Japanese folk duo Yuzu (ゆず) has been doing their thing since 1997. With the 10th anniversery of their first release approaching, how about a “best of” release?

Yuzu, which consists of Kitagawa Yujin (北川悠仁) and Iwasawa Kouji (岩沢厚治) has been very popular over the years. They found great success since their humble roots [...]