At this afternoon’s neighborhood festival, I bumped into many cute Japanese girls dressed yukata (casual cotton kimono) like this photo of a girl in retro indigo that I snapped on-the-fly with my cell phone. It’s a common sight at fireworks displays, festivals, and summer events to see normally-dressed-to-the-teeth-in-high-fashion young woman wearing traditional yukata.
Recently I have been seeing a lot of retro-looking yukata on the streets like the above photo, and I have been wondering where the hell people are getting the fabrics from the 1920s and 30s for them.
Well, yesterday I figured it out. I was at UNiQLO, Japan’s version of the Gap, and I snapped this picture of full-drag, retro, yukata set priced under $29, which is a hell a lot less than the regular price of a kimono that starts at $1000.
The photo above shows a women’s yukata set called the “Waterdrop” offered by UNIQLO (which is the charmingly rational way Japanese refer to polka dots) by the renowned Japanese artist, Junichi Nakahara.
It turns out that these yukata sets were designed Junichi Nakahara (1913 - 1988) who was a fashion illustrator and print maker. In the 1920s and 1930s his fashion illustrations of young girls with big eyes were groundbreaking, and today he is considered a forerunner of the manga style of art!
Hello Kitty 1-Seg portable TV Japan Today: 23rd July 2008—Sanrio Corp has a new portable TV in the shape of its Hello Kitty character…[the] “Hello Kitty Face-Shape 1-Seg TV” features a 2.4-inch display that can show subtitles, sound multiplex services as well as stereo speaker and earphone…more…
A bit quick explanation about Japan-only 1Seg tech….
Japanese TV programs on 1Seg (Wiki) are fundamentally the same as those broadcast on the equivalent HDTV channel but are meant to be broadcast to cell phones. Since 2006 Japan has had 1Seg that allows mobile devices to pick up TV shows without a large antenna and it is considered by most cell phone users here as an important (but not critical) feature.
The Hello Kitty Face-Shape 1-Seg TV by Sanrio Corp costs 21,000 yen and is available on yahoo.co.jp. It has a Lithium-ion battery that will run the TV about 4.5 hours (as well as an AC charger/power adapter (100V-240V AC, 50/60Hz).
Over on the always-charming Mari’s blog, she found, “a new type of fundoshi/loincloth for girls called ‘pandor’* shorts became a popular topic on TV and the Japanese Internet.” Traditionally the Japanese fundoshi/loincloth was only worn by men, but these pandor* shorts are for women.
*Pandor is from the French word “Pendre” meaning hang.
The Japanese website selling the ‘pandor shorts’ offers all sort of options such as ferrite (iron) fiber cloth to protect the body from the electromagnetic waves (a tin foil hat for the crotch?). The webstie also provides valuable advice such as shown below.
I’m still waiting for the traditional Japanese fundoshi/loincloth to emerge as the Japan’s ‘Cool Biz’ campaign product for summer.”
Actually, women do on rare occasions wear fundoshi. in traditional festivals such as this previous 3Yen report featuring a young women with her father in the middle of the photo (click for full size).
Japan’s North Hit by Magnitude-6.8 Quake; 106 Injured July 24 (Bloomberg) …The quake hit Honshu island at 12:26 a.m. local time at a depth of 108 kilometers (67 miles), the agency said. The quake struck about 120 kilometers east of the city of Akita…more…
YIKES!
I have two emails from the States wanting to know if the I survived the magnitude-6.8 earthquake?
Earthquake?
I just woke up and this is the first I’ve heard of it….
…She-e-e-it!I just turned on the TV to discover it was no where near Tokyo, as the US media apparently had it shaking the whole of Japan in epic proportions.
NHK public TV is gonna be 24/7 with train cancellations right in the middle of the the time many Japanese folks are taking summer vacations and trying to escape the heat up in northern Japan.
Anyway, here in Tokyo it is Rock ‘n’ Roll ….NOT.
UPDATE by the 3Yen’s reporter-at-large den4-san
You have to remember that in the US, that Japan is a teeny tiny microscopic country tinier than micronesia and you need a microscope to see the people living there, including yourself…like in the movie, Fantastic Voyage….everybody there gets micro-sized, and so when there’s a HUGE earthquake in Japan, the ENTIRE NATION is affected…unless you are on Bobblehead world, where everybody has big heads and they go through life bobbling around…..
unlike Blinkyworld, where Tokyo Gov. ‘Blinky Ishihara’ resides….
Governor Blinky and the G-8 Bobbleheads for context
Security robot on patrol Electricpig.co.jp / 04 July 2008 —Reborg-Q has been patrolling the shopping centres of Japan for a couple of months now…[Sogho Security Services] had deployed one in an office complex to keep a track on employees overtime working hours, gathering information on staff working too much and reporting them to the HR department...more...
Sohgo Security Services (ALSOK) has a real winner here with Startrek references to the BORG and Q in the same product name. Also notice the photo on the right that the Reborg-Q’s services are for lease at a mere 380,000 yen ($3,543USD) per day!
Watch the video of the Reborg-Q in action at the 2008 Security Show in Tokyo here on DigInfo. (Click to watch.)
New robot poses like a fashion model - Kyodo - ABC News - 22 July ….The Robot Research Institute at the New Industry Research Organisation hopes the robot will be used for fashion and other promotional events…
….slim to give it a feminine touch while its body frame is made of aluminum to make it lighter and cut costs. The robot’s movements can be controlled by mobile phone.
“Controlled by mobile phone” makes this fashion robot sound 110% like the average Japanese female in her teens and twenties, ha, ha. And, with the robot being, “slim to give it a feminine touch,” as it shows off the latest fashions, the robot sounds more Japanese than most Japanese women.
Back in 2006, the 3Yen had a report on the “Palette” robot mannequins. The Palette fashion robot could detect human movements and react as it strikes poses that have been computer-captured from best of human fashion models. You can see this fem-bot in action at a Tokyo department store window in the short, 20-second video below.
The 3Yen is on vacation—Monday is Marine Day Umi no hi, which makes a 3-day holiday weekend here in Japan. Marine Day is claimed to be, “a day of gratitude for the blessings of the oceans and to hope for the economic prosperity of maritime Japan.” It is just made up holiday for fun of it. That is, it’s just a “secular holiday” without any traditional ceremonies associated with the day except traditional pachinko as shown below.
Pokemon bullet trains launched on JR East Shinkansen lines Mainichi — July 19, 2008
East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) began the school summer holidays with the launch of a fleet of bullet trains decorated with characters from the popular anime Pokemon...more...
Pokemon? She-e-e-e-it. The obvious cartoon character for the Japanese bullet train would be Donald Duck, as you can see below in the duck-billed Shinkansen that passes by my house every day. via NelC’s flickr
Turtles arrive onshore at record pace on Kagoshima’s Yaku Island Mainichi Japan - July 19, 2008 / KAGOSHIMA – Sea turtles are coming ashore at a record pace at landing and spawning spots on Yaku Island in Kagoshima Prefecture this year….spawning spots in Miyazaki, and the Fukuoka Prefecture city of Fukutsu…
Sources familiar with the marine creatures say the increase in numbers could be a result of a northward shift in ocean currents. They also say that conservation efforts appear to have paid off...more...
Officials at the Sea Turtle Association of Japan said that large numbers of turtles have been seen at other major spawning spots across Japan because the warm Kuroshio Japanese current in the Pacific Ocean has moved northward because of the warming of the oceans. In addition, there’s a tendency for turtle spawning to occur earlier and longer when the water is warmer.
When Japan’s loggerhead turtle eggs incubate, the temperature of the turtles nest determines the sex of the offspring. This means that egg clutches laid in warmer places tend to produce more female turtles—And with more female turtles, there are more eggs being laid resulting in this sea turtle baby-boom.
J-Factiod: The title of this report, “Japanese turtlehead count,” is a slightly off-color joke. In Japanese, the characters for “turtle head” — kitou–is the medical term referring to the head of the male member.
The 3Yen’s crack correspondent, the illustrious Herr Doctor Professor Den4, has spotted more Hello Kitty fun for all of you to enjoy!
First check out the Hello Kitty House(via kittyhell.com)
What would be worse than a house full of Hello Kitty crap? How about a Hello Kitty House full of Hello Kitty crap?
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Over on the always-charming 
