Archive for February, 2008

What is Kanto and Kansai?

. Japan

What is Kanto and Kansai?

I always had a question when checking a drama’s rating, why they split it into two categories which is Kanto region and Kansai region? I also came across these two terms when watching dramas where it sounds like there is big difference between them. What is Kanto and Kansai and what is their history?

I found a useful PDF document called “Kanto vs Kansai” from jpf.org.au where it explains the history, dialect, food difference between them. Well generally Kanto represents Tokyo and its surrounding area while Kansai was formed of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. You can read more at above or click here if it does not load.

Continue reading

Scholar Idol Ranking

. Japan

Scholar Idol Ranking

Japan is one country that really loves ranking. One of the ranking that I want to share is the latest edition of “Scholar Idol Ranking” which rank the current hottest top 100 female idols in three age categories: Under-25 (U-25), Under-20 (U-20) and Under-15 (U-15). From the chart shows that Aoi Miyazaki, Yui Aragaki, Narumi Riko crowns the top spot of each category.

This ranking basically reflects on how active one idol’s in that particular year, how much exposure and the popularity gain that she received. For example, an idol who breaks out in many fields like commercial, movie, music, or even sports will likely getting higher rank than other who is not. There are so many idols in Japan and getting the top 100 is no easy job. Congratulations who entered the chart and let’s check out who is in. Continue reading

JERO: An African American debut as Enka singer

. J-Pop

JERO: An African American debut as Enka singer

We always said that music has no boundaries. On the 20th February 2008, JERO from America, debut as a Enka singer in Japan with his debut single “Umiyuki”. He is the first African American enka singer in Japanese music industry. This is very surprising and unbelievable, JERO’s debut had successfully became a hot topic. “Umiyuki” ranked 16th on the first day of sales and now move to 2nd spot in today’s single ranking chart!

JERO (ジェロ) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and now he is 26 years old. During his childhood days, he got influenced from his beloved grandmother who is a Japanese, and start listening to Japan Enka music. Since then, he found that he loves the genre a lot and starts singing as well, in order to make his grandmother happy. In year 2003, he came to Japan to pursue his dream to become an Enka singer. He appeared in NHK for two months and won numerous karaoke competition. Then, to become an amateur enka singer, he had vocal training for two years and finally debut in year 2008.

Continue reading

Web 2.0 food and beverage logo inspiration

. Inspiration

Web 2.0 food and beverage logo inspiration

We all love to eat and drink. Now with the blooming of world wide web, people are able to sharing food and drinks review, teaching and learning how to cook and communicate with other users globally. It is very exciting and convenient with this web cooking community sites. Well the logos of these sites are equally nice too.

Here I collected some of the web 2.0 food and beverage sharing community websites that has cute and good looking logo identity. Riding the web 2.0 trend, the logos are clean, simple and using bright colors to contrast from other web element. There is some incorporating cute food and beverage graphics into the logo, and many of them using bold and big size fonts to bring it out. Read on the see the logos and be inspired!

Continue reading

Inspired by Nature: 27 websites with Wood

. Inspiration, Web Design

Inspired by Nature: 27 websites with Wood

Nature elements especially wood can be seen in many website design nowadays. The natural textures and shading of the wood surface and color can make a website looks rich in texture and green in feel. Even well known web designers like Alex Buga and Shane Seminole Mielke also used wood as part of their portfolio site design.

Wood mainly being used as a website’s background image, but there’s some other websites use wood for other purposes as well. It’s fascinating to see how different wood color and texture can give different feelings to enhance the design. However, this does not mean that simply using wood texture can make the design nice. Many other design elements like font, color schemes etc has to take into consideration as well, in order to be harmonic with the wood. Well, you can learn from the 27 good website designs that with wood.

Continue reading

32 patterns of car racing game sites

. Resources

32 patterns of car racing game sites

I did research on many car racing game sites and found that many of them use a lot of patterns for the site design. With all these small little patterns especially the carbon fiber patterns, the websites looks more racing feel. I took screenshots of each websites and turning them into Photoshop pattern preset and you too can download it right at the end of this post!

Besides car racing game sites like Need For Speed, Forza, GTR, Project Gotham Racing and other popular sites, I also include the patterns that inspired from other racing sites which is not related to games. I remake every patterns and successfully created 32 unique patterns shown below. Feel free to download to add it into your Photoshop pattern preset library. It could be useful in your next design ;).

Continue reading

How to turn Hiragana word to cute Kaomoji

. Tutorial

How to turn Hiragana word to cute Kaomoji

Emoticon and smileys is big in the Internet world especially Japan. In Japanese emoticon is called Kaomoji (顔文字 or facemark), which means texts that formed a facial expression. Kaomoji can be used and seen especially on chat room, text messaging, e-mail etc. Sometimes I am very impressed on the cuteness and wide range of Japanese emoticons.

The reason of Japanese Kaomoji can be so playful is because they are using 2-byte character, allowing more varieties on the look of facemark. For example, a Japanese “happy” kaomoji could have more than 30 kinds of varieties. Japanese facemark is cute but certainly it’s hard to type it out. However I found a way to turn Hiragana words to cute Kaomoji easily by using Japanese IME keyboard.

Continue reading

Moneygami: The art of paper money folding

. Art & Design, Japan

Moneygami: The art of paper money folding

There is a Chinese quotation said that money is not everything, but without money you can’t do many things, including this. Introducing the art of moneygami, where origami meets paper money. I have seen many people use money paper to fold a heart shape or something simple, but Hasegawa Yousuke has taken paper money folding to the next level.

Hasegawa Yousuke (長谷川洋介) turns the conventional paper money to some sort of fashion show. He fold based on the portrait of the paper note, giving them a hat or even clothes, turning them into a character. Originally he used the Japanese 1000 yen paper money (the portrait is Teurban Noguchi) as premium folding medium, but he also used other countries’ paper note to fold as well. The result is really amazing and it actually created a buzz in Japan.

Continue reading

Happy Chinese New Year!

. General

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is the first day of new year according to Chinese calendar, so Happy Chinese New Year and wish you to have a happy and prosperous new year to all my fellow Chinese visitors. 2008 is the year of rat so I create a cute rat family above, celebrating the festive season. Hope you guys enjoy your New Year celebration!

Aoyama Thelma feat. Soulja – Soba ni iru ne

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Aoyama Thelma feat. Soulja - Soba ni iru ne

Aoyama Thelma is another new female singer that I enjoy listening recently. On the 23th of January, she released her latest single ‘Soba ni iru ne’ featuring another spotlight artist Soulja. They had been collaborated before when releasing ‘Koko ni iru yo’ in September last year. Some might had guess, ‘Soba ni iru ne’ is the answer song to ‘Koko ni iru yo’. It’s quite a sorrow love song but very warm to listen.

Aoyama Thelma, born in October 27th, 1987, is a Japanese female R&B artist. She had a quarter of Trinidad and Tobago mix. She started to have interest in singing since age of 10, so she began with singing Gospel songs. During high school era, she attended voice training to strengthen her voice. Now still studying in University, she already participating in few singer’s work such as Dohzi-T, DS455, Sphere of Influence and received good feedback. Her soft yet powerful, emotional and great voice control ability, she is the spotlight artist of this year!

Continue reading