Anime-themed cars have long been an unreachable dream for otaku in the western world. Short of plushies, stickers, and other merchandise fans can scrounge up at a con, they are nothing compared to this Hello Kitty creation from Mitsubishi, or many others that have been created to promote other, popular series. We read a news story out of Wisconsin about a 2003 Mitsubishi that has a caricature of Sailor Moon over the exhaust manifold. Were any of you there? We’d love to see a picture of what this looked like (it must have been neat since it was newsworthy)! Question for everyone though, if your car could be anime themed, which show and which car would you pick and how would you want it designed?

Shoko Nakagawa and Neko Hiroshi Appear on The Best House 123!

Last week we were able to find more Japanese programming and thought we’d watch a few game shows. One of the ones we watched was a TV show called The Best House 123! and this particular episode was a two hour special that featured celebrities playing. The premise of this game show is a little bit different. The players each pick their top 3 of anything they want , and prepare a short video presentation on their picks. Then on the show, the hosts at random using a buzzer choose a few of these presentations to be shown on the show. Viewers at home then vote on which player’s presentations they liked best, and the best ones are included in a book called “The Best Encyclopedia”. It’s kind of a neat show and definitely a change from the image of most Japanese game shows that we have seen where players are subjected to strange obstacle courses or get an electric shock when they do something wrong.

As we mentioned above, last week was a two hour celebrity special, and two celebrities that we have reported on in the past were players and also had their presentations chosen. Now we would have loved to upload some clips of the show, however after heeding the warnings on Fuji’s site, we elected to post some screencaps and a summary instead.

Shoko Nakagawa appeared on the show and cosplayed as Haruhi Suzumiya from “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” – a popular anime which we are sure most of you have heard of by now! Shoko was the third to be chosen to present second, and for her topic she picked the Best 3 Dismantling Operations. We were surprised, we totally expected her to do the top 3 best cosplays in the world or something to that effect :p. In third place was a case in China where 16 apartment buildings were demolished simultaneously. This took place in 2005 in Yunong Village, and the engineers had made a computer simulation to map out how best to make the buildings fall as not to destroy other buildings that were nearby. They showed a shot of one building which survived the blast (but all the others around it were destroyed). Her second place pick was the dismantling of a gas tank in Japan that was inspired by a housewife’s apple peeling – spiraling around only once and getting the peel out in one shot. So they cut off the bottom of the tank and worked slowly spiraling around the top of the tank. This method takes about a week compared to an older method that took a month to dismantle the whole tank, and earned the engineers at Bestera a patent. Shoko’s top pick for her topic was the destruction of a B-52 Stratofortress. Here’s some history for you all. In 1991, the US and Russia signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. 365 of these aircraft were flown to Arizona, all the useable parts were salvaged, and then a 13,000 lb blade was dropped from a crane and chopped the planes into several pieces. Shoko seemed really fascinated with this one!

Neko Hiroshi (Real Name: Takizaki Kuniaki) is a popular comedian in Japan who is very short and incorporates his infamous cat motions (a cat paw gesture followed by “nya!”) in his routines. Neko played Kami-Sama in Bishoujo Celeb Panchanne – a series which we have been following very closely on Moon Chase because of it’s similarities to Sailor Moon! Neko chose to talk about the top 3 animals that sound like other animals. In #3 was a species of frog in Japan that sounds like a dog when it croaks/barks. It was discovered in Neba Village in Nagano in 2005. There is a mansion that people can visit just to hear this new species of frog bark! #2 is the cheetah, which has the ability to sound like a chirping bird along with the scary growls that we are all familiar with. #1 went to the giraffe, which can grunt and bleat like a cow. At the end of the show , all the contestants laughed at his entry. Neko Hiroshi can currently be seen in the Live-Action Saiyuki (unrelated to the anime of the same name) movie that was just released in Japanese theaters. He is playing the false Cho Hakkai.

There were other presentations that were made , such as the best glassware, aquariums, haunted houses, cutting devices, poisonous sea animals, and the kicker: the best women who turned into men. As of this writing we are unsure which ones have made it into The Best Book.

Over 30 this week for all your enjoyment! Today’s strangest commercial honor goes to this one we found of popular band Kat-Tun endorsing… fruity lip-balm?

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☼ A New Docomo Phone!
☼ Japaanese Del Monte Juice!
☼ Tsutaya Discas (Rental by Mail) Service!
☼ Toshiba HD-DVD!
☼ Ritz Crackers!
☼ Osamu Tezuka’s Characters Party for the Tenth Anniversary of the Prius!
☼ Pigling Bland drinks Suntory Dakara!
☼ Japanese Pizza Hut Commercial!
☼ Oreos!
☼ Kat-Tun Commercial for Lotte +X Gum!
☼ Oxy Body Lotion for Men!
☼ Mini Fibre Drink!
☼ A look at the suites in LeoPalace 21!
☼ Japanese Mastercard Commercial – “Priceless Jazz Night” !
☼ Japanese Automobile Federation!
☼ Tales Weaver RPG!
☼ Maple Story RPG!
☼ Pizza-la!
☼ Pepsi Nex Zero!
☼ Pocari X SMAP Commercial with all the members!
☼ Short Docomo 2.0 Commercial with Tsumabuki and Fukiishi!
☼ Long Docomo 2.0 Commercial with Tsumabuki and Fukiishi!
☼ Long Docomo 2.0 Commercial with Nagase and Asano!
☼ Autobacs GPS Navigator!
☼ Mario Party 8!
☼ Tokyo Disney!
☼ Businessmen go crazy for Regai!
☼ Two Suzuki Commercials!
☼ Daisuke’s (Dice-K’s) Aquarius Commercial!
☼ Coca-Cola!
☼ Bizarre Intel Centrino Commercial!
☼ Gatsby Hair Care for Men Commercial!

BREAKING NEWS! Possibly literally!

Earlier today, Tropical Storm Usagi formed and headed for a remote Japanese island chain, as reported by the Associated Press. While storms are not unusual, they are not often named after Sailor Moon characters! This really isn’t a Sailor Moon reference at all, Usagi is simply on a list of names to be used (Western North Pacific List II). Now, who knows if it’s on the list because of Sailor Moon…? It’s a mystery to be pondered. 😉 Usagi is expected to hit the Ogasawara island chain on Monday.

Perhaps if she’d studied more geography, she could have gone straight to Tokyo?

Original article here, props to Bucket for linking us originally!

Yes, we thought we had seen all of Maroon 5’s appearances until we ran into a third one today. This one comes from yesterday’s Music Japan. The group wasn’t interviewed, but appeared on camera to introduce themselves. Lead singer Adam Levine’s on-screen antics are priceless!

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