Photographs from a small group of islands
Japanese snack maker Meiji has recently released its latest comically named chocolate product, Panky.
Yet despite Mao Inoue appearing in the promotional campaign, there’s hardly even a hint of any ‘hanky’.
A wasted opportunity if ever there was one, with the somewhat bizarre accompanying commercial offering little in the way of compensation.
The typhoon that hit Tokyo on Thursday night/Friday morning definitely deposited a huge amount of water on to the Japanese capital, but for most people, delays or a drenching on the way home were about as bad as things got.
For many of the homeless living along the metropolis’ rivers on the other hand, it was a very different story altogether.
Quickly rising water levels,
and a churning mass of fast-moving muddy water,
meant that the cleverly constructed but structurally suspect dwellings favoured by many of Japan’s homeless had little chance of survival.
Not much remains of this man’s house, and what does is now useless.
Yesterday saw the Japanese royal family and the people as a whole celebrate the first birthday of Prince Hisahito, a little fella who delighted countless traditionalists by being the first new male member of the Imperial family in 41 years; the youngster’s timely arrival averting the supposedly disastrous consequences of a female becoming Japan’s utterly powerless and purely symbolic head of state.
However somewhat unexpectedly, the day’s festivities were further added to when it was also announced that the family had won this year’s hugely prestigious and hotly contested, ‘Most Unsettling Royal Household Of The Year’ award. A prize that, according to the judges, they won due to their decidedly disquieting mix of maniacal smiles and morbid stares.
As far as relatively recent history is concerned, Japan isn’t exactly the most reliable when it comes to revealing the truth. An approach that is highlighted by the almost yearly disputes with its Asian neighbours over the often controversial content of Japanese textbooks, with many scholars seemingly happy to favour revision rather than a simple retelling of the facts.
In this sense, Japan’s approach to its past is utterly inexcusable, although to be fair — and to give credit where it’s not really due — it does appear to be equally blasé in regards to other (Western) countries’ wrongdoings.
(click mage for full-sized fashion faux pas)
With Japan’s ‘Disaster Preparedness Week’ drawing to a close today, those in charge can congratulate themselves on a job well done, as regardless of how well such things are planned, promotion is pivotal as far as overall success is concerned.
And with this in mind, what (or indeed, who) could be better at furthering interest in such an educational event than everyone’s favourite feline firefighter, Hello Kitty?
This somewhat unexpected move into the emergency services perhaps finally proving that there is absolutely nothing Japan’s most celebrated cat can’t do.
Well, apart from forming facial expressions that is.