Tag: japan

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A website called The Ongaku published an article about the upcoming April 2025 re-release of the Super Mario World soundtrack on vinyl. Did someone say re-release?

Warner Music Japan pressed the Super Mario World compilation on two compact discs in February of 1991, alongside a dual audio cassette edition. Preorders have opened at Tower Records in Japan for the vinyl edition, scheduled for release on April 30th in Japan.

The Ongaku described the original 1991 recordings:

The first disc is dedicated to jazz renditions of series themes composed by Koji Kondo. Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama served as general producer and Sadao Watanabe as sound producer on the original material. Arrangements are performed by Soichi Norikii on keyboard, Tsunehide Matsuki on guitar, Jun Kajiwara on electric guitar, Kenji Takamizu on electric bass, Yuichi Tokashiki on drums, Motoya Hamaguchi on percussion and Keiji Toriyama on synthesizers.

Little did I know that there was a two-part CD release of the Super Mario World soundtrack back in 1991. I am not an audiophile, but I am sure some people out there will praise the decision to re-release the music on vinyl instead of CDs.

[Source: Super Mario world vinyl sound track planned for late April at The Ongaku (January 15, 2025)]

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Best Of 2024: A Trip To Machida, The Real-Life 'Pallet Town' That Inspired Pokémon by Tokyo Game Life (Nintendo Life)
[Machida's] most famous tourist attraction is not Pokémon-related at all. Machida Squirrel Garden is a small petting zoo that features over two hundred squirrels that live in colourfully painted houses. You can even feed and pet the squirrels, though don’t be surprised if they dart off after filling their bellies.

According to animal cafes[dot]com, the Machida Squirrel Garden not only hosts “[h]undreds of adventurous squirrels,” but also “a guinea pig village housing at least a hundred guinea pigs, and some fenced-in pens inhabited by rabbits, small tortoises, chipmunks, and prairie dogs.” [animalcafes.com] I’m sold.

(PS: Don’t tell the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation about this place.)

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I published a research article on Halloween in Japan on October 17, 2024. My article was based on a selection of English-language sources. After I published the article, it occurred to me to use Feedle, an interesting search tool for RSS/ATOM feeds, to see if I missed any good Halloween-Japan articles. While I did not find any articles that I would have added for their research value, I did find an important report on capybaras at the Nagasaki Bio Park devouring a Halloween Jack-o-lantern in 2020. From that report, I learned that the jack-o-lantern was something of a mulligan after the capybaras had struggled in doing battle with a sturdier pumpkin a few weeks earlier.

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I wrote a survey of English-language sources on the ai ai gasa back in February. That survey was inspired by a review of the Teasing Master Takagi-san series-concluding movie. Since writing about ai ai gasa, I have become more aware of the love umbrella’s occasional cameos in TV anime, similarly to how writing about anime hair color made me pay more attention to hair color in new shows. I recently re-watched a 2006 series called Living for the Day After Tomorrow (aka Asatte no Houkou) for the purpose of writing a review, which I published on October 11. I was collecting screenshots for my articles while watching the episodes. Having written about ai ai gasa not too long ago, I could not help but take the following screen capture from near the end of the show.

Ai Ai Gasa drawn in the sand on a beach. Screenshot taken from Living for the Day After Tomorrow.

Ai ai gasa in the sand of the beach! It gets washed away by a wave in the same scene. The names written are not of any characters in the anime. It is an artistic flourish to go along with a story that one character is telling another by the beach.

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This buttery, garlicky sausage and rice recipe is simple, cheap, and pretty much to die for by Dale Roll (SoraNews24)
Plus, the stores sometimes even put out recipes, making it even easier to use them! For example, the official Twitter of 7-Eleven’s 7-Premium brand of prepared foods posted the perfect recipe for your busy weekday meal featuring their plump and juicy “Golden Wieners.”

SoraNews24 published an entire article about making a recipe released by 7-Eleven in Japan. I think the recipe looks good (“to die for” is probably excessive, however). But regardless of whether you think 7-Eleven’s sausage-butter-rice dish looks appetizing, I am sure you can join me in praising the convenience store chain for fully embracing open source.