Nipponica

In the future, convenience stores may become the new base for crane games. Lawson hopes that "people will be able to casually enjoy playing the games at their local convenience stores nationwide." It plans to expand its crane game services by offering original prizes that can only be obtained at the stores where the games are installed and by linking the games to campaigns.

This weblog is slowing turning into a crane game news site. At least this will give me a reason to go to Lawson.

The Japanese game arcade industry, which took a significant hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has seen nearly 8,000 stores disappear over the past decade, with a 30 percent reduction in the last five years alone, a recent survey from credit research firm Teikoku Databank Ltd showed.

But claw machines have bucked the digital and console trend, with demand for prize games remaining high even during the pandemic. The Japan Amusement Industry Association says revenue from the games hit 306.2 billion yen ($1.9 billion) in fiscal 2021 and the genre now makes up nearly 70 percent of an amusement facility's overall sales.

UFO Catcher is my arch nemesis...

Craftspeople have now started laying tiles, which are made from mudstone and red clay sourced from the prefecture.

Carpenters plan to cover the roof with about 60,000 tiles by the end of this year. The reconstruction of the main hall is scheduled to be completed by autumn of 2026.

Great that the castle restoration is progressing. I was lucky to visit it before the fire and I hope that the restoration is just as majestic.

"How should we line up today?" "In order of beauty!" The "Grand Cheer Stars" team members and staff were joking around, and the atmosphere was bright. The participants, wearing blonde wigs and polka-dot outfits, are mainly in their 60s, and include those currently working as caregivers, hospitality workers, and child care workers. In dance, age or status don't matter, and the members call each other by self-chosen nicknames such as "Charlotte," "Heidi" and "Clara."

A light hearted story after a weekend of bleakness. Let's all be as active and carefree as these ladies when we reach their age, as long as the oceans can be held back (sorry, bleakness briefly returned).

The annex, once busy as a public bathhouse, was closed in 1973 due to ageing and a decline in visitors caused by the closure of the Kishima Coal Mine and the spread of home baths. It was restored to its original state in 2003, housing bathrooms with colorful decorative majolica tiles and a bath said to have been built for Emperor Taisho (1879-1926).

Some beautiful architecture at this onsen in Saga.

Those who say you can’t find good Mexican food in Tokyo are mistaken — they just haven’t looked hard enough.

Plumb the depths of the many thousands of eateries that jostle for space in Tokyo’s 23 wards and you will find Mexican cuisine galore. To be fair, it is a bit of a chimeric landscape. There is Tex-Mex, Cal-Mex (California’s take on Mexican food), honest takes on Mexican home cooking, Japanized mashups of chile con carne proportions and sometimes a mix featuring all of the above.

It has been 171 years since ramune's precursor beverage arrived at Japan's shores with the U.S. Navy's "Black Ships" under Commodore Matthew Perry, who had come to force isolated Japan to open to trade. Now, it is Japanese ramune that is crossing oceans, perhaps promising to offset declining domestic demand, though serious challenges remain.

Classico Japan import, reexport strategy.

Being one of Kurokawa's earliest works, it is also a representative example of the "Metabolism" architecture movement.

Each room is highly independent of the other, and although the design makes it technically possible to replace each room (capsule), in practice, it has never been done because of the difficulty of replacing only some of the capsules. It was intended for the capsules to be replaced every 25 years (the first time in 1997) since completion.

This is a really cool preservation tech demo that shows the interior of a section of Nakagin before it was demolished in 2022

"Pokemon x Kogei - Playful Encounters of Pokemon and Japanese Craft" began on July 6 at the MOA Museum of Art in the city of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture. On display are around 70 pieces of artworks including ceramics, lacquerware, metalwork and textiles created by 20 artists representing contemporary Japan -- ranging from those designated as a living national treasure to young people. The works create a new charm for the Pokemon franchise with their unique textures and presence.

I need a metal Eevee now.

Visitors, who had waited a long time for the reopening of the museum’s iconic artwork “The Swimming Pool,” enjoyed looking up and taking photos from the bottom of the “pool.”

A special exhibition, entitled “Lines — Aligning your consciousness with the flow,” is now underway, while a cafe restaurant and a museum shop have switched back from shortened to regular hours.