Japan News – 5th Edition

Now that all the hoopla is starting to slowly dissipate from Tokyo Game Show ’11, I thought today might be a good time to start with the Japan News section

So straight into a story about a  dog that thinks it’s a cat! Okenpi, the dog, was raised alongside a cat in the family and the owner swears she’s never heard him make a normal barking sound. Check the video below, he’s pretty cute!!

wan wan nyan by islandlifer3

Meanwhile Japan’s Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, received a peculiar gift from Hokkaido recently. It was a mail order snowman, received in reference to a comment Noda san made during his election victory speech.

“Managing a government is like pushing a snowball up a hill in order to make a snowman,” Noda said. “We cannot have any more infighting, as this is like the snowball falling back down the hill and just getting heavier.”

“We must pull together to push the snowball back up the hill for the sake of the public. Together, with all of you, I will work so that the people of Japan will not regret choosing us as the ruling party of Japan,” said Noda.

The town it came from, Abira, prides itself as being the best snowman town and has been selling mail order snowmen for the past 25 years, in fact the town also has a snowman themed post office complete with a snowman style mailbox and a huge snowman on the roof to match.

Police have been trying to stem the presence of the Yakuza at stalls during festivals by banning them. In the video below, Tokyo MX, is reporting about stall owners having to undergo a background check to ensure they have no links to organised crime. This procedure was used recently in Japan at the Kitazawa Hachiman festival and as of October 1st, new anti-Yakuza regulations will go into effect. This is to try and stop people and businesses from being involved in gangster activities.

And lastly for this edition, the Japanese Government recently took the covers off a brand new logo that will be used to promote “Cool Japan.”

From a shortlist selected from among 99 logos submitted for a competition held between late July and mid-August, a logo incorporating the English words ”JAPAN NEXT,” created by prominent designer Kashiwa Sato, has been chosen by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, a government office for intellectual properties said.

Sato says he designed the logo with the image in mind of a Japan that overcomes the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster and is reborn as a stronger, more creative and confident nation — the ”next Japan.”

The designer that’s being mentioned, Kashiwa Sato, is also responsible for the logo used by Uniqlo, a clothing chain in Japan.