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Ghibli moss art discovered along mountain road in Japan

Jan 04, 2019 (Japan Today) - If you’ve watched any of the films from Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli, you’ll know just how integral the world of nature is to many of their plots and characters.

From the forest creatures in "My Neighbour Totoro" and "Princess Mononoke" to the floating world of "Laputa: Castle in the Sky," Ghibli characters are often striving for peace between modern-day technology and Mother Nature, so if there’s one place you’d expect to see these animated characters in person, it’d be on a man-made structure in a woodland in Japan.

Twitter user @hana_inko was lucky enough to experience such an encounter, and it happened whilst driving along a road on a mountain pass in Saitama Prefecture. After driving past some familiar characters, @hana_inko did a double-take and stopped the car to snap some photos of what had appeared.

Along the roadside was a large image of the robot from "Laputa: Castle in the Sky," complete with a flower and butterfly by his foot. Not far away, some characters from "Spirited Away" could be seen, with Radish Spirit Oshira-sama joined by fellow bathhouse lovers, the masked Kasuga-Sama, and No Face beside them.

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Typhoon No. 29 was moving north-northeast near the Ogasawara Islands at very strong intensity as of 4 p.m. on October 12th, with forecasts indicating that the storm will turn further east and move away from Japan, although powerful swells are expected to continue generating high waves along parts of the country's Pacific coast.

Japan is expected to experience a warmer-than-normal winter as the El Nino phenomenon currently affecting the Pacific Ocean has reached its strongest level on record, with the Japan Meteorological Agency announcing on October 10th that unusually high sea surface temperatures are likely to persist through the coming winter months.

The Otsu Festival, one of Shiga Prefecture's three major traditional festivals, was held in Otsu City on October 11th, featuring a procession of 13 elaborately decorated floats carrying traditional mechanical puppets through the streets, following the festival's addition to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in December last year.

A series of cyberattacks has disrupted business operations and exposed millions of customer records across Japan, with a ransomware attack on a cloud service provider affecting 495 companies and local governments nationwide, while convenience store operator Lawson has disclosed a separate breach involving more than 2.15 million personal information records.

Japan's first 360-degree projection mapping show will open at the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts on October 10, transforming the historic building into an immersive world of light, music, and seasonal imagery, with organizers hoping the attraction will also help stimulate the city's nighttime economy.

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Two men were killed and eight others injured in separate accidents involving traditional danjiri festival floats in Osaka Prefecture on October 10, including one incident in which a float overturned while making a sharp turn, crushing a participant beneath it.

Police in Oita Prefecture have revealed that the Kanto region accounts for the largest number of reported sightings of Yoichi Hatta, a fugitive wanted in connection with a fatal hit-and-run incident in Beppu in 2022, with authorities preparing to distribute new wanted posters nationwide from November as the search enters its fifth year.

A former dog breeder accused of failing to provide veterinary treatment to injured dogs at a facility in Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture, pleaded not guilty as her trial opened on October 7, saying she had raised the animals with affection.

Twin brothers have been arrested on suspicion of stealing copper roofing from a remote shrine in Kochi Prefecture, as police investigate a series of similar thefts reported at about 10 shrines across the prefecture since around September 2025.

New Year postcards for 2027 arrived at post offices across Hokkaido on October 6, with designs featuring sheep for the upcoming Year of the Sheep as Japan's traditional New Year card market continues to shrink.

The Tokyo District Court on October 6 fined television personality Dewi Sukarno, widely known in Japan as Dewi Fujin, 200,000 yen after finding the 86-year-old guilty of assaulting two women who worked for her agency, including a former manager.

A 20-year-old US Marine arrested over the robbery and killing of a woman at a hotel in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, may have strangled her with the cord of a telephone installed in the room, investigators said.

Five boys aged 15 to 17 have been arrested on suspicion of robbing and confining a 17-year-old high school student in Akishima, Tokyo, after allegedly beating him with a baton, taking his cash and forcing him to travel around on motorcycles.