Rocket News 24

Japanese subway company adds a new soundscape to Godzilla’s Tokyo home. November 3 is a special date for fans of Godzilla as it’s known as “Godzilla Day”. First celebrated to mark the anniversary of the premiere date of the original 1954 film, Godzilla, it was eventually adopted by Toho, the film’s production company, and after it was registered with the Japan Anniversary Association in 2017, Godzilla Day was officially established, representing Godzilla’s birthday. While it’s

Face of the Pokémon franchise hitches a ride to the International Space Station as part of European Space Agency mission. Because Pikachu is such an iconic part of the franchise, the Pokémon games and anime have to be careful about introducing new powers for him. Sure, he always needs to be a viable candidate for whatever adventures are going to take place, but if Pikachu is made too powerful, he loses that quality of being an approachable, believable companion for the protagonist’s journey of

Tokyo Ward clamps down as this year’s Saturday Halloween poses more dangers than the past six years.  If you’ve ever visited Shibuya’s famous scramble crossing at Halloween, you’ll know how chaotic it can be. Costumes, crowds, street drinking, and people cramming into the crossing and surrounding thoroughfares for photos and impromptu meetups are all the ingredients for mayhem, and after a truck was overturned by revellers in 2018, Shibuya has been doing everything it can to clamp down on

Limited-edition drink serves up a new taste of autumn. Starbucks’ chilled cup range was first released in Japan ahead of the globe over 20 years ago, and since then it’s undergone many transformations, with limited-edition exclusives capturing the taste of the season. Now, as we stride through autumn, the chain is giving us a new limited-edition release called the Joyful Harmony Tea Latte, which delivers chill autumn vibes with some interesting accents in flavour. At the heart of the drink is

Decision wasn’t made by the transportation bureau, though. Generally speaking, when the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation has an announcement to make, it has something to do with trains, buses, or some other form of public transit. One of the organization’s latest statements, though, is about phones. Specifically, it’s about public phones inside subway stations, and how they’re going to be disappearing. Tokyo is actually big enough that it has two different subway networks. The bureau

Its months don’t start until 2027, but the artwork is adorable and beautiful already. My Neighbor Totoro is unquestionably a classic of animated cinema, and that status is even more impressive when you consider that for almost the entirety of its 86-minute runtime, hardly anything is happening that pushes any sort of narrative forward. Of course, as fans know, that’s part of the film’s charm. The loose connection from one scene to another helps create a dreamlike plausibility for the anime film

Tumblers, bottles, Bearistas and cats get us in the mood for spooky season. With Halloween now on the horizon, it’s time to stock up on spooky goods to celebrate the season, and over at Starbucks there’s a bevvy of goods to bring a dash of scary cuteness to your beverages. Designed around the concept of “Moon Light Halloween“, the new collection covers a wide array of drink bottles and tumblers, with sparkles, shimmers, and glow-in-the-dark details conjuring up the myste

The Phantom Purple Cat brings mysterious charm to two exclusive limited-edition drinks. Now that we’re in October, Halloween is right around the corner, and Starbucks is here to celebrate with a playful new limited-edition Frappuccino inspired by a phantom cat. The feline, known as the “Phantom Purple Cat”, sits at the centre of this year’s Starbucks celebrations, with the theme being “Halloween Purple Cat in Mystery Forest” (yes, that’s the exact official English rendering). The elusive cat i

Sometimes Japanese portion sizes are small… and sometimes they look like this. Wendy’s is often overlooked in Japan, but right now it’s towering over the competition with a new burger called MEGA Wendy’s. The all-caps in the name is certainly warranted, because it’s even bigger than the three-patty Wendy’s Burger USA Triple (known as “Dave’s Single” in the U.S.), with four extra beef patties and four slices of cheese giving it a total of seven patties and an astonishing

Mr. Sato wanted to get lost in order to rediscover the joy of urban exploring. With the wonders of modern technology, there’s hardly any fear of getting lost when you’re out and about. Unfortunately, that also means there’s hardly any hope of getting lost either. This is the dilemma that our ace reporter Mr. Sato has been faced with recently. Plugging your destination into the smartphone map app of your choice will pretty much guarantee you can get to where you want to go without any problems.

“Hey dude, put some fungus on this!” isn’t an ordinary food hack, but koji is no ordinary fungus. A lot of people like to mix a little something into their yogurt to give it some extra flavor, like chopped fruit, sliced nuts, or jam. Today, though, we’re recommending that you enhance your yogurt by adding fungus. Hey, wait! Where are you going? Was it something we said? It…it was the fungus, wasn’t it? Just hear us out, though. We’re not talking about any old fungus. We’re talking about k

The more noodles you slurp up, the more kinds of instant noodle-themed prizes you can enter to win. Nissin Foods is celebrating 55 years of its iconic Cup Noodle brand with the first-of-its-kind permanent Cup Noodle Point Program, in which you can enter to win fun prizes ranging from Cup Noodle’s Mystery Meat-themed functional decor to a full day of fun with a friend at Universal Studios Japan. Residents of Japan are eligible for the program where you earn 1 point per Cup Noodle brand ite

Having a big baby may be decidedly not fun for the mother, the baby’s first bank account will positively rejoice! Beginning on October 1, babies in Miyagi Prefecture can receive celebratory money for being born–and the bigger the baby, the more the money. Sendai Bank will deposit the equivalent number of yen as the child’s weight in grams at birth upon creation of the first bank account in their name if certain requirements are met. For instance, a baby born at 3,250 grams (7.

Your one-stop shop for abused deadly animals. It seems like pet store regulations in Japan tend to be on the lax side. The other day, while taking my daughter through a major home center’s pet section, among the puppies and parrots, I saw a meerkat for sale. What the heck is someone going to do with a meerkat? Are they going to buy some Meerkat Chow at the supermarket? So, to be a pet store with an illegal collection of animals in Japan, it seems like you have to really put in the effort to low

Northern Japan’s heart-meltingly cute birds inspire new mouthwatering sweets. A lot of foreign sweets brands that set up shops in Japan create special desserts that cater to local Japanese tastes, and things get even more focused for Krispy Kreme with its Premium Hokkaido series. These donuts draw inspiration from Japan’s northernmost prefecture featuring not only ingredients sourced from Hokkaido, but which also act as sweet little salutes to the region’s culture and scenery. So as of October

Why build a bear when you could build a Totoro? I don’t think it’s really going out on a limb to speculate that “people who want to visit Japan’s Studio Ghibli anime theme park” and “people who want to hug Totoro” are two groups with a whole lot of overlap. I’m not saying the Venn diagram of those two demographics is a single, perfect circle, but it’s got to be pretty close, right? While we’re at it, we can probably say that a lot of people in those largely identical groups would also like to m

We head to Chazhong for a treat for our taste buds and our eyes. Japan loves all manner of tasty things, but stuff that tastes good and looks good earns a special place in people’s hearts. That presents a special challenge, though, for drink makers, since while a cafe can make its taiyaki fish-shaped cakes surf on waves of ice cream or bake cream puffs that look like Totoro, there’s not much you can do to creatively shape or position liquid refreshment. But one cafe in Yokohama has been serving

The perfect partners for a cosy night in watching Ghibli movies.  Studio Ghibli movies have a cosy, handmade feel to them, and that feeling extends to its merchandise collections, sold through the affiliated Donguri Kyowakoku retail chain. ▼ Now, the cosiness levels are being dialled up a notch for autumn, with the brand new release of two fleece-lined socks in honour of two Ghibli Movies. Made with a fluffy, velour-like chenille yarn, the socks are soft, with excellent heat retention to warm

We try a Shine Muscat experiment that method claim lets Japan’s most delicious grapes shine in a different way. Shine Muscats don’t really need to be any tastier than they already are. The extra-sweet grapes are among Japan’s most highly prized fruits, and with them in season right now, fans are, quite literally, eating well these days. Of course, if someone were to figure out a way to make Shine Muscat grapes taste even better, we’d be happy to give it a try, even if it sounded kind of crazy.

Even if you can’t go every day, here’s why you should go to Daily Yamazaki today. Japan’s big three convenience store chains, 7-Eleven, Family Mart, and Lawson, all sell fine baked goods. The bread is on an especially high level, though, at Daily Yamazaki. Of course, that’s to be expected, what with the chain being owned by Japan’s biggest baking company, Yamazaki Baking Co. So whenever we find ourselves inside a Daily Yamazaki branch, we always make sure to check out what’s stocked in the sand