Akihabara maid cafe Hibaritei (where all of the maids are cross-dressing men) is always looking for new ways to push the envelope.

Their latest “game” is snorting various food products (wasabi powder, hot sauce, etc.) and enjoying the reactions of the snorters as the effects of the stuff they inhale has an effect.

Previously, they had challenges of eating food with a certain extremely spicy “Death Sauce” but that was probably not challenging enough so they resorted to sniffing it into their noses. The first item was wasabi powder. There is no effect when you eat it but you’ll get a headache if you sniff it. At first, you don’t feel anything but it hits you hard after awhile. The shop owners, staff and even customers were involved in this strange challenge. Later on, two more customers came in and were dragged into the third round of the challenge.

After the warm up came the real thing - the Death Sauce. One tiny drop of Death Sauce can numb your tongue so you can imagine the deadly effect it may have to your nose. Suddenly, the whole maid cafe was filled with strange noises as the other customers watched on amused by our strange customs. The boys’ face were all as red as tomatoes and their eyes were bloodshot. If a new customer enters the shop he may be wondering why is everyone crying. Later on, they resorted to using ice to soothe their noses which was a funny sight to watch.

And if a verbal description doesn’t do it for you, here is a video. . .

Via Akibanana

Remember the popular horse riding simulation machine named Joba (here and here)?

Well, it seems that some fan clippers could not help imagining what it would be like to watch their favorite female video game characters riding an equestrian contraption. Some of the kind of NSFW results after the jump.

Japundit reader Colin Fletcher writes in to alert us to a report about a maid coffee shop that has newly opened in Culver City, California.

Sandra Westwood, who oversees the cafe, worked most recently at the restaurants Bread and Brown Cafe in Manhattan. Earlier in her career, as a fashion model in Japan and Paris, she discovered the finer points of serving tea, from a customer standpoint. Ms. Westwood spent nearly a year designing the Royal/T menu and training the staff with Danielle Kurtz, formerly of Simpatica Catering in Portland, and the chef Chris Cooke, a veteran of Izakaya in Tokyo and Megu in TriBeCa. “Most of the food at maid cafes in Japan comes out of the microwave, which we don’t use here,” Ms. Westwood said.

Royal/T, which opened in May for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea, also serves curry rice bowls, salads seasoned with yuzu and Japanese-influenced desserts. There are Yoko Moku butter cookies and a layered mousse cake with sesame and red bean paste. The heart-shape chocolate lollipops, from Roni-Sue’s Chocolates on the Lower East Side, can best be described as adorable. But then, cuteness is the whole point at a maid cafe.

For those who are interested, Akibana is reporting that a maid cafe in Akihabara named MaiDreamin now offers an English menu and is working on a French version as well.

Map (in Japanese)

Japanese authorities have executed Tsutomu Miyazaki, a killer who murdered four little girls in the late 1980’s, ate their remains, drank their blood, and sent parts of their remains to their parents.

Miyazaki’s death sentence was finalized in February 2006, when the Supreme Court upheld lower court decisions that ruled he was mentally competent to take responsibility for his crimes committed in 1988 and 1989 in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.

“He had killed four girls to satisfy his sexual desire,” the Supreme Court ruling said.
During his trial, Miyazaki repeatedly claimed that “a rat man” appeared before he killed the girls. He also said he ate the wrist of one of the girls.

His victims ranged in age from 4 to 7.

Miyazaki reportedly remained unrepentant of his crimes right until the end. In fact, he wrote a letter to Kyodo News shortly before Japan’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence claiming that he had done “a good thing.” According to one of his defense attorneys, Miyazaki was quite happy to be on death row, because it allowed him to read comic books all day.

Details about Miyazaki’s crimes here.

Since food is such a hot topic here on Japundit, here’s an item that helps you to statisfy your hunger along with your need for a regular Hello Kitty fix. . . Hello Kitty canned ramen.

No word on where you might be able to buy some, but we hear it costs 10,080 for a pack of 24.

Via C Scout Japan

Thanks to remora.

A 22-year-old university student who admits to loving aircraft was arrested recently for dressing up in an airline pilot’s uniform and stealing stickers from an office at Narita Airrport.

Police said Shiraishi wore the uniform to gain access to the Japan Airlines operation center at Narita Airport’s Terminal Two on Wednesday afternoon where he stole 13 JAL stickers usually handed out to children, worth around 130 yen. An employee thought Shiraishi was suspicious and reported him to the police.

This case reminded me of a guy I knew when I was a student at Sophia University. He wanted very badly to become a policeman, but was too short. He owned a very authentic policeman’s uniform that he word around campus all the time. Someone told me that he started dressing like that from his high school days.

Though we laughed at him a bit, we often enlisted his help to provide “security” for parties and other school events.

in what is one of the more disturbing trends in contemporary japan, the maid cafes and other perverted male otaku hang outs have spawned a new branch of cafes for female otaku, ones based one gay comic book porn. that’s right, women who want to indulge their childhood fantasy of young effeminate men dressed in high school uniforms flirting with each other, engaging in oral sex, or brutally anal raping each other finally have an outlet for their fetish.

now if you’re anything like me, your fist reaction to this article might be, oh say, wtf? but apparently in japan’s never ending quest to cater to every possible kink, they have stumbled across a sizable subset of female otaku that just can’t get enough of yoai manga and doujinshi. as a consequence proprietors sensing an opportunity for profit have created bars and restaurants much like the one featured in this article. run by a woman by the name of emiko sakamaki, the place goes by the name of edlestein (named after a yoai comic set in a german high school) and features a staff of young cosmetically enhanced men. according to her and others the market is driven by the atmosphere of female indulgence that has been of which japan has, until this time, been bereft of, combined with the popularity of anime and manga, complicated by the desire for relationships which transcend traditional gender roles, all united by a sample population of young to middle aged single women who appreciate the unparalleled beauty of a fragile young teenager being raped by other men (preferably in groups).

While strolling through Utsunomiya Station with the charming and delightful Mrs. JP today, we spotted a pair of real live kigurumin (girls who wear a type of pajama-suit that resembles an animal and sometimes cartoon characters) strolling along off in the distance.

Much to the dismay of Mrs. JP, I was off in a flash, digging my trusty EXILIM digital camera out of my pocket as I trotted through the station. I introduced myself to the girls and they kindly agreed to pose especially for you, dear JAPUNDIT readers.

Remember the Hello Kitty assault rifle that so many people, including many JAPUNDIT readers, claimed was a fake?

Well. . . .

Via Hello Kitty Hell

KEC Hire Hokuriku, a “maid taxi service for the disabled” that started in Kanzawa, Ishikawa Prefecture just three months ago, has been forced to close its doors due to the large number of otaku feigning physical problems in attempts to get close to the livery service’s staff.

Though the taxi service was specifically for the disabled and though it charged 5,700 yen per hour for its services, they were swamped with requests from otaku.

[The weekly magazine Nikkan Gendai] notes that maid-obsessed otaku came from all over the country to ride in the taxis, swathing themselves in bandages or pretending to have broken bones to circumvent the Road Traffic Law’s ban on the able-bodied using vehicles designed for the disabled.

KEC Hire Hokuriku’s President Keiji Endo, the father of a disabled child, was disappointed at the outcome.

“We wanted to be able to give the disabled a taxi service that they could use in a light-hearted manner, in much the same way as they’d ride around in a go-kart at an amusement park. With carers and those being cared for, there’s always a tendency for a relationship of dependency to build up. We wanted the disabled to be able to use the car without any fuss, so that’s why we got the maids in to do the job.”

Check out this miniskirt mouse pad that is sure to put a leer on the face of otaku everywhere.

In October, 17,110 members of the MyVoice Internet community completed a questionnaire about manga on mobile phones, according to the latest What Japan Thinks summary.

It turns out that while 64% of Japanese do not buy manga at all (which nevertheless does not mean they don’t read them), about 25% spend up to 1000 each month on them, and 10% more than that (mostly 1,000-2,000 yen but sometimes up to 10,000 yen and more).

While 13% read manga for free on a mobile phone, the vast majority (85%) either are unaware of this or just don’t read them. Of those who pay, most (60%) spend only 200-500 yen each month, although 11% spend more than 1,000 yen.

But there are four big genre categories of favorite manga: love stories (31%), school stories (28%), action/adventure (20%), and comedy (19%). All other categories, such as work, hentai, yaoi, and robots come in at about 10% or less.

Why would someone want to read manga on a cell phone? The top reasons cited were to occupy free time (65%), when commuting (18%), more compact than print (15%), and to re-read legacy material (10%). A probably hentai 5% said they like it because others can’t see what they’re reading.

In terms of non-manga content, the top categories for cell phones were weather (43%), news (38%), traffic/maps (35%), and ring tones (32%). Manga and anime were way down at 2.5% along with novels at 2% and books/magazines in general even less. 23% don’t use any mobile content at all.

It’s easy to understand that the mangaka like to dwell on their comic books, but considering that anime tend to be episodic and thus both easily budgetable in terms of time and pricing as well as urgent in terms of the latest (or missed) episode, you would think these would be a popular item? Like sitcom episodes in the States are?

In case you have not seen this yet, SoftBank will be selling a Sharp phone in Japan that comes with a charger unit/stand shaped like a Gundam Zaku 2 helmet.

Via Akihabara News

Now that it’s possible for all to see who exactly is editing entries on Wikipedia (courtesy of WikiScanner), there has been a number of interesting revelations, including those reported on here at Japundit last month.

It’s now been reported that the Ministry of Agriculture “has reprimanded six civil servants who spent hours at work editing articles on Wikipedia”, one of whom was revealed to have “made 260 entries to articles about Gundam”!

The group apparently made 408 entries while at work since 2003, on subjects as diverse as “Japanese movies, mistakes on billboards and local politics”, as well as giant robots.

“The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam,” ministry official Tsutomu Shimomura told the Associated Press news agency.

More info about the ax girl incident, TV Kanagawa suddenly decided not to air the last School Days episode and replaced it with a nature/scenery program instead.

Thanks to the ax incident in Japan, the last episode of School Days was canceled, leaving the Japanese message boards full of angry otakus. One of the most popular message was “Nice Boat” along to the picture of a boat from the TV show, so now among the otakus “nice boat” refers to the School Days episode cancellation. But this don’t end here, Higurashi another anime show also was canceled in some Japanese areas.

If you need some sleep, you can watch the super boring show here:

Negima Live Action from the creator of Love Hina, Ken Akamatsu. It will start in 2007-10-03

Opening Theme:
“Pink Generation” by Class 3-A of Mahora akademy
Ending Theme:
“Tsuyoku Naaare” by Wakatsuki Sara

Just check this beautiful speed painting and at the same time hear Hatsune Miku. The software sold out and became the top #1 sales in amazon Japan and it cost about 150 bucks. The song you hear in the video is from Lucky Star.

Via Narutard Japan no blog

The new lucky star dance from Episode 24. I cant wait to see the fan made videos

Just check this guy beating the Pro, with a mixture of breakdance and Haruhi dance. Great moves!