Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2010

What a way to go

Illustration by Enrique Balducci

• Ko-ko, a 14-year-old male giant panda at Kobe’s Oji Zoo, died after being given an injection as part of an artificial insemination process.
• The National Diet Library is pioneering a kinder, gentler, safer method of pest control by using carbon dioxide to kill bugs and their larvae.
• A 24-year-old man and his 19-year-old buddy were being held on suspicion of robbery causing death in Chiba after they allegedly cycled past a woman on a bike and grabbed her purse out of her basket. The woman lost control of her bike and died after smacking her head on the pavement.
• Sakuranbo Primary School, scheduled to open next spring in Yamagata, will change its name after officials were informed that a porn website went by the same moniker. The local mayor said they didn’t want “suspicious people showing up when the children are walking to and from school.”

Shhhhhh!

• The US Food and Drug Administration warned the makers of two popular brands of green tea drinks not to make “unauthorized nutrient claims” relating to antioxidants.
• Some Toyota Prius hybrid cars are being equipped with speakers that emit a humming sound. Nervous pedestrians have complained that the vehicles were too quiet and they couldn’t hear them approach.
• Not only was the air temperature in Japan this summer at a record high, but so was the temperature of the sea, which stands to reason, we guess. The Japan Meteorological Agency reported that ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan hit over 25C in August.
• Tokyo prosecutors decided against indicting a man who was drunk when he toppled into a line of people at Shinjuku station in August. The domino effect knocked a university president off the platform and onto the tracks, where he was killed by an oncoming Keio line train.

Athletic Endeavors

• In a bid to get the Argentine national soccer team to bring striker Lionel Messi to Japan for an exhibition game in October, the Japan Football Association told its Argentine counterpart that it would withhold $200,000 in appearance fees if the Barcelona star skipped the trip.
• The match, incidentally, marks the first in charge for new Samurai Blue coach Alberto Zaccheroni of Italy. Buona fortuna, Alberto.
• Seibu Lions ace pitcher Hideaki Wakui drove his car into the back of a taxi at around 1am in Shibuya, giving new meaning to the term “backdoor slider.”
• Los Angeles Angels outfielder/DH Hideki Matsui was the team’s hottest hitter through the first half of August, but that was unlikely to get the free agent a return engagement with the club in 2011. Matsui said no matter what happens in the offseason, he won’t be playing back in Japan.
• Japanese figure skating phenom Mao Asada, who ditched her Russian coach over the summer, has hired a local, giving the job to legendary skater-coach Nobuo Sato.
• An 18-year-old sumo wrestler from Mongolia, who had complained of neck pain and was rushed to hospital for brain surgery after collapsing at a bathhouse, went into a coma.
• In other news from the raised ring, Tokyo police were investigating stablemaster Shibatayama over allegations that he punched another Mongolian wrestler. Shibatayama told cops that laying the odd beatdown was just part of the training regimen.

Here & There

• In Takamatsu, a young raccoon that had gotten its head stuck in an iron cover over a drainage ditch was freed when a city worker was called out to saw the grate off.
• Two Japanese anti-whaling activists from Greenpeace were given one-year suspended sentences for stealing cured whale meat sent home by a crewmember of a Japanese “research” whaling vessel. They wanted to expose the wrongdoing, not eat the meat, of course.
• A Japanese detective helped a Scotsman track down a young Japanese woman he hung out with back in 1950 while serving in the military in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture. The woman, now 76, said, “Unusual things happen when one lives for a long time.”
• It was reported that the Japanese publishers of the “Thomas the Tank Engine” series of children’s books is sharing office space with a yakuza front company in Yotsuya.
• An Okayama man became the first person to be arrested for publicly showing kiddie porn through the file-sharing program Winny.
• Residents in the Fukagawa neighborhood of Koto-ku decided to go rural by holding a “scarecrow competition.”
• The term “Otacool,” which combines otaku with cool, has been coined to describe creators of manga and anime, as well as hardcore fans of such comics. Sounds like an oxymoron if ever there was one.

Crimes ‘R’ Them

• The Japanese arm of Toys ‘R’ Us was raided by the Fair Trade Commission over claims that it “forced manufacturers and wholesalers to shoulder the costs of its discounts,” a violation of the Anti-Monopoly Law.
• Shops in Osaka’s Nipponbashi electronics district are pushing the boundaries by selling high-powered Taiwanese wireless adapters that are some 100 times stronger than permitted under the Radio Law. The devices can pick up local area networks, allowing free use of the Internet.
• An unemployed 60-year-old South Korean man who set up a cozy little home for himself in an Osaka park and lived there for nine years was served with an arrest warrant for violating the Urban Park Law.
• Will they ever learn? After neighbors complained of a foul stench, police in Osaka Prefecture discovered that a man had stuffed his dead mom into a closet in his apartment. “I knew she was dead, but I just left her there,” the guy said.
• A copper based at the Tsukiji police station was arrested after he lifted a coworker’s credit card info and racked up a hefty bill on an internet dating site.
• A rickshaw operator in Asakusa sued a rival for trademark infringement over the use of the kanji character for thunder.

Pachinko Warfare

• Oops! At least 18 drivers were mistakenly fined for making legal U-turns at an Ueno intersection.
• A video entitled “Japanese Precision” has gone viral. It features a group of male students from Nihon University being extremely… precise.

Compiled from reports by Japan Today, International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun, The Daily Yomiuri, The Japan Times, The Mainichi Daily News, The Associated Press, AFP, Reuters, Kyodo and The Tokyo Reporter.