Category: SoraNews24

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is the terrifyingly amazing: Hole-y crap! Instagram makeup artist Mimi Choi transforms her face into surreal works of art 【Pics】.

I’m not usually one to get excited about makeup pictures, even the ones that are out of the ordinary, but these hole-in-the-face photos from Mimi Choi literally made me gasp out loud.

I don’t want to give any more away, so really just prepare to be blown away and check out the article here.

 

Featured image: Instagram/mimles

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is the emotionally-confusing: Kim Jong-un’s “little red book” of quotes is the worst joke book you can buy for 500 yen.

Everyone knows about the Little Red Book of quotes put out by the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. And now it seems that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is not going to be outdone by his tyrant predecessor, creating his own “little red book” with nearly double the number of quotes.

While we didn’t get to see all of of the quotes in this Japanese translation, I think we get more than enough.

Want to see what goes on inside Kim Jong-un’s head? Then give the article a read here!

Featured image: Twitter/@huruya2100

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is the spine-tingling: “Death room” cleanup employee makes “beautiful” replicas of terrifying rooms people died alone in.

Dying alone is a fear that many people have which has always puzzled me. But now, having seen these intricately-crafted dioramas of “death rooms” from people who died alone in Japan, I can understand it a lot better.

What makes these dioramas so haunting isn’t just how horrifying they are, or how well-crafted they are right down to the brands of garbage in the rooms, but it’s the fact that they’re all real. Each and every one of them was experienced by the artist herself, who works for a “death room” cleanup company.

Seeing these made me realize how lucky I am, and I hope the same goes for you too.

Featured image: Twitter/@kamba_ryosuke

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is the groan-worthy: Many Japanese workers told by workplaces during missile scare: “Please come to work as usual.”

Earlier this week when North Korea shot a missile over northern Japan, many Japanese people were alerted via an automated government message on their phones to take immediate shelter. Shortly after, a few others received another message… from their workplace telling them to get to work already.

Reading the e-mails that were sent to people, and listening to their reactions online, is pretty amazing. The worst part is everyone nearly unanimously agreed that taking shelter and being a little late for work (but potentially saving their lives in the event of another missile or something), was worth it… but they all still went to work on time anyway.

It’s a bit of a culture shock for sure, but at the same time we should ask ourselves: would we have done anything different in our country?

Featured image: PAKUTASO

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is a glimpse into the future of cyberpunk death: New Japanese augmented-reality service lets you meet with deceased loved ones at their graves.

The service allows you to pick any place in the world, and visit your deceased loved ones there via augmented reality on your smartphone (like Pokémon GO). And if they’re currently alive, they can record videos of themselves talking and interacting with you too, making the “visit” even more realistic when the time comes.

Honestly I’m surprised that this hasn’t been done yet, and I expect it will become much more mainstream. The current generation will probably be much more inclined toward being preserved digitally instead of rotting away in an overpriced box in the ground.

Featured image: PR Times

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is something you’d probably only ever see out of Japan: Yokohama government trash-helper app gives poignant philosophical advice to depressed citizens.

I was not only impressed that the Yokohama City government created an app to help people figure out when/where to put out their garbage (especially helpful since it can be so complicated in Japan), but the programmers went through with the extra effort to put in amazing answers when people ask how to throw away their “husbands” or “hopes.”

If you want to see how the app responds (spoiler alert: it’s apparently quite a well-read app), then be sure to check it out.

Featured image: SoraNews24

Nature isn’t all flowers and kittens, as my pick for the SoraNews24 article this week shows: Stingray devours tank-mate squid at Japanese aquarium, shows what nature is really like 【Video】.

As soon as I saw this tweet, I knew I had to write an article about it. It’s not so much the shock of the video that made me want to do it, but rather the message behind it: nature is brutal.

As humans, we live in houses with air conditioning and refrigerators, and it’s very easy to detach ourselves from the world around us. Zoos and aquariums especially are specifically engineered to make nature look more appealing to us humans.

So when we come in contact with something that’s actually natural, like a stingray preying on a squid, it scares us. But in nature, things that are horrible atrocities to humans — things we call murder and theft — are common. In fact, they’re how most species survive.

I enjoy things that poke at our sense of cognitive dissonance, and this video does a great job of it. Plus that little girl’s face at the end is priceless.

Featured image: Pakutaso

My pick for the SoraNews24 article this week is this confusing culinary delight: Sticking cheeseburgers through soft drink straws now a thing on Japanese Instagram 【Pics】.

When I first saw this popping up on Japanese sites, I immediately knew I wanted to write about it. It’s just so bizarre, but also so simple that anyone could do it themselves. Not that I could really see why anyone would want to.

There’s so many questions here: Aren’t the burger bits stuck in the straw gross? How do you get the burger through the straw in the first place? Do you push the straw through it? Then how do you line the straw back up into the drink? Maybe you slam the burger like you’re impaling it through a spike? But doesn’t that make a mess? And, of course, what are the advantages of doing this at all?!

If you’re a brave soul willing to try this yourself, I’d love to hear some answers.

Featured image: Instagram/im_mmoe

Since W.T.F. Japan is no longer a weekly series but a whenever-I-have-an-idea-that-I-think-you’ll-like series, I’ll instead use my weekly SoraNews24 update to pick the favorite of my own articles from the past week.

This week’s favorite article is “Flight attendants help man transporting wife’s ashes, move Japanese Twitter to tears.”

As soon as I saw this article on the Japanese source site, I immediately thought of one of my most popular articles: “Japanese dad teaches daughter how to handle alcohol, has Twitter in tears.” It’s been a while since I’ve have a chance to do an “emotional story translation” article, and this one really hit me in the gut when I read it in that special kind of way that makes you want to smile and cry at the same time.

I really enjoy writing articles like these because they bring something from the Japanese side of the internet to the English-speaking side that probably would’ve never made it over without some help. As a translator, it makes me happy to give new life to a story just by changing the language the words are written in, even if it is just a Twitter photo of a short magazine editorial.

Featured/top image via GAHAG (edited by me)