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They tried to make me go to REHAB but I said ‘no, no, no’ (Dec 20)
REHABILITATION paulfryer.net DATE: 2007 MEDIA: Wood, Steel Bed, Light REHABILITATION is actually a wooden cabin/shed. And, here’s the rehab shed interior. Comfy? Prior Art 1) Rehab by Amy Winehouse They tried to make me go to REHAB but I said ‘no, no, no’ 2) Fat Man atomic bomb of Nagasaki fame


Xmas nekko in a fat-cat Japanese calendar! (Dec 19)
Humiliate your cat for the 12 months of the year…


Japan’s OilyBoy is a mook. (Dec 19)
Of course in Japanese-English, “Oily Boy” is not greaser or kinky sex act but a compliment; and, a “mook” is not a asshole adolescent but a magazine-book. Read more… Fashion Guidance for Aging Japanese Lads Slick Magazine Entices Young-at-Heart ‘Elder Boys’ to Trade a Little Cash for a Lot of Cool December 17, 2008 - The [...]


May I ‘handle–keep her’? (Dec 17)
At tonight’s Bonenkai/End-of-the-Year Party, our rather robust waitress leaned over to place the beers we ordered our table when this caught my eye. Perhaps to prevent putting someone’s eye out, she was thoughtfully wearing this strategically-placed campaign sticker over her right nipple. Phonetically written in Japanese were the English words, “Handle Keeper.” Of course [...]


Japanese tossers (Dec 16)
I was just drinking with a few executives of a major Japanese bank last night, I asked them, “What ever happened to retirement parties?” In the past I would attend many such parties during the year but for the past couple years, most Japanese retirements have been early and forced and the tossers in management [...]


Curry Bath Salts — the ideal Japanese Xmas gift? (Dec 15)
The always informative blog, What Japan Thinks, listed Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping’s most irresistible unusual items of 2008; that is, the rare products Japanese folks just couldn’t resist click through to on the mega-popular Yahoo! JAPAN online shopping mall. The 3Yen covered most of these products in our previous stories such as, [...]


Shuriken fridge magnets (Dec 14)
Just in case you missed it… Here are throwing stars for the domestic minded… Shuriken fridge magnets ! More info on BoingBoing Gadgets


Better quality mindless-but-fun J-Pop (Dec 14)
YouTube has really improved the high definition (”HD”) function of their service if you click on the text that says, “watch in HD” as shown below. Click to view. For example, you can now watch mindless-but-fun, squeaky, J-Pop like Perfume’s “Love the World” in HD with the sound at 48.00kHz 16Bit 2ch 188.25kb/s in [...]


Brad ‘Pedo’ Pitt taking nudie pix of young girls in Softbank Japan CM (Dec 13)
According to the Los Angeles Times Brad Pitt has been photographing nude girls in a Japanese TV commercial for Softbank (formerly Vodafone Japan). Brad Pitt photographs nude girl in Japanese commercial? Los Angeles Times - December 12, 2008-– What is Brad Pitt doing in this strange Japanese TV commercial? Well, it’s directed by Wes Anderson…. [...]


African Kimono (Dec 13)
Most young Japanese women find kimono, the Japanese national costume, so boooooooring. Perhaps this Wafrican style will make next month’s Coming-of-Age Day—seijin no hi* with the kimono cosplay of Japanese girls the turning 20. Wafrica Kimono The Japan Times …in a collaboration between an African designer and a traditional Japanese kimono-maker. Launched last month, Wafrica — [...]


GeGeGe no Klaus (Dec 13)
Today’s “Santa sightings around Japan” a photo-essay series of the Mainichi featured the popular manga/anime character, “GeGeGe no Klaus.” The Mainichi Daily News—…Popular manga character GeGeGe no Kitaro is pictured dressed in a Santa costume…. GeGeGe no Kitaro (Hakaba Kitarou) is a classic manga and anime by illustrator Shigeru Mizuki who popularized the [...]


Japanese Word of the Year: ‘CHANGE’ or strange, odd, weird, queer… (Dec 12)
Breaking news via Kyodo Press. The Japanese Word of the Year is “Hen” -…in this case meaning ‘Change’. However, I am very used to being called in Japanese a “HEN-na gaijin”–literally “odd’ + ‘foreigner/alien’ as you can see on the right. So, I just learned that I’m a “Changed Alien“, ha, ha. Hen (adj-na,n) (1) strange; odd; peculiar; [...]


New and Unimproved! (Dec 12)
I just posted about the SONY press release that misspelled the product name, and then I saw this unintentionally funny Mazda press photo showing their “updated” MX-5 Roadster. The first thing I thought was there were no changes made (rather than showing two different colors of the new model). Mazda Launches Freshened Roadster in Japan Tokyo, Dec [...]


“Twil N Take” Two (Dec 12)
SONY’s so-called “new” Twil N Take [sic] battery-less digital camera is a rehash/relaunch of the ‘Twirl N Take‘ that we covered exactly one year ago. A botched press release with the product name misspelled shows that SONY deserves its continued death spiral to bankruptcy. Dec. 11, 2008 - A FP—Daylife…Sony displays a new battery-less digital [...]


Tokyo Taxi Lanterns (Dec 11)
Night gathers as the surreal streets sluice with Tokyo taxi lanterns…. The “TAXI” series is a body of work by ALEX & COCCO. Enjoy more photos here and here.


FISH BEER to the recession rescue! (Dec 11)
According to the Times, “Japan is too shocked to drown sorrows in beer.” hat is, the sales of beer of in Japan have massively dropped with the current worse recession since WWII, which is very surprising since normally Japanese people drown their sorrows in beer. Never fear for the economy for now it’s FISH BEER to [...]


Hospital, Hello Kitty (Dec 10)
Hello Kitty has decided to branch out to health care in Taiwan…. Hello Kitty Hospital via the kitty-hos at Japan Probe.


More Japanese eyeball torture (Dec 9)
The all-time favorite of all you readers here on the 3Yen since 2005 has been the Japanese Makeup Lesson in Eye Torture. This eyeball forking is nearly as weird as the kinky false eye ‘Lash bar’ in Tokyo (see right). However, now there is no reason to be “false” with the advent of this new [...]


Calling Captain Underpants (Dec 9)
Live-action video for the song “Calling Captain Underpants”, by self-proclaimed, international superstar, Koji Matsumoto. In English and Japanese. The official website of Captain Underpants (scholastic.com). The real story of Captain Underpants: “Behind the Waistband” (Youtube).


Xmas in Tokyo - Even Rudolph gets a parking ticket (Dec 8)
Here is the spirit of Japanese Christmas that I captured with my cellphone camera las weekend. The photo on the left taken in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district shows that in Japan even Rudolph can get nailed with a parking ticket and be forced to sign off for the infraction. The new Tokyo parking regulations and the new [...]