A soft and cuddly kaki fry, complete with lemon wedge for squeezing.
There are a lot of Japanese foods that have wide-ranging appeal, and one of them is “kaki fry” or fried oysters. With a crispy exterior and plump filling, these morsels of golden goodness are usually a great partner for beer, but now they’re a great partner for your couch, thanks to a new release from Japanese manufacturer Felissimo.
▼ Like kaki fry, there are two components to this cuddly meal — the oyster itself and the crispy coating.
Created for Felissimo’s humorous You+More brand, the so-called “Cute Oyster Cuddle Cushion” retails for 3,200 yen (US$20.64). It has a deliciously plump base, with black fringe folds and an adductor muscle recreated with synthetic leather appliqué embroidery.
The Crispy Oyster Fry Cover (3,080 yen) is a new release that instantly transforms the raw oyster into a fried one, with a textured material that displays darker and lighter spots as you caress it, creating a natural, irregular fried appearance.
▼ Plus, it comes with a soft lemon wedge that can be squeezed between your fingers to really make you salivate.
While the cushion and cover can be purchased separately, they’re also being sold as a set for 6,600 yen. You’ll be hard pressed to find any other kaki fry in the homewares world, let alone one this adorable, so if you’d like to share your couch with a cuddly piece of seafood, head to the online store (cushion here and cover here), where you’ll also be tempted to take home a pillow that looks like a Shiba Inu.
Source, images: Press release
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Jiko bukken survey examines the deal-breakers and deal-makers among apartment hunters in Japan.
In Japanese real estate, some apartments and homes are referred to as “jiko bukken,” or “accident properties.” This is a euphemism for properties in which a death or violent crime took place, or which was damaged by a fire or natural disaster. Real estate agencies are required to disclose jiko bukken status in property listings, and since it’s never seen as a desirable thing by prospective renters or buyers, landlords usually need to knock the price down too in order to seal the deal.
However, there are some “accidents” which are going to be absolute deal breakers. To investigate, Wakeari Bukken Kaitori Pro, a Japanese real estate agency that specializes in unorthodox properties, conducted an online survey asking participants about what sort of “accident property” they absolutely don’t want to live in, as well as what sort of upsides would convince them to live in one, collecting a total of 500 responses.
Among the deal breakers, the number-three response, from 9.2 percent of participants, was an apartment or home in which a fire had occurred. Obviously repairs would be carried out before new tenants move in, but survey respondents worried about the quality and reliability of patchwork renovations in which surviving parts of the building had to blended with replaced sections, and also felt that, even if there weren’t any functional problems, the aesthetics would be off.
The second-most common response, 21.4 percent, was a home in which the previous occupant had committed suicide. Reasons for this response included supernatural fears of lingering dark energies, psychological unease from being unable to avoid thinking about what had happened in the home, and even concerns that something about the home’s physical environment, such as poor air circulation or excessive dampness, could indirectly affect a resident’s mental state.
At the top of the list of no-way jiko bukken, though, and by a wide margin, were homes in which a murder had taken place. Along with sharing many of the misgivings related to homes in which a suicide had occurred, properties in which someone was murdered carry an additional personal safety issue. Respondents making this their pick said that if such a violent crime could occur in a home, they’d worry about the overall level of safety in the area and would be uncomfortable living there.
Switching over to the other side of the survey, when asked what could entice them to live in an accident property, the respondents’ number-five answer, from 5.8 percent, was a property in which the deceased was discovered soon after passing away, under the logic that this would mean less in terms of odors or other effects on the cleanliness of the home. Above that, 9.8 percent of the survey participants said they could live in a jiko bukken if the location was especially good, such as being just a short distance from the nearest train station. One woman added that she doesn’t spend all that much time at home anyway, and as long as the surrounding neighborhood is nice, she wouldn’t feel uneasy for the amount of time she’s not out and about.
▼ It’s easier to not worry about your apartment possibly having bad mojo when you know for sure that the local cafe has good java.
Coming in at third, with 18.2 percent, were jiko bukken that have had their exteriors and interiors thoroughly cleaned and repaired, and after that was a large gap until the number-two response, from 34.6 percent of the survey participants: an accident property in which the accident wasn’t of a particularly shocking nature. In more concrete terms, this meant homes in which the previous occupant had died due to either natural causes, such as old age, or illness. While those still aren’t plusses in the eyes of home-seekers, a certain amount of such deaths were seen as inevitabilities, and so they’re less likely to color one’s perception of a home to the extent that a suicide or murder would.
Finally, at the top of the “I’d be OK living in a jiko bukken if…” list, we come to the obvious number-one answer, from 54.2 percent of the survey participants: cheap rent. As mentioned above, real estate listings are required to disclose jiko bukken status, and it’s always going to be impossible to rent or sell them for the same price as an otherwise comparable property that isn’t a jiko bukken. That means that people who are willing to live in one can reap two types of potential benefits, either saving money that they can then use in other ways or living in a class of apartment or neighborhood that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
Ultimately, whether living in a jiko bukken is worth the drawbacks, or even whether there actually are any drawbacks at all, is going to be up to one’s individual way of thinking. But since there will always be a portion of the population in Japan who would never choose one as their home, there will always be economic opportunities for those without any such hangups.
Source: PR Times, Wakeari Bukken Kaitori Pro
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso (1, 2)
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The winter favorite is coming back to keep us all warm and full in the coldest part of the year.
“Gurakoro, gurakoro, gurakoro, gurakoro, guraaakorooo!”
They may not be the cleverest jingle lyrics you’ll hear this winter, but for Japanese fast food fans, they’re some of the most important. That’s because this siren song, as heard in McDonald’s Japan’s new commercial, is an abbreviated announcement of the return of the chain’s gratin croquette burgers, known as “Gurakoro” for short.
▼ Feel free to sing along and confuse anyone in earshot who hasn’t yet been initiated into the gurakoro fandom.
Gurakoro are both a long-running and perennially limited-time menu item at McDonald’s in Japan. So why isn’t something that’s deeply loved served all year round? Because frying up a croquette so that it’s crispy on the outside but filled with piping hot melty white sauce, macaroni, and shrimp on the inside basically gives you a sandwich-form cup of cream soup, arguably the perfect meal for when you’re feeling simultaneously cold and hungry on a chilly winter day.
This year the standard Gurakoro will be joined by a new variant with even more abbreviations packed into its name: the Koku Uma Beef Demi Gurakoro, which is extra rich (koku) and delicious (umai, shortened to uma) thanks to the additional topping of demi-glace beef stew.
Arriving alongside the two Gurakoro burgers is the unrelated but tempting roast garlic butter flavor for McDonald’s Japan’s Shaka Shaka series of add-it-yourself French fry seasoning powders.
The basic Gurakoro is priced at 440 yen (US$2.95) and the Koku Uma Beef Demi Gurakoro just a little more, at 490 yen, while the roast garlic butter Shaka Shaka powder is a 40-yen add-on to any French fry order. The entire lineup goes on sale November 26.
Source: McDonald’s Japan via Narinari, Digital PR Platform
Images: Digital PR Platform
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Filming is underway for Nintendo’s first live-action movie in more than 30 years.
The Legend of Zelda live-action movie is one of those things that seems hard to believe is actually happening. Sure, video game-to-movie adaptations are all the rage recently, and the animated Super Mario Bros. Movie did rake in over a billion dollars at the box office in 2023. But the one and only time Nintendo greenlit a live-action theatrical feature based on one of its games they ended up with 1993’s Super Mario Bros., which was such an unpopular failure that it basically convinced Nintendo to take a 30-year break from movie-making. Zelda itself doesn’t have a particularly impressive adaptation track record either, as even though the U.S.-produced Zelda cartoon segments for the Super Mario Bros. Super Show have gone on to provide fodder for meme posting in the Internet era, they earned few genuine fans during their broadcast run in 1989.
In other words, it’s going to take actual on-set photos to convince a lot of people that the live-action Zelda movie is real…and now those are exactly what we have, thanks to none other than Zelda series creator Shigeru Miyamoto himself.
“This is Miyamoto,” tweeted the legendary game designer, using his customary greeting when at the helm of Nintendo’s official Twitter account, followed by “Filming is underway for the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda in a lush, natural setting, with Bo Bragason-san who will play Zelda and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth-san who will play Link.”
This is Miyamoto. Filming is underway for the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda in a lush, natural setting, with Bo Bragason-san who will play Zelda and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth-san who will play Link (1/2). pic.twitter.com/fbadNgaDqY— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) November 17, 2025
The released stills show Bragason and Ainsworth in the midst of ranging across the wilds of Hyrule, which will be played by the New Zealand countryside. Both are sporting the pointy elf-like ears characteristic of the games’ Hylian people, and the costuming looks great too, walking that tightrope of still looking stylized enough to fit within the franchise’s established aesthetics but without looking too brand-new or impractical that it makes the characters look like they’re cosplaying.
No story details have been revealed yet, but the color of Zelda’s attire immediately brings to mind the shade of blue used in many motifs for Breath of the Wild, the first game in the Zedla franchise for the Nintendo Switch, and that game’s environment, featuring vast undeveloped areas between small villages, also meshes with what we can see in the backgrounds of the stills shared by Miyamoto. Adapting 2017’s Breath of the Wild would also make sense from a storytelling standpoint, as in addition to having a more fleshed-out story and cast of characters than many earlier games in the series, it’s also the most recent major entry point to the franchise for many fans, as 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, and before that you have to go all the way back to 2011’s Skyward Sword for the next most-recent Zelda narrative entry point. Breath of the Wild being one of the few Zelda games with a direct sequel also leaves open an easy path to making a follow-up movie as well.
All that said, the Zelda video game franchise has never been afraid of tossing out everything that came before in terms of story and starting all over again, so it’s possible that the movie will be telling its own original tale while retaining a lot of the look and tone of Breath of the Wild by nature of that being what’s most strongly associated with the series at this point in its history.
“Filming is on track for the film’s release on May 7, 2027. It will take a while until the release, so we would be grateful if you would wait patiently and look forward to it,” added Miyamoto in a later tweet, and while it might be hard for fans to be “patient” in the sense of not feeling anxious to know more, it’s a pretty sure bet that they’ll be very willing to head to the theater on the movie’s release date.
Source, images: Twitter/@Nintendo
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Perfect for scrapbooking and New Year’s nengajo cards.
As we race towards the end of the year, people in Japan are preparing to send out nengajo, New Year’s cards that can be popped off at the post office anytime from 15-25 December for guaranteed delivery on 1 January.
The custom of sending nengajo to friends and family is similar to the way people in Western countries send Christmas cards, although rather than buying the cards pre-made, people commonly buy them blank from the post office, as they’re sold like postcards with one side free for the user to decorate or print with either original or chosen designs.
Studio Ghibli fans will no doubt want to add a dash of anime magic to their New Year’s greetings, and here to help them do that is a new range of 2026 New Year’s stamps, featuring characters and motifs from My Neighbour Totoro.
All you have to do is press these into an inkpad and then stamp them on your New Year’s cards, using as little or as many of them as you like to create your own original designs.
The first stamp in the lineup, called “Spinning Top“, shows the Big Totoro unleashing the top with a rope, which is the traditional way to use Japanese spinning tops.
Umbrella in hand, and with Soot Sprites close by and auspicious winter berries on opposing corners, this image recalls the scene from the movie where Totoro flies through the sky on a spinning top with Satsuki and Mei, the two young stars of the film.
The next stamp is called “あけましておめでとうございます” (“Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu”) which means “Happy New Year“. Like the stamp above, this one features the Big Totoro, and befittingly they’re the largest of the bunch, and are priced at 1,870 yen (US$12.08) each.
Moving down a size, we have a stamp that features a row of white Small Totoros, with the oft-used New Year’s message “昨年は大変お世話になりました。今年も幸せな一年になりますように。” (“Sakunen wa taihen osewa ni narimashita. Kotoshi mo shiawase na ichinen ni narimasu you ni”), which means: “Thank you very much for all your support last year. I hope this year will be a happy one as well.”
▼ This sweet stamp is priced at 1,265 yen.
▼ Now we move on to the final three, which are all square-sized and equally priced, at 792 yen each.
This Small Totoro comes with the kanji characters “年賀” (“Nenga”) “New Year’s greetings”.
Plum blossoms are often seen on New Year’s cards as a harbinger of the new spring to come, and here they feature on the Soot Sprites and Plum Blossoms stamp.
The final stamp is “Ojigi”, or “bow”, which is what the Small and Medium Totoros are doing here, while holding forest leaves.
While the stamps are designed to be used for decorating nengajo, they can also add joy to diaries, letters, notes and scrapbooks, especially if you purchase the last two stamps, which can be used all year long. Whether you have a soft spot for the Small, Medium or Large Totoro, now is the perfect time to invite them into your home as Donguri Kyowakoku, the specialty chain that sells the stamps, also has a range of purses and porcelain dolls in their honour as well.
Source: Donguri Kyowakoku
Top image: Donguri Kyowakoku
Insert images: Donguri Kyowakoku (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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Japanese convenience store chain hops on the boosted-volume-for-the-same-price train for a limited time.
While more under the radar than other convenience store chains in Japan, Ministop has always been near the top of our list in large part thanks to its tasty prepared food options. A special promotion is also currently underway at locations across the country–the “50-percent volume-up campaign,” which is an occasional occurrence at other chains as well.
▼ Whoah…in this economy?!
From November 4 through 24, 20 popular food items have upped their size while retaining their usual price. Not every item on the list has increased its volume by a whole 50 percent, but regardless, each one is now a better value than it was.
The items have been released in waves, and for this final stretch from November 14 through 20, the star member of the lineup is the hotdog (double wiener) for 215 yen (US$1.39). Ministop is somewhat famous for the hotdog’s cousin, the pizza dog, so this one is likely to win hearts as well.
We were curious to see what else was currently on the shelves for the promotion so we headed over to our local Ministop branch. Here’s what we found.
Butter melon bread (149 yen)
30-percent volume increase
Ham and cheese bread (127 yen)
30-percent volume increase
Want-to-eat-it-every day curry bread (108 yen)
30-percent volume increase
Tuna and egg sandwich (278 yen)
Extra layer of egg sandwich
Three kinds of mixed sandwiches (321 yen)
Extra layer of tuna sandwich
Sauce yakisoba (399 yen)
50-percent volume increase
Double cream puff (108 yen)
30-percent volume increase
Some of the campaign items were out of stock, but it didn’t appear to be a situation where the campaign would have to end early or anything because the shelves were truly wiped clean, as has been the case at similar promotions at other convenience stores.
We elected to bring home three of the volume-up items to try them out.
▼ Something looks a little big bit off about these sizes from usual.
First, the ham and cheese bread was clearly heavier with its increased volume. It spilled out of our hand.
The double puff pastry was even more shocking in that we couldn’t believe the feeling of satisfaction we got for only 108 yen. Since many convenience store sweets these days cost double or even triple that, it felt like we were privy to a truly miraculous gift.
Finally, it was time for the moment we were all waiting for–the unveiling of the 1.5-times-bigger-than-normal sauce yakisoba! A store worker had humorously told us that they never expected the portion size to be that big.
We’d definitely recommend it for any serious carb-loading you need to do in the next week. It was delicious and put us into a slight noodle coma.
There’s only a week left of the 50-percent volume-up campaign at Ministop, so now’s the perfect time to swing by and eat to your heart’s content. For more convenience store fun, see the upcoming Black Friday fried-food discounts at 7-Eleven Japan.
Top image: Ministop
Insert images: Ministop, SoraNews24
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