Category: POPULAR

Most billion-dollar products are born in labs and boardrooms. However, the one turning 55 today was born in a backyard shed, perfected by a 61-year-old who refused to retire, and rescued from commercial failure by, of all things, a televised hostage standoff. On September 18, 1971, Nissin launched Cup Noodle at the Isetan department store in Shinjuku, the world’s first cup ramen, and Japan has spent this entire anniversary year celebrating in the most Nissin way possible: more mystery meat, mahjong tiles, and a birthday message involving an astronaut. Quick Answer: Cup Noodle, the world’s first instant ramen in a…

If your Japan trip overlaps with the next week, this is the forecast to watch. Typhoon No. 25, internationally named Dujuan, formed near the Mariana Islands on Tuesday night and is strengthening as it tracks toward Japan, with the Ogasawara Islands in its path Friday into Saturday and, depending on its course, eastern Japan including the Tokyo area exposed early next week. The timing could hardly be worse: it collides with Silver Week, Japan’s five-day autumn holiday, the first of its kind in over a decade, when tens of millions of people travel at once. Quick Answer: Typhoon Dujuan (No.…

Every March, one movie tops the Japanese box office so reliably that families plan spring break around it. However, most Americans have never bought a ticket to a single installment. It is the Doraemon movie series, 46 films deep, and today in Japan the next one showed its cards: “Doraemon the Movie: Nobita’s Steam Time Locomotive” (our provisional translation) opens March 5, 2027, sending the robot cat and friends hurtling from 21st-century Japan to 19th-century London aboard a steam locomotive that travels through time. The first teaser footage dropped today, and it is exactly as charming as that sentence suggests.…

Olympic fairy tales are supposed to end on the medal podium. However, Japan’s beloved “Rikuryu” pair apparently read the script and decided it needed one more chapter. On August 23, figure skaters Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who won Japan’s first-ever Olympic pairs gold medal in Milan this February, announced their engagement, and the proposal photos stopped Japanese social media cold: Kihara on one knee on the ice, ring in hand, both of them wearing the very costumes from their gold medal free skate. Quick Answer: Riku Miura (24) and Ryuichi Kihara (34), the pair known as “Rikuryu,” announced their…

Two days ago, we framed this final as the oldest paradox in the Japanese language: the all-piercing spear of Chiben Wakayama’s offense against the all-stopping shield of Kendai Takasaki’s defense. However, when the answer finally came on Saturday in Japan, it arrived with a twist worthy of 2,300 years of waiting. Chiben Wakayama won 4-3, seizing its fourth national title in a seesaw masterpiece decided in the eighth inning, and the tournament’s most feared lineup claimed the crown without its tying or winning run ever touching a bat’s sweet spot. The spear pierced the shield, yes. But with its handle.…

Two days ago, we relayed the question consuming Japanese baseball media: can anyone stop Yokohama? However, Koshien never lets a narrative harden into fact. On Thursday, Chiben Wakayama answered in the span of three innings, knocking record-setting ace Shoki Oda out of the game with a four-run third capped by a majestic three-run homer, and rolling to a 7-1 win. Hours later, Kendai Takasaki suffocated Tenri 1-0 to reach its first summer final in school history. Saturday’s championship game is now set, and it is the purest stylistic collision this tournament can produce: the best offense in the field against…