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“Hands-Free” service lets Shinkansen travellers send their suitcases by bullet train without carrying them onboard.

Travelling by Shinkansen is one of the highlights of any trip to Japan, but there’s one thing that can take the shine off the experience – having to lug big suitcases with you onboard and through crowded stations during the journey.

Now, East Japan Railways (JR East) is working to alleviate that problem, by introducing a new drop-off luggage option for travellers so they can ride the bullet train hands-free.

Introduced as part of the company’s “JRE Tebura Tabi” (“JRE Hands-Free Travel”) service, this new system makes use of JR East train station lockers and its Hakobyun luggage transport network to offer a more seamless drop-off and delivery system for customers. The new service is due to begin on 1 August, when passengers will be able to store their luggage in “Multi-Ecube” lockers at Tokyo Station or Sendai Station for same-day delivery to hotels that accept deliveries in the other city.

▼ Up until now, these lockers could only be used to send luggage to nearby hotels within the same area, but this marks the first time they will be used for same-day delivery between different prefectures.

To use the new cross-prefecture service, simply reserve a locker through the Multi-Ecube website and place your luggage inside the assigned locker in the morning for delivery to a hotel later that day. Reservations must be made by 9:30 a.m. on the day of use, and luggage must be deposited by 10:30 a.m. The service costs 3,500 yen (US$21.55) for S-size lockers, 3,600 yen for M-size lockers and 3,700 yen for L-size lockers, with one bag or case allowed per locker.

Previously, passengers were only able to use the “Hands-Free Travel” service for cross-city deliveries by taking their luggage directly to a participating station counter. Although that option still exists, this new system gives travellers a quicker and easier way to forward their luggage, helping to ease the stress associated with travel.

Though the initial locker dropoff system will connect Tokyo and Sendai, the service is expected to expand in the future, with JR East saying it plans to introduce the system for airport deliveries as well. From autumn, travellers will be able to drop their luggage off in a locker in Tokyo and have it delivered directly to the counter at Narita or Haneda airports.

JR East is also testing a future system where travellers could leave their luggage at a station locker before heading to the airport, then collect it from a locker when they arrive. The company hopes this could eventually lead to an entirely customer-led system, giving passengers more freedom of movement and greater autonomy during their journeys.

Unlike traditional truck-based luggage forwarding services, this new cross-city locker drop-off system uses JR East’s Hakobyun Quick service, which transports luggage by Shinkansen. The speed of the bullet train allows for same-day delivery over long distances that would typically take overnight by road.

▼ Tokyo and Sendai are around 350 kilometres apart on the Shinkansen, with the journey taking 1.5 hours by bullet train, compared to 3.5 hours by road.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/9iuDL5faCVv6gxk46

JR East is currently leading the way in Shinkansen-based luggage transport, having set up an entire logistics system that supports not only the tourist sector but wider businesses such as restaurants, who are able to receive fresh produce from rural regions, thanks to the efficient bullet-train network.

With JR East showing how it can be done, perhaps one day JR Central, the operator of the Tokaido Shinkansen route between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka, will also be able to implement a similar service, although with more limited space and less time between departures it would be more of a challenge. For now, though, the introduction of the new locker drop-off system paves the way for faster and more efficient travel up north, which will hopefully encourage more visitors to visit the region and discover all its hidden charms.

Related: Multi-Ecube reservation site
Source: JR East
Featured image: Pakutaso
Insert images: JR East
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Darn gangsters! Building infrastructure without permission.

On 15 July, about 120 officers with the Hiroshima Prefectural Police conducted a search of the headquarters for the Harada faction of the Kyosei-kai yakuza group in Hiroshima City.

▼ Video of the search, with so many officers pouring into there you’d think it was led by a pill-popping Gary Oldman

The search was a part of an investigation into the boss and four members of the Harada faction, who were arrested 14 July on suspicion of building a road. That might not sound so bad, but it just wouldn’t be a yakuza project if there weren’t a bunch of illegal aspects, such as not having a permit to build a road, not owning the property that they were building the road on, and not having permission from the owner to build the road.

They also cut down numerous trees illegally over an area of 3,000 square meters (square feet) to make room for the road. Police first noticed the work in April 2025, when they saw trucks carrying some of the felled trees driven by the suspects. After interviewing the owner of the mountain, they found it was being done without permission. And since it was being built right behind the yakuza headquarters, they started to see what was going on.

However, it is unclear why this road was being carved out of the mountainside or even if any of the suspects admitted to the civil engineering crime. Readers of the news had a lot of theories in online comments.

“It looks like they were worried about getting attacked from the rear and wanted to clear the view.”
“Maybe they’re just covering up some illegal dumping.”
“I wonder what they did with the trees.”
“Did they think no one would notice?”
“They probably made it as an alternate entrance and exit that’s not covered by surveillance cameras.”
“Joke’s on them. They just made a huge landslide risk.”

Indeed, trees growing on mountainsides offer a great deal of protection against landslides caused by heavy rains by catching and absorbing water and supporting the soil with their roots. By completely removing them from that area, it is now considerably more vulnerable to heavy rains like the ones that hit Japan a few times last month.

And since their headquarters is sitting right underneath that area, it would bear the brunt of any disaster that might occur as a result of their criminal geo-engineering. Unfortunately, with the entire matter caught up in legal limbo, it is unclear whether this potential hazard will get the treatment it urgently requires.

Let this be a lesson that all the glitz and glamor of organized crime construction projects seen in those Scorsese movies simply don’t pay. You’d be much better off earning an urban planning or engineering degree or learning a trade and joining a fully licensed, bonded, and insured crew. Then, you can build all the roads you want, and not have 120 cops rummaging through all your stuff.

Source: FNN Online Prime, Yahoo! Japan News
Top image: Pakutaso
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Some Pokémon fun to share with your real-world Meowth, Litten, or Sprigatito.

“Pokémon” is short for “Pocket Monster,” but there are more than a few Pokémon species that aren’t exactly monstrous in appearance or attitude. Sure, they may still be fantastical fictional creatures, but there are definitely Pokémon that look like they’d make fine pets here in the real world. For example, what cat lover wouldn’t be thrilled to welcome Litten, Sprigatito, or Meowth to their home?

And while those three Pokémon species themselves will have to stay in the realms of anime and video games, there is a way to have them play with your feline family, thanks to Japanese pet supply company Necoichi.

The first part of Necoichi’s name comes from neko, the Japanese word for “cat,” and cats are indeed the focus of their product lineup. Through a partnership with the Pokémon franchise, they’re now offering a line of themed cat toys and accessories featuring cute artwork of the above-mentioned Pocket Monster trio.

Starting things off is the Baribari Bowl (3,938 yen [US$24]), a scratch pad with a bowl-like sloping inside and an enticingly rough surface for your kitty to run its claws across.

You’ll probably want to set this down somewhere where it won’t be in your walking path across the room, as Necoichi cautions that during testing once cats went inside the Baribari Bowl, they were very reluctant to come out anytime soon.

On the other hand, the Cat Tunnel (2,728 yen) is actually designed as something for your cat to pass through, though, again, there’s really no way to instill a sense of urgency in it if it suddenly decides it wants to hang out in the middle for a while on its odyssey to the other end.

▼ There’s a hole at the midpoint so your pet can stick its head out and see what’s been going on since it went in.

Alternatively, you pet could spend its leisure time crawling into, out of, and all around Nekoichi’s Pokémon Cat Play Cube (2,178 yen).

The Pokémon fun doesn’t necessarily have to stop when playtime is over, either, as Necoichi has themed food and water bowls too (ranging in price from 2,508 to 3,278 yen).

The water bowls come with graduated markings on the inside for if you need to be precise in the quantity of fluids you’re providing your pet, and the food bowls come in two different varieties, the “regular” design seen here…

…or these stylish, ease-to-reach diagonal versions, which Necoichi calls “Nyayame,” a pun on the word naname (“diagonal” and nya (Japanese’s version of “meow”).

▼ Japan loves cats and Japan loves puns, so Japan really, really loves cat puns.

Note that while Meowth, Litten, and Sprigatito are represented as a trio on the scratching bowl, tube, and cube, the food and water bowls feature only Litten or Sprigatito individually, with Meowth nowhere to be found, though perhaps that’s because as the most human-like cat Pokémon, Meowth prefers to dine using the same tableware that people do.

The entire lineup is available through the Necoichi online store here.

Source: Necoichi, Digital PR Platform
Top image: Digital PR Platform
Insert images: Digital PR Platform, Necoichi (1, 2, 3)
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Yamazaki’s beloved series branches out with a new fluffy taco offering.

At the risk of being figuratively flowery in multiple ways, walking down the bread aisle of a Japanese supermarket or convenience store is a little like strolling through a garden and seeing what sort of wonderful seasonal things are appearing. That’s especially true with Yamazaki Baking’s Lunch Pack series, Japan’s favorite brand of sandwich pockets. Sometimes Lunch Pack goes sweet, like with the sakura-flavor dessert ones we taste-tested during cherry blossom season, and sometimes they go savory, as with their Yokohama ramen version we enjoyed a little later in the spring.

And now we come to the newest Lunch Pack variety: taco sandwiches.

Even if you can’t read the Japanese text on the packaging, the inspiration this time is made clear by the Lunch Pack mascot characters, an enthusiastic boy and girl, who appear in new illustrations for each flavor. Aside from the massive size of the taco they’re holding up, you might also notice that it’s a particularly meaty version, with cheese, but no veggies. That’s not an oversight on the illustrator’s part, though, because the official name of this new Lunch Pack is “Lunch Pack Taco Meat.”

▼ タコスミート = taco meat

Other text on the package says “Chili meat filling and cheese cream, sandwiched together,” so it really is just the seasoned meat and cheese elements of a taco that Yamazaki is looking to give the Lunch Pack treatment to here, so that’s what we’ll be looking for in this taste test. Checking the ingredient list, we’ve got chili powder, tomato paste, consomme, cheese, grated garlic, cumin, and black pepper, so at the very least, it doesn’t look like these taco sandwiches are going to be bland.

Visually, the taco Lunch Pack looks like pretty much any other flavor from the outside, but that’s to be expected. Yamazaki typically doesn’t apply any visual flare like markings to the sandwiches themselves, and special colors are rare and usually reserved for sweet flavors with some sort of additional element like cocoa powder in the bread itself.

The taco Lunch Pack does set itself apart pre-tasting, though, by being an unusually pungent sandwich. Despite the filling being entirely enclosed by the bread, as soon as you open the plastic wrapper they come sealed in, you’re greeted by a scent of cheese and soft spiciness. It’s not a super powerful aroma, but you still probably wouldn’t want to eat these in a tightly enclosed space with other people around.

▼ Doesn’t look special, but it definitely smells unique.

Bite into one, and you’re greeted with the invitingly soft consistency of the Lunch Pack bread, which really speaks to Yamazaki’s baking expertise that they can produce something this high-quality on such a large scale and for such an affordable price (the taco Lunch Pack only cost me 127 yen [U.S.$0.80] at my local grocery store). As for the filling, “taco meat” really feels like the best way to describe it. Though the meat used here is ground pork, it’s not going to have any veteran taco enthusiasts thinking “Oh, wow, carnitas!” or bringing up memories of any other more specific flavor than the sort of thing you’d get at a fast food restaurant or snack bar where the menu lists the item as just a baseline, nondescript “taco.”

That’s not necessarily such a bad thing, though. Yamazaki wisely lets the meat and its associated seasonings be the main star of the flavor profile here, keeping the cheese element in the background as a supporting player, keeping the filling satisfyingly savory.

In terms of heat on the palate, there’s not much to be found. This is probably for the best, since simply pouring in a huge volume of hot sauce could have quickly turned this into a soggy, one-note mess that would pass through your digestive tract with destructive velocity. Really, the taco Lunch Pack is more about “spice” (as in savory seasonings) than “spiciness.”

Taking all this into consideration, the Taco Meat Lunch Pack probably isn’t really trying to be a substitute for authentic tacos, and it may or may not work as a stand-in for the tacos served at mass-market chains in the U.S. such as Del Taco or Taco Bell. In a way, it’s kind of like how some snack foods are “pizza-flavored” without tasting like actual pizza. You can see where the inspiration was, but the new flavor is sort of its own thing, and whether the remaining similarities to the original make it appealing or if the differences make it impossible to avoid unfavorably comparing the two is going to be a matter of individual preference.

Probably the biggest hurdle here is the texture. Both hard tacos and soft tacos have their fans, but since Lunch Pack uses neither a baked or fried tortilla, what you’ve got here is essentially a “fluffy taco,” which can confuse the brain as you bite through to the filling and reach flavors not normally associated with such pillowy outer layers.

Judged on its own merits, though, the Taco Meat Lunch Pack isn’t half-bad, and if you’re looking for something a little more creative than the regular peanut butter or ham-and-cheese fillings, it’s worth a shot.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind’s Ohm want to be the holders of your keys.

So let’s say you’re talking to a friend, and he says “I’ve got this really cool bug in my pocket!” That’d be kind of weird, but hey, you and your friend are both pretty intense anime fans, so your comfort level regarding unique and oddly specific enthusiasm is probably a littler higher than most people’s, right? You might get a little more concerned, though, when your friend then reveals “It moves really fast!”, and you might even be approaching a sense of genuine panic when he excitedly adds “And it’s angry too!”

But as your friend reaches into his pocket to pull out the bug and show it to you, you remember that not only are you both anime fans, you’re both particularly fond of the works of Studio Ghibli, and now you know why this bug is cause for excitement: because it’s an Ohm!

You wouldn’t be wrong in calling this new release from Ghibli specialty store Donguri Kyowakoku an anime figure, as it is indeed a scaled down 3-D representation of a creature from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. However, it’s not just a figure, because it’s also a pullback car.

Similar to the pullback My Neighbor Totoro Catbus we oohed and aahed over earlier this year, this Ohm has wheels on its underside. Set it down on a sufficiently solid surface, pull it back, then loosen your grip and watch it scoot dauntlessly ahead.

“Running as fast as it can, it looks cute because of how small it is, but also shows a sense of power,” says Donguri Kyowakoku of the 5.6-centimeter (2.2-inch) long Ohm. While they don’t provide a video example, there’s a hint as to how it’ll look in motion in the fine print of the product description, which indicates that this Ohm is produced by Saitama Prefecture-based company Ensky, who made a larger, 9-centimeter moving Ohm figure a while back with some convincingly realistic undulations, as shown in the video here.

This new version isn’t just smaller for more compact play or display, though. The slightly scaled-down dimensions also make it more usable as a keychain.

Included with the Ohm is a chain with clips at each end, one of which you can attach the to the back of the creature’s carapace, and the other waiting to have your keys slip onto it or to be used to clip the figure to a bag strap, pouch zipper fastener, or anywhere else you need an Ohm or two.

In addition to the Enraged Crimson version with red eyes, the pullback Ohm is also available in a Serene Azure variant.

▼ You could buy both, and put whichever one most closely matches your mood for the day prominently on your desk as a heads-up to coworkers.

Even the boxes them come in are cool, essentially little dioramas with unique background art.

Do note that while the in-anime Ohm are known for their near imperviousness to physical damage, Donguri Kyowakoku cautions that, for the pullback ones, “We think you’ll be surprised at how fast they are, so for their first run, please be gentle with them and pull them back only a little bit.”

▼ “Out of the way! Someone pulled me back too far!”

The Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind Pullback Ohm Keychains are priced at 2,200 yen (US$14) and are available now through the Donguri Kyowakoku online store (Enraged Crimson here, Serene Azure here).

Source: Donguri Kyowakoku
Top image: Donguri Kyowakoku
Insert images: Donguri Kyowakoku (1, 2), Studio Ghibli
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This cute line-up is made from sustainable materials and will make your friends green with envy.

While we’ve seen Hello Kitty decked out in all kinds of colors before, even she’s not usually green. That’s one reason why longtime fans may want to get their hands on one of the lovely new leaf-green-tinted Sanrio plushies being released next month as part of Bandai Namco Nui’s “Eco Nui” plushie series, which are made from entirely recycled and/or sustainable fabrics and other materials. In other words, it’s a dream collaboration for anyone who wants to be friendlier towards the planet without sacrificing their need for a kawaii lifestyle.

▼ Sanrio x Eco Nui line

The Sanrio series consists of four items covering three of the character company’s biggest names. First, the Hello Kitty plushie is 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) tall and costs 2,640 yen (US$16.25). 

Second, three smaller plushies equipped with hooks cost 1,650 yen each and will allow you to show off your eco-friendliness on the go. The featured characters are:

▼ Hello Kitty

▼ My Melody

▼ Kuromi

The new line will go on sale in August but you can pre-order them now on Bandai Namco Nui’s website.

While Hello Kitty, My Melody, and Kuromi are all undoubtedly excellent representatives of Sanrio as a whole, we can’t help but wonder if Bandai Namco Nui has further plans to release Eco Nui plushies for the characters that took the top three spots in this year’s Sanrio character popularity ranking.

Source, images: PR Times
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There are some showstoppers in this limited-time promotion, but the unique twist on Japanese curry rice is all we can look at.

If you’re in the mood for fast food with a distinctly Japanese flair, Mos Burger is here to satisfy your cravings. As the chain that first created the rice burger, which swaps out bread buns for grilled rice patties, Mos Burger has long been a trailblazer for Japanese flavour combinations, and now it’s taking things up a notch with the release of a new Dry Curry Rice Burger.

Unlike most Mos burgers, though, this one is only available through the chain’s online store, and it will be delivered frozen in a pack of six for 3,720yen (US$22.93), allowing you to enjoy a Mos-style curry meal at home.

Rather than using bread buns, the burger comes with two grilled rice patties, and a specially developed mild dry curry filling. The “dry curry” has very little sauce so you won’t have to worry about it making the burger soggy, and it was created using an original spice blend to give it an enticing aroma that stimulates the appetite, which is said to be ideal for Japan’s hot summer weather, when appetites tend to wane.

The new product is part of the online store’s fourth anniversary celebrations, and to mark the occasion, the chain is running a special campaign from 15 July to 31 August, with several special offers.

One of the highlights is a limited-time service that allows customers to create their own Mos-themed clothing and accessories by adding embroidered patches of their choice to cotton shirts (6,200 yen)…

▼ … caps (4,500 yen)…

▼ … socks (2,900 yen)…

▼ …and towels (2,900 yen).

▼ The patches cover iconic menu items like the Mos Burger, Teriyaki Burger, Hot Dog, Yakiniku Rice Burger, Onion Rings & Fries, and drinks.

Other exclusives include a special lineup of goods inspired by Mos Burger packaging.

▼ A clear bag that looks like a Mos takeaway bag (1,580 yen for a small, 1,780 yen for a medium)

▼ An insulated bag inspired by the chain’s paper takeaway bags (2,200 yen)

▼ Zip bags styled after Mos Chicken and fries packaging (850 yen for a pack of 10, five of each design)

Customers can also pick up a lucky bag containing multiple Mos burgers and other food items at a 20 percent discount off the regular price, and any customer who spends 4,980 yen or more on items shipped at the same temperature range between 15-28 July get free shipping.

With so many offers to celebrate the store’s anniversary, now’s a very good time to be a Mos Burger fan. For us, though, the star of the birthday celebrations is definitely the curry burger, because you can’t go wrong by combining Mos Burger’s signature rice patties with one of Japan’s favourite comfort foods.

Related: Mos Burger online store
Source, images: Press release
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