Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. With the animated film Sherlock Gnomes hitting theaters Friday, we’re looking back on other interpretations of the famous sleuth from Baker Street.
Just when you thought you could escape the phoniness of social media by engaging in conversation with a real life human being, Japanese innovation comes along and snatches that away from you, too. As a new article from The Atlantic reports, there are a number of burgeoning companies in Japan that allow clients to rent…
Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro is sweet and magical, a marvel of emotion and animation for adults and children alike. You’d be forgiven, however, for spending the chunk of your viewing experience wondering how the hell Totoro’s rotund frame isn’t constantly getting jammed between trees and turnstiles.
Even after a fish has been filleted, gutted, and had its head removed, it’s not unusual for it to continue moving—just visit a sashimi bar that serves very fresh product. Science can explain this: It has to do with neurons within the tissue, something about it maintaining membrane potential even after death, and yada…
There’s a soothing effect that goes through your brain whenever you see people performing a mundane act astonishingly well. At first blush you might expect a two-minute video of 14 elementary school students screaming in sync while running figure eights through a jump rope to be an exception to this rule, but,…
As recently as a decade ago, women’s wrestling in the WWE was consigned to pillow fights and bikini matches. They weren’t even allowed to be called women’s wrestlers—they were labeled “divas” and reduced to eye candy.
“Who hasn’t dreamt of living somewhere they really want to be?” whispers a new “living concept” called a Muji Hut. Who hasn’t dreamt of living in a shed that costs 3,000,000 yen, or about $27,000 American dollars? This vision and others will swim before your eyes as you browse the overwhelmingly serene website for the…
It’s hard to compete with events in a week that includes Easter Sunday, 4/20, High-Five Day, and Record Store Day, but it’s after 5 p.m. on Friday, so here we are: Eight years ago, Kirsten Dunst made a video of “Turning Japanese,” the unlikely 1980 hit by one-hit wonders The Vapors.
The island nation of Japan is prone to natural disasters, and an especially damaging typhoon season has caused a growing crisis: a nationwide potato shortage. According to Bloomberg, the Japanese snack company Calbee has temporarily stopped selling 15 varieties of its potato chips. This comes on news that the northern…
Putting the concept of “adulting” to the test, Japanese toy maker Bandai has re-launched its original line of Tamagotchi “virtual pets” to find out whether people who were kids in the ’90s are any better equipped to handle the responsibility of keeping a toy alive than they were 20 years ago. The toys went on sale in…
Amid the flurry of media attention surrounding the release of Pokémon Go last summer, a narrative began to emerge underneath the outrageous stories about people finding dead bodies and disrespecting the Holocaust Museum in their thirst to catch ’em all. The game, players were reporting, was good for both their mental…
There have been a billion articles—some sensitive and inquisitive, some mocking and exploitative—written over the years about the “quirkiness” of Japanese culture. And while there’s a certain, regrettable ”point and stare” vibe to so many of these pieces that we aim to avoid, on the other hand, the country is …
Despite the widely held belief that every movie monster is either played by Doug Jones in makeup or Andy Serkis in a ping-pong-ball-covered bodysuit, there are actually a number of actors that have graced the silver screen in elaborate costumes and achieved a sort of anonymous fame thanks to their iconic roles. One…
Japan’s reputation as a nation of uptight, overworked weirdos has been overstated internationally, but make no mistake, the Japanese language is indeed a polite one. Any second-year student of Japanese can tell you at least three ways to say “I’m sorry” with varying degrees of formality, and a quick way to get…
Japan’s love for the Kit Kat is well-documented at this point, as is the country’s fondness for “weird” Kit Kat flavors like “wasabi,” “green tea,” and “Super Dimension Fortress Macross.” Today, though, a newly opened Kit Kat shop is offering the fanciest specialty flavor yet: Kit Kat sushi.
To American drive-in audiences, 1956’s Godzilla, King Of The Monsters! was simply a silly sci-fi movie about a giant, lizard-like creature rampaging through Tokyo. It was a great success as escapist entertainment, but critics were unimpressed. On this side of the Pacific Ocean, few were aware that the film was a…
First, there was Neko Atsume in real life. Now, there will be a Neko Atsume movie. AMG Entertainment announced that it’s making a live-action Japanese film based on the addictive and adorable mobile game in which you literally just buy toys and food for cats. Titled Neko Atsume no Ie (House Of Neko Atsume), the film…
Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands, is surrounded by cold seawaters and known for producing pristine sea urchins, scallops, and crab, as well as the birthplace of miso ramen. But as the opening line on the Japan Trend Shop website announces: “Those guys up in Hokkaido will eat anything!”
Kirin Holdings, parent company of the Japanese Kirin Brewery, announced Wednesday that they have purchased a 24.5 percent stake in craft beer darlings Brooklyn Brewery.
It is Olympic tradition that during the closing ceremony of the ending games, the next country scheduled to host marks the transition with an abbreviated presentation, a sort of preview of what’s to come. Remember Beijing’s games in 2008, when London trotted out Leona Lewis, Jimmy Page, and David Beckham to highlight…
