Will Coke Booze be big in Japan?

Coca-Cola hopes so: “The soda maker, best known for Coke, Sprite and Fanta, says it’s experimenting with a canned beverage that would be a mix of sparkling water and an alcoholic Japanese drink. The Atlanta-based company declined to say when the drink may launch or what it would be called.”  Personally, I’m always fond of a nice, straightforward rum-and-coke. It’s a good bar drink when you’re at the convention, you don’t need to drive anywhere, but you’re doing your drinking slowly because there’s going to be food at some point and you want to be able to sustain a conversation until then.

At least, that’s me. Rum is largely my go-to hard booze, mostly because tequila is beautiful, sincere, and no good for me at all. And I’m not much of a Scotch man; I know, it’s horrible, but at least I’m not drinking yours, right? Anyway: I figure that the commercials for this product will bemuse people no end when they eventually surface in the States — or does Japan allow those kinds of commercials? It’s a big world out there and I can’t keep track of everything.

Watch the Japanese roll tires down a ski jump, because why the heck not?

And here’s the thing: when you hear that the Japanese are going to roll tires down a ski jump to see how far they fly, you know that it’s going to be done properly. Rigorously, even. Somebody’s going to sit down ahead of time and make sure that the camera angles are right and that the tires will be rolled down the slope correctly and that the results will be presented in a fashion that the Americans will understand because we’re the other guys out there who about as equally badly want to see tires rolled down a ski jump to see how far they fly. I respect competence. We see so little of it, in this fallen world of ours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f62Z8Ev9OXA

Continue reading Watch the Japanese roll tires down a ski jump, because why the heck not?

Japan breaks down, will finally start building giant robots. For reals.

I think that I can speak for the rest of the world on this: we were wondering when you guys were gonna go ahead and just do it, already.

A team of Japanese animators and engineers on Wednesday unveiled plans to build a moving 18-metre (60-foot) tall Gundam robot, in a nod to millions of science fiction fans.

I hope that it’s understood, of course, that I am totally behind Japan building giant robots. This can be their thing. It’s an awesome thing. It’s all cool.

Via Fark Geek.

China rattling sabers in Japan’s direction, again.

Here we go again:

China established the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone on Saturday, and its defense ministry said it would take “defensive emergency measures” against unidentified aircraft that enter the zone.

A map and coordinates published Saturday showed the zone covers most of the East China Sea and includes a group of uninhabited islets whose ownership is disputed by China and Japan.

Situated in potentially energy-rich waters…

Continue reading China rattling sabers in Japan’s direction, again.

…Sorry, I just can’t get past this dinosaur attack video.

This one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZGNk8pUj4Y

More accurately, I just can’t get past the alternate-history American version of this video, which differs from the Japanese one in that it never exactly aired. Instead, it was put into evidence by the defense at some guy’s manslaughter trial, in order to explain why the defendant felt obligated to put three rounds into a hapless puppeteer’s center of mass.

The jury would, by the way, probably acquit.

Continue reading …Sorry, I just can’t get past this dinosaur attack video.

Japanese PM wishes to change Japanese constitution.

Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told lawmakers Thursday he intends to change the post-WWII constitution that imposed pacifism on Japan, in a move likely to stir suspicion in China and beyond.

…Did you guess where Abe was going with that? – Because it’s not exactly surprising.  And, given our current decision to do a slow recede from foreign affairs, it’s probably advisable.

Moe Lane

PS: That war ended a quarter century before I was born.

While I take the point of this SMBC cartoon…

…about using other people’s religious symbolism in games and popular entertainment, I am forced to point out this: what Japan does with Christian-based imagery in its games and popular entertainment is just as hysterically wrong and inaccurate.  And I’m forced to admit: I’m OK with that.  I know that they’re not really trying to piss me off or anything, and that actually counts for a good bit.  Besides, a lot of times it’s interesting to see, in a train-wreck sort of way.

Moe Lane

PS: I know that the next couple of sentences may undermine the point of this post, but I’m going to type it out anyway.  You may not want to do certain Google searches on this topic.  Particularly image searches.

Trust me on this one.

#rsrh Weak Horse Watch: China/Japan.

The ChiComs are at it again:

Two Chinese patrol ships entered Japanese territorial waters near disputed islets claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo on Friday, Japan’s Coast Guard said, marking the latest incident in a long-running dispute between China and Japan.

The Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, for people too lazy to look them up on Wikipedia like I just did, are a bunch of barren rocks halfway between Taiwan and Okinawa.  Their ostensible value lies in a UN report that is older than I am, and which suggests that there may be oil and other mineral resources in that particular area; their actual value lies in the fact that they’re a convenient focus for ire for both the Chinese and the Japanese*.  The two countries have been getting fairly saber-rattling at each other lately; this is merely the latest episode, but it always gets awkward when the boats with guns show up.  Anyway, I’ll be nice and note that the conflict would still be going on in a hypothetical McCain Presidency: on the other hand, the Japanese would also know darn well that the USA would be backing them against the ChiComs.

On the gripping hand: your reaction to the previous sentence will say a lot about you politically, methinks.

Moe Lane

*China and Japan are not fond of each other, in much the same way that Florida can get warm in August.