Jinichi Kawakami, 62, the 21st head of the Koga ninja clan, assumed the post to teach ninja know-how at the university’s Community-University Cooperation Center as of Dec. 1.

Kawakami has promoted ninja culture at home and abroad through his studies.

He was 18 when he became head of the clan, one of Japan’s two major ninja clans dating back some 500 years. He began learning the use of ”shuriken” weapons and other skills from the age of 6 under his predecessor.

Kawakami is also the honorary director of Iga-ryu Ninja Museum where you can learn about Ninja and experience Ninjutsu ( martial arts practiced by Ninja).

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Iga-ryu Ninja Museum 117-13-1 Ueno Marunouchi, Iga-shi, Mie-ken
Entrance Fee: Adults: 700 yen (600 yen) Children: 400 yen (300 yen)
* Fees contained in ( ) are rates for groups of 30 or more
* Other Fees: Ninja Show 200 yen/person (Closed some days; please confirm beforehand) Shuriken Throwing Experience 200 yen/person, 5 throws
Hours of Operation
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
* Entry is closed at 4:30 p.m.
Days Closed Dec. 29 – Jan. 1
Web Site: http://iganinja.jp/en/index.html

 

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Life-size statue of Hatsune Miku

The statue will stand at 158 centimeters (about 62 inches) tall.

Statue of Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku is collaborating with Sanrio’s Hello Kitty for a Snow Miku line of characters goods that will only be available in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Hatsune Miku’s sheet of stamps; closed sales only in Hokkaido

The collaboration ties into the Snow Miku promotion that Crypton Future Media has created as part of this year’s festival.

Nendoroid snow Miku fluffy coat ver. figure

Part of the promotion includes two Snow Miku plush dolls, and Crypton Future Media will also sell 3,000 limited-edition Nendoroid Snow Miku Fluffy Coat Ver. figures at the Sapporo Factory Hall this winter.

The Sapporo Snow Festival will be held from February 6-12.
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Arashi’s Sho Sakurai(櫻井翔）,30, and AKB48’s Yuko Oshima(大島優子）,23, will appear together in a television drama for the first time. In April, TBS plans to air a 3-episode miniseries, and Sakurai and Oshima have been cast in the first episode.

The miniseries, titled “Blackboard ~ Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~,” revolves around teachers in different time periods having to deal with the problems of that era. For example, the first episode stars Sakurai as Shirahama, a junior high school teacher who taught his students about “dying for your country” during wartime. After later losing his right arm in the war, he returns to teaching but is burdened and conflicted by what he taught his students in the past.

Oshima will play one of Shirahama’s colleagues, an English teacher. She becomes an eventual love interest for him, though it seems to develop into a love triangle with his older brother’s wife (Rie Miyazawa).
This is the first time that an AKB48 member has appeared in a drama starring an Arashi member. Filming will take place between February and March, but it is said that initially their schedules were so busy there was only one day when they were both available. However, their schedules were later adjusted, and the production team gave up on filming on location (due to the time required just to travel) and instead constructed a nearly 2,000-square-meter set in Yokohama that reportedly cost 100 million yen.

The second episode of “Blackboard ~Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~” will star Koichi Sato (佐藤浩市）,51, as a teacher during the 1980s having to deal with school violence. Shida Mirai (志田未来）,18, will play a delinquent student, and Shihori Kanjiya  (貫地谷しおり) ,26, will play another teacher at the school.

TBS plans to broadcast “Blackboard ~Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~” over three consecutive nights in April.

The 165,000-square-meter site housing traditional moss and dry gardens has been selected as 2011′s finest Japanese garden, with specific mention given to its intensive grooming and maintenance efforts and staff attitude.

“Gardens are living and we cannot be at ease even for a moment. We will continue promoting Japanese culture through the garden, devoting our love to every single plant and grass,” Takanori Adachi, director of the museum, said Tuesday, commenting on the honor.

Journal of Japanese Gardening
The magazine, founded in 1998, has published the Japanese garden rankings since 2003.

In the Japanese garden, human handiwork can be seen clearly which has a natural color and rhythm. A truly interesting symmetry! 
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One of the most popular spots was Tokyo Disneyland in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, which drew more than 1,200 new adults on Monday. Young Japanese women danced with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and Pluto and other Disney characters on a stage.

No less than 15 members of idol group AKB48 and four members of the sister group SKE48 also celebrated their coming of age. Atsuko Maeda, Tomomi Itano, Minami Takahashi, and other members of the groups went to Kanda Myojin, the honorary shrine for the nearby Akihabara (Akiba) district, mark the occasion with a ceremony.

Coming-of-Age Day―Seijin no Hi (成人の日)―is held on the second Monday of the year. It is celebrated by those who turned 20 during the current school year. The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry estimates that as of Jan 1, there were 1.22 million 20-year-olds in Japan, which is a record low number.

Washinomiya Shrine
Fans have been flocking to this shrine since the 2008 anime featured Kagami and Tsukasa Hiiragi ― twin sister characters who supposedly work at the shrine as miko （巫女/shrine maidens).

“Miko”cosplayers

90,000 attended in 2007, 300,000 in 2008, 420,000 in 2009, 450,000 in 2010, and 470,00 in 2011.

Pictorial offering

So to visit the same places as anime (or movie, TV drama whatever) used as a background shall be called “Seichi-junrei”.(聖地巡礼) , “seichi” means a holy place, and “junrei” means pilgrimage. Washinomiya Shrineis the very symbol of “Seichi-junrei”. 

Lucky Star fans join festival at Washinomiya shrine
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As such a zone, the area may receive special economic or other laws that replace nationwide laws to aid the development of local content industries and encourage foreign involvement.

Uzumasa Movie Village
Some of the Kyoto officials’ proposed changes would ease restrictions on the use of explosives in outdoor locations such as roads and simplify the process for foreigners involved with film, anime, and manga to receive visas.

Headquarters of Nintendo

The number of young creators in Kyoto is increasing, and officials hope to support their efforts.

Kyoto International Manga Museum

The Kyoto area is already home to film studios, the Kyoto International Manga Museum, the Japanese headquarters of the Nintendo video game company, and various anime production studios.

Kyoto representatives believe that promoting local production of films, anime, and manga could also bolster the area’s established tourism, film costume, and other industries.

Kyoto may intend to be the city of “Cool Japan”.

It features firefighting drills, rescue, first aid, a parade of firefighting equipment and other various performances.

The performers mostly the firemen dress themselves up according to the Edo-period costumes to perform the stunts. Later they climb on the ladders to showcase the tricks at the Harumi Pier in Chuo Dori.

The review will be held on Jan 6 from 9:30 a.m. at Tokyo Big Sight.

When: Jan 6
Place: Tokyo Big Sight
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After being renovated at a cost of some 2.5 billion yen, the new planetarium opened in March with a diameter of 35 meters. It breaks the previous record held by Ehime Prefectural Science Museum by 5 meters.

The planetarium in the central Japan city boasts a new projector equipped with fiber optics that can show up to sixth-magnitude stars.

The brightness of stars is measured on a descending scale of 1 to 6, with sixth magnitude being the faintest.

The certification was dated on Dec. 12.
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Bicycle-sharing service “Cogicogi”

Users can rent and return an electric power-assisted bicycle at any of the system’s parking spaces, which currently number around 15.

Bicycle-sharing port at Shibuya Parco

The scheme was launched in the fall of 2010 with 50 bicycles. There are now twice that number as cafes and hotels have agreed to provide space for parking bays free of charge in hopes of attracting more customers. Shop clerks and office workers are also finding the service convenient as a way of getting around during break time.

Bicycle-sharing port at Granbell Hotel

It costs 735 yen to register for the scheme, with the monthly membership fee set at 525 yen. Bike use is free for the first 30 minutes and costs 100 yen per hour thereafter.

Port Map of “Cogicogi”in Tokyo

Located on 52F just below the Mori Art Museum and Tokyo City View observation deck with its panoramic views of Tokyo, Mori Arts Center Gallery is a 1,000㎡-class gallery.

- One Piece art exhibition -

Mori Art Center gallery (Roppongi Hills, Tokyo)
March 20, 2012 to June 17, 2012 (10:00 ~ 22:00)
Ticket : 03-5777-8600 (8:00~22:00)

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Sumitomo Forestry Group said it has grown 18 seedlings from seeds taken from pine cones of the tree at its institute in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture. It unveiled the plants during a press conference in Tokyo.

The institute collected the seeds in April and kept them at a low temperature for about six months before they successfully germinated between September and December.

The continued survival of the tree, which has become a symbol of the city’s reconstruction, is in doubt as its roots have begun to rot, a report to Rikuzentakata authorities.The tree was the only survivor among around 70,000 pines that stood in a scenic area of the city on the Pacific coast.

The seedlings have grown to a length of 2 to 4 centimeters.They need to reach 30 cm to 50 cm before they can be planted. This will take five to six years if grafting is involved, or around 10 years if they are left to grow of their own accord.

(マンガスタイル・ノースアメリカ展―これもマンガ？北米で活躍するマンガ家たち)
© TOKYOPOP Inc. and Svetlana Chmakova
© Felipe Smith
© CAPCOM CO., LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

The exhibit will showcase comics and text panels that illustrate the development of manga-style art in North America. The exhibition asks guests to consider the question: “Is this manga too?”

スヴェトラーナ・シマコヴァ「DRAMACON」
© TOKYOPOP Inc. and Svetlana Chmakova

“Manga Style ― North America” will include about 80 works by the superhero comics artist Takeshi Miyazawa, young men’s manga-style artist Felipe Smith, and the shojo genre artist Svetlana Chmakova.

フェリーペ・スミス 「PEEPO CHOO」
© Felipe Smith

Several color panels and about 24 black-and-white pages for each author will feature with other materials in the exhibit. Miyazawa and Smith, both current residents of Japan, will also participate in a discussion about manga and manga-style works produced in Japan and North America.

Kyoto International Manga Museum (京都国際マンガミュージアム)

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The four women from Japan, South Korea, China and Thailand posed for photos at the site of former Sendai Castle with members of “Datebushoutai,” a local tourism promotion group whose members dress as warriors or warlords.

Mitaka from Japan

Onnies from Thailand

The women competed in the cosplayer contest organized by a Thai company from September through November dressed as characters from Japanese animations or games and won a popularity vote on the Internet.

Lita from South Korea

“Although (reconstruction) may take much time, I hope they will hang in there,” said Rayna from China.

Rayna from China
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Families with children watching the current series and middle-aged former fans have been visiting “Kamen Rider the Diner” — an official restaurant operating through next spring in collaboration with the TV program.

The restaurant has displays of life-size replicas of Kamen Rider No. 1 and No. 2 and a motorbike called Cyclone, which was actually used in the program.

The diner with about 60 seats offers dishes related to Kamen Rider and the secret syndicate “Shocker,” including an evil syndicate risotto made of squid ink and a Kamen Rider No. 1 soda float.

Customers can dress in a black cloak with red lining for photographs on a luxurious armchair like the one belonging to the syndicate’s don.
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