Random Japan

More than meets the eye, sushi in disguise! Check out these transforming sushi toys!

KK Miller

Your mother probably scolded you for playing with your food at the dinner table, but here’s one of the few times you’ll be able to get away with it! Introducing transforming sushi toys from Takara Tomy. Now, instead of playing with a floppy piece of asparagus (how’s that supposed to stand up to the forces of evil anyway?), you can play with these pieces of super robot fighting sushi. Just don’t try to take a bite out of them!


Takara Tomy is well known for making the Transformer toys a reality. This time they are taking their transforming skills and applying them to everyone’s favorite Japanese food: sushi! There were images and first run prototypes of these bad boys (or good boys as it may be) back in June, but now we are getting a good look at the Schallyders and are pretty excited with the results!

stats

• 10 million Number of PlayStation 4 gaming consoles that have been sold around the world since Sony released the device in November
• 37.6 Percent of people living in rural areas who say their villages will be “ruined” if current demographic trends continue, according to a Cabinet Office survey
• 9,962 Number of “incidents or accidents” involving U.S. military personnel in Japan between 2003 and 2013, according to the defense ministry and the Okinawa prefectural government

BOYS IN BLUE

• Authorities in Soka, Saitama Prefecture, suspended a police officer for taking upskirt videos of women on escalators and at the koban where he worked.

• Another cop in Fujisawa was arrested for allegedly using his smartphone to film a woman taking a bath in her first-floor apartment.
• Meanwhile, four employees of the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau were busted for shooting nude videos of female coworkers and selling them via the LINE smartphone app.
• The new president of NHK says he’s keen to have the public broadcaster “collect subscription fees from Internet users.”

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Gifu mover gives forgotten temples new life in new places

Chunichi Shimbun

Due to the decline in Buddhist worshippers and the population in general, the number of empty or abandoned temples has been growing in recent years.

Seeing this as an opportunity for a new business model, Goto Shrines-and-temples Construction Co., based in Ginan, Gifu Prefecture, is offering to move old shrines and rebuild them in new locations.

Not only is this cheaper than building a new temple from scratch, but it also might become a new recycling trend as temples built before the war were made with high-quality materials that are often difficult to acquire these days.