Doctors in Japan are increasingly being called upon to treat people who are getting carried away with sexual experimentation.

According to this article (which originally appeared in the Mainichi Daily News), doctors tell of a woman getting a glass rod thermometer lodged in her urethra, a man with a metal band wrapped tightly around his member, vaginal specula being used as sex tools, and people requiring their assistance to remove everything from including mini vibrators, to old used condoms, light bulbs, vegetables, eggs, cigarette filters, and dry cell batteries from various body cavities.

Doctors blame the trend on the easy availability of adult entertainment, which has caused young people to start experimenting at an earlier age.

Remember the Giri Giri girls? How about the T-Back craze that swept Japan in the early 90’s? Sorry you missed it? Well, you’re in luck – RobPongi has kindly posted Japanese TV T&A highlights from yesteryear here.

Check it out before all of his bandwidth is gobbled up!

Remember – you read on Japundit first. However, Robyn Lim, who teaches at Nanzan University in Nagoya and is a former Australian intelligence analyst, has written a chilling column for the Japan Times on one possible future for East Asia:

Toward a nuclear Japan?

The United States cannot stop nuclear proliferation, even though Japan and others will expect it to keep trying. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) has allowed North Korea and Iran to develop nuclear weapons on the sly. What will Japan conclude from this?

Japan, in order to balance the rapidly growing power of a nuclear-armed China, will have to acquire offensive capabilities. That may include nuclear weapons, although that is not yet inevitable.

Sh-i-t-t-y, as the kids today say, although people have warned about a possible Japanese nuclear weapons program for about a decade.

Anyway, you can read more Robyn Lim here and here.

More on plutonium here.

Well, they’ve finally done it:

Japanese scientists have pulled off a major coup by getting the first snaps of a live giant squid – 900 metres beneath the surface of the North Pacific. The elusive monster Architeuthis – which measures up to 18 metres – was previously known only by examples washed up on beaches or captured in fishing nets, Reuters reports.

Kubodera and Mori also suggest that the giant squid is “much more active predator” than previously thought, so perhaps those tales told by old Tars of tall ships being dragged down to Davy Jones’ locker by multi-limbed sea monsters are not so fanciful after all.

The squid was caught on film in 2004 off of Japan’s Bonin Islands.

More on Architeuthis here and here.

The word otaku doesn’t have quite the same meaning among anime fans in America as it does in Japan, though even in Japan, with the success of shows like Densha Otoko, anti-otaku sentiment is changing.

Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo shows Westerners where to go and what to buy in Tokyo in order to fulfill the dream of being a real otaku.

With this book, you too can be a geek, Japanese style.

Here’s another one of those Japanese beauty aids that really gets you thinking that the women of this country have entirely too much money along with a woeful lack of self-confidence and self-esteem to go long with it.

Introducing HICO – The nose heightener and corrector (Hanataka Kyosei)!

Japanese women often complain about the shape of their noses, saying they want one that is takai (that is, “taller,” as in having a higher bridge). Apparently, HICO was developed to cash in on the Japanese nasal complex, by convincing women that they can heighten their noses by building up its cartilage – something like nostril crunches.

Here are the instructions for using HICO, as translated from the Japanese on the site where it is sold.

Use HICO while relaxing at home or before you go to bed.
1. Rotate the adjuster dial to the left to move the lift-up supporter downwards, and expand the opening.
2. Insert the lift-up supporter into your nostrils as far as it will go.
3. Rotate the adjuster dial to the right and slowly lift up the silicon part of the supporter.
4. When the supporter is at the desired height, leave it there for about 10 minutes.

And that is all there is to it. According to the manufacturer, a mere 10 minutes a day is enough to make your nose more takai, without expensive surgery.

There is no word on the site as to whether the company plans to come out with a variation of the gimmick for people who think their nose is too large. . .

Source: Odd things from Japan

Click here to see a flash presentation of clothing that allows a woman to instantly transform herself into a Coke machine.

This can really come in handy when. . . Um. . . Uh. . .

Well, anyway, it’s pretty amazing!

Thanks to Hedgie for the tip!

ZakZak reports that 150 people have been evacuated from a city park in Sapporo after bear shit was discovered there.

An elementary school in Sapporo was shut down after bear footprints and bear droppings were found there as well.

More on Japanese bears here.