Tokyo Times

Photographs from a small group of islands

Web/Tech

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Eco-friendly following

Cleverly combining an upcoming new software package with a headline grabbing ‘Eco Message Exhibition’, Sourcenext Corporation looks set to shift a hefty number of its latest title when version 11 is released next month.

kaori manabe

The inclusion of celebrity and top blogger Kaori Manabe should also help boost sales, with the 25-year-old pontificating at a promotional event, “There aren’t too many young people who think seriously about ecology, but if good-looking people whom they look up to get involved, then I think everyone will follow them.

A comment that despite a certain degree of self-importance is probably quite true, with hordes of fans set to fervently follow in Manabe-san’s footsteps.

kaori manabe

Her each and every move closely scrutinised.

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Site slowness

Due to apparent server problems way beyond my comprehension, Tokyo Times is currently suffering from slowness and occasional outages. Issues which will hopefully be sorted out soon, with engineers in some far-off distant land quite possibly crossing their fingers a lot and frantically turning servers on and off — maybe even hitting them a few times too for good measure.

However whilst you wait (providing of course you’ve even got this far), here’s a picture of some semi-suggestively shaped gourds in Kawasaki to pass the time.

gourds

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Lesbian longing

Following in the online footsteps of the successful Japanese web diary-turned-novel, Densha Otoko (Train Man), Harukarin Blog has sold well since its bookshop debut in May this year. Yet whereas Densha Otoko documents the feel-good feats of a train riding geek winning the heart of a commuting cutie, Harukarin Blog is far less candy-coated, covering the less traditional territory of a man attempting to save his relationship after his girlfriend comes out as a lesbian, with 23-year-old protagonist Harukarin Nakagawa opting for the decidedly drastic approach of agreeing to his partner’s request that he undergo a sex change. A few snips and the odd injection designed to satisfy her needs and thus salvage the union.

harukarin blog

Such an unconventional approach to saving a relationship no doubt helped to fuel interest in the saga, but for the very same reason many people have quite understandably dismissed the diary as mere fiction, with one online critic writing, “The whole story of a guy’s girlfriend of five years telling him she’s a lesbian and asking him to become a woman is just ridiculous.” Others have also hit out at alleged factual inaccuracies, bursting Nakagawa’s claims that his breasts started blossoming shortly after starting hormone treatment. One mammary malcontent stating, “It’s medically impossible to develop a bust as fast as the writer claims.”

Such criticism has resulted in Ameba Books changing the publication’s title, which was originally Seitenkan Dokyumentari Blog (Sex Change Documentary Blog). Yet despite this, the company remains very protective of its lesbian and laceration laced love story, with spokesman Kenichi Yamakawa boasting, “I don’t really think it matters one iota whether the book’s factual or it’s creative. What’s most important is that it’s a high quality piece of modern literature.”

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Mozilla maids

As far as market share goes, the usage of Mozilla’s Firefox browser remains stubbornly low in Japan compared to other key regions such as Europe and North America. A sorry state of affairs that has forced managers at Mozilla to try and rectify the situation with several promotional events aimed at spreading Firefox awareness, plus at the same time tempting the millions of Microsoft users to make the switch.

Yet whereas the giving away of gifts such as CD-ROMs, postcards and stickers may well win over one or two web users.

firefox freebies

It can’t hold a torch to the marketing masterstroke of maids in miniskirts.

maids in miniskirts

Mastery over Microsoft appears assured.

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Fiery female

When it comes to a lack of ideas or a shortage of stories, some sorry site owners resort to posting pictures of sexy sirens in swimsuits, pathetically passing them off as relevant to a story, or even as ironic. However a blogger from Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, adopted a rather more drastic method to address her lack of interesting material; the 20-year-old setting fire to random buildings and automobiles in her local neighbourhood.

Arrested over the weekend for torching a car in a dealer’s parking lot, Erika Hirata confessed to the crime, bluntly declaring, “It’s true that I started the fire.” Her capture has also made Hirata-san chief suspect for the 20 or so unexplained fires that have occurred in Suwa since April this year, with the young woman possessing photos of 2 of the blazes under investigation.

Yet despite going to so much trouble to get something interesting to post on her blog, Hirata has hardly been imaginative with the material. The fire she was arrested for produced only 2 short sentences. “There has been a fire in Shimosuwa. It burned two cars” Similarly, another fire she quite possibly started at her old school was dealt with very briefly indeed. “I was shocked because it was the school I graduated from.”

What kind of sentence she will receive is unclear, but it has been reported that Hirata wanted to become an entertainer after leaving school. Her dream of gracing the pages of fashion magazines like Erika Sato,

erika sato

or developing a long and illustrious career like Norika Fujiwara,

norika fujiwara

appear to have been dashed.

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Web wonder

Japan crowned its first ever internet beauty queen over the weekend, after whittling down a winner from around 5,500 entries. Yet in a bid to make sure that the victor didn’t turn out to be a balding and bearded middle-aged man living with his parents and known online as Judith, the organizers asked the 20 best contestants — chosen by internet voting — to appear in person for the final judgment.

The contest’s eventual champion turned out to be 19-year-old Rena Tomabechi, a university student from Aomori Prefecture. A young lady who fortunately for the organizers appears to be anything but a wildly unpredictable web weirdo.

internet beauty

The teenage student managed to bag the top spot after performing a walk in a bathing suit, which received a winning eja evaluation from the juiced up judges. An award that netted her a tidy 1 million yen (4,750 pound) in cash and a free trip to Hong Kong. Triumphant Tomabechi also proving that she’s far more than just a pretty face, wowing the gathered throng during her acceptance speech by saying, “I still can’t believe it. When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll probably be all confused, thinking ‘What shall I do? I’ve won’.”

High school student ‘Namie’ (pictured below) came a close second.

freaky cosplay

Apparently.