Flickr Zen: decay

Japan on Weather Bonk

Weather Bonk, a (new?) service displaying weather info and webcam locations on top of Google Maps (and Google Earth) has pretty extensive coverage of Japan. I like it.

Four Japanese blog search engines

Digging through the Japanese blogosphere is of course possible with Technorati Japan, but if you want to try something else, be sure to give maplog.jp a spin. Search results are displayed in the classic list form, but also projected on a Google powered map. I don't know if it's terribly useful, but well, it's a cool trick.

Also worth a look is kizasi. Its interface is different from other search engines: you not only get search results, but also a tag cloud of related terms + a time based stats overview - try "メリークリスマス", for instance.

And to finish this short list, a link to blogWatcher: although the service is visually not very appealing, there's a lot of power under the hood, and the statistics on the right are more than a gimmick.

Yahoo! Japan's "scrolling maps" beta

Yahoo! Japan recently released a beta version of its AJAX powered "scrolling maps" service: Sweet!

MegaTokyo (+ feed)

MegaTokyo - relax, we understand j00 is an online comic with almost daily updates. And yes, you can track the latest installments via RSS. Great stuff.

Flickr Zen: "In Japan, Christmas is blue"

Crash course "Tokyo"

An oldie (Sep 2002), but a goodie - if you need a crash course "Tokyo", check out Justin Hall's CC-licensed "Just In Tokyo".

Edomoji and more

Via PingMag's Introduction to Japanese Edo era fonts, a link to this fine "Japanese lettering" resource page.

Canned coffee goodness

If you're into coffee, check out the recently launched Canned Coffee site - a snippet, discussing Georgia "Morning Coffee":

This acidic, low-sugar concoction tastes like coffee that's been left in the pot for a day then reheated in a microwave. Clean-lined and astringent. For best results, knock back with a grimace before telling her you need your freedom, then hop on the Inokashira line to Shibuya and get shit-faced on gin and tonics.

I just love that last sentence...

Japanese grammar resources

For those looking for online Japanese grammar references and courses, a small list of useful links:
Jim's Japanese Grammar Summary
JGram
Japanese for the Western Brain
Wikipedia entry about Japanese Grammar
A Logical Japanese Grammar
A Japanese guide to Japanese grammar

Fwd: Japanese Cinema

Godzilla-fetishists can get their fix at Barry's Temple of Godzilla, but if you're more into Akira Kurosawa maybe this Akira Kurosawa Database can be of help. You just can't get enough of female black hair drenched in blood: Snowblood Apple brings Japanese horror and SF reviews to your screen. More of a generalist, all-round kinda person, you say? Wikipedia brings relief and more external links at the bottom of the page. Too obvious? Take a look at the serious stuff - my top 3 is as follows: 1. Midnight Eye / 2. Kinema Club / 3. Bright Lights Film Journal's section on Japanese Cinema. Midnight Eye's links listing is the wet dream of many...For more info on the big movie studios, click your way to Wikipedia again. And finally, some Japanese content - it's like IMDB, but for Japanese cinema and in Japanese: enter the JMDB.

Flickr Zen: looking up

Japanese font resources

I knew about the fine "Japanese fonts" section in Alan Wood's great Unicode reference, but these two excellent pages are new to me: U+ fonts page 1 and page 2. Most of the fonts listed are free downloads, so go grab 'em before they're gone.

Japanese TV-commercials

In Japan, they're called CM, which stands for commercial message, and they usually feature famous people and/or songs. You can find these icons of Japan's consumist mentality at CMJapan and CMExploration. As anywhere else in the world, TV advertising is big business, and involves big money. Big money attracts big people - the love story between Hollywood and Japanese Advertising is told by Japander.com. And if you feel like becoming a CM-director yourself, consider taking part in NHK's Mini Mini Movie Competition.

Flickr Zen: lo-res beauty

Information management with ScrapBook

It started as a experiment at the Tokyo based Murota Lab, but now it's one of the most powerful Firefox extensions out there: ScrapBook allows you save, order and annotate webpages in a multitude of ways - a must have for any serious internet user. Power-users should check out the Multi-ScrapBook add-on, too.

Snappy fashion pics

Tokyo Street Style and Fashionsnap both provide weekly updates of Tokyo fashion pictures. Fashionsnap's strong point is its attention for detail and accessories, while Tokyo Street Style comes with a cool browse-per-place navigation: compare Harajuku with Ginza, for example. ;-)

J-dorama-o-rama

Both D-addicts and Japan-TV provide J-drama torrent files. Yet, if you want to maintain your undoubtedly clean criminal record, keep it legal: buy at YesAsia.com or Sensasian.com, read at JDorama.com or J-Fan.com's Drama section.

Japanese Firefox goes Yahoo!

A surprising twist in the Japanese version of Firefox 1.5 - the search engine included in the Firefox Start page is Yahoo!, not Google.

Product design of yesteryear

Product Design Database: Japanese consumer product ads of the '70s, '80s and '90s. For nostalgici and brushed-metal lovers.

Carpe ponkan

Carpe ponkan, said the wise [webmaster] man. His [surfer] followers did what they always did: [click and] follow. And when their [finger-like] teeth, hungry for knowledge, slid through the ponkan's juicy flesh, streams of [Japan-related] data filled their minds. More and more, they wanted. More and more, they had. Squish'em & click'em!