Twentythree

Pompompurin’s charm point apparently can’t be concealed.

Late last year, Sanrio unveiled its collaboration with the Japan Sumo Association, in which Hello Kitty and her friends wear sumo-inspired outfits for a line of merch to offered through SuMALL, the association’s official online shop. Cute characters and a sport that involves burly near-naked men grappling with each other might not seem like the most obvious partnership, but the team-up has proven popular enough for a second round of merch that once again features four Sanrio stars, with one of their buttholes receiving even more attention that usual.

Part of the new Sanrio sumo offerings is a collection of rubber character keychains. In keeping with the designs for the collaboration, Hello Kitty is still dressed in the kimono and billowy hakama pants of a sumo yobidashi, or ring announcer, and Kuromi has donned the traditional garb of the gyoji/referee.

That leaves it up to Cinnamoroll and Pompompurin to strap on the kesho mawashi aprons worn by sumo wrestlers before the start of their bouts.

While we’ve previously seen the Sanrio characters wearing these costumes on towels, pouches, and other flat-surface illustrations, the keychains are the first time for them to be rendered in three dimensions, which means we can circle around back and see the mawashi (sumo loincloth) that Pompompurin is wearing…

…which somehow still leaves his butthole visible?!?

It’s unclear exactly what’s supposed to be happening here. Has Pompompurin’s loincloth been wrapped so tightly that it’s riding up between his cheeks and showing the contours of his cavity? Is his loincloth made out of some sort of semi-see-through green material? Is it tailored with a strategically placed cutout? Or is it just that, with Pompompurin’s Japanese fanbase widely considering his butthole to be an especially charming point of his appearance, the hole is somehow able to bend spacetime and always make itself visible to fans? Whatever the reason, he’s managed to pull off the feat of simultaneously wearing a loincloth that still leaves the most iconic part of his anatomy visible.

▼ For those wondering, Cinnamoroll’s tail would block the line of sight to his cavity, and it isn’t customarily depicted in illustrations of him anyway.

The Sanrio sumo keychains go on sale April 27, priced at 1,430 yen (US$9.25) through the SuMALL online store here, meaning you can sport one while visiting the Sanrio Exhibition: The Beginning of Kawaii even that’s going on in Tokyo this spring.

Source: SuMALL via Hachima Kiko
Top image: SuMALL
Insert images: SuMALL (1, 2, 3)
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A wildly popular local specialty takes Japanese convenience store food to a hot new level.

You never know what wonders await you when you pop into a Japanese convenience store, but this month you’ll want to make a pit stop at 7-Eleven, because that’s where a new find awaits: takoyaki!

Set to tempt you from the hot food display on the counter, these takoyaki are fried in-store and served fresh, ensuring a delightful, gooey texture. Made with a rich bonito-based broth, for a tasty burst of seafood umami, the 7-Eleven takoyaki also contain large pieces of octopus for a luxurious and satisfying eating experience.

The fried, battered octopus balls come with two beloved toppings, takoyaki sauce and mayonnaise, which are served separately in a handy squeeze-pack, ensuring you can enjoy the best flavours every time.

According to 7-Eleven, the new product was devised in response to the recent expansion of the takoyaki market. With more and more people falling in love with Japan’s fried octopus balls, they wanted to offer them to local and international customers, which led to the development of their very own signature variety.

▼ The 7-Eleven takoyaki will be sold in packs of three for 213 yen (US$1.34) or packs of six for 427 yen.

With none of the other top convenience store chains, namely Lawson and Family Mart, selling hot takoyaki, this new addition to 7-Eleven’s lineup is an exciting release that has the chain edging out the competition yet again. After wowing us with a viral chocolate sprinkle sakura bread sandwich earlier this month, 7-Eleven really knows how to please its customers, and we can’t wait to try its octopus balls when they’re released nationwide from 21 April.

Source, images: Press release
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AI claims it can tell which you like just by looking at you.

For many years now, there has been a rivalry between two chocolate-covered cookie snacks. Both Kinoko no Yama and Takenoko no Sato are made by the same company, Meiji, and feature the same chocolate on the same type of cookie, just in different amounts and shapes. Despite their many similarities, people in Japan tend to have a very definitive preference for one or the other.

This probably just sounds like a marketing gimmick, and it basically is. But, even as someone who can barely taste, let alone care about, the difference between stuff like Coke and Pepsi, I can say with the utmost certainty that Kinoko no Yama is superior to Takenoko no Sato. There really is no question about it in my mind, and honestly, I’m not even sure why.

It’s a peculiar phenomenon, and to learn more about it, Meiji has developed a dedicated AI called Kinotake Mother. This system was trained on 1.67 million points of preference pattern data and also studied the faces of hundreds of Meiji employees, in an effort to understand what makes a Kinoko no Yama or Takenoko no Sato fan.

The AI is currently available on the Meiji website, and if you allow it to take a picture of your face, it will determine which chocolate cookie snack you like better.

The image above was based on my own facial analysis, and sure enough, I was diagnosed with Kinoko no Yama fever. It also said I prefer novels to manga, soft pillows to firm, and skiing as my favorite winter sport. I’m not really sure if any of that other stuff is true, but Mother is primarily a snack AI, and it did its job very well in that regard at least.

Meiji was also surprised when Mother found a third type of human hiding in our midst. Though rare, there actually exist people who like both Kinoko no Yama and Takenoko no Sato in equal measure. According to the AI’s analysis, 52.4 percent of people are in the Kinoko camp, while 43.1 were Takenoko supporters. But there were another 4.4 percent of people who enjoyed both the same.

This worried Meiji, who felt these poor tortured souls weren’t getting maximum satisfaction from either snack on its own. So, they worked with Mother to develop a new fusion of Kinoko no Yama and Takenoko no Sato, dubbed Kitakita no Konokono Yamasato.

This marriage of the two snacks went on sale on 14 April, and consists of crushed bits of both Kinoko no Yama and Takenoko no Sato, suspended alongside wheat puffs in a milk-chocolate matrix, all covered in dark chocolate.

Online reaction to the treat was largely hostile, but with some intrigue mixed in. That’s probably expected for something that was created mainly to appeal to about four percent of the population.

“This is why AI will never surpass humans.”
“Couldn’t you have just put both in the same bag?”
“What’s the point if the shape is gone? The could be Pocky in there for all I know.”
“This might seem ideal at first, but it’s a dystopia that strips us of identity.”
“I’ll use my Defusion Magic card!”
“Why are they polluting Takenoko no Sato by merging them with Kinoko no Yama?”
“There’s no ‘ke’ in the name! This is Kinoko biased!”
“I buy them because the shape is cute. This [new one] is not. Give me back my mushroom shape…”
“Has the war finally ended? This is intriguing…”
“These are Black Thunder bars, aren’t they?”

They certainly do look and sound a lot like Black Thunder bars. Those are considered to be the pinnacle of chocolate bars by many, so it’s not surprising this was deemed to be Kinoko no Yama and Takenoko no Sato’s ultimate form.

Kitakita no Konokono Yamasato will only be sold for a limited time, so those who are interested will need to act fast to see what this unholy union tastes like.

Source: Kinotake Mother (Meiji), PR Times
Top image ©SoraNews24
Insert images: PR Times
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Nara is famous for deer and temples, but you won’t find either of those inside this hard-to-find baked good.

Most of the time, the names of baked goods in Japan are pretty self-explanatory. Curry bread is bread filled with curry. Yakisoba bread is a bun filled with stir-fried noodles (yakisoba). Nara Bread is…wait, what is Nara Bread?

Nara, of course is the name of the city most famous for its deer, which freely roam the grounds of Nara Park (and sometimes, apparently, wander over to the neighboring prefecture). However, we can put your mind at ease right away and let you know that no Nara deer are used in the making of Nara bread – venison isn’t commonly eaten in Japan, and especially in Nara, the creatures are seen as cohabitants, not food.

Making Nara bread even more mysterious is that you can’t just walk into a bakery anywhere in Japan and buy some. As a matter of fact, even within Nara there’s only one place you can find it, and it’s not anywhere close to Nara Park. Nara Bread is exclusively sold at the Hari Terrace michi no eki roadside local products souvenir shop, which is about 40 minutes from Nara Park by car.

▼ Hari Terrace

And yet, Nara Bread is incredibly popular, selling out on a daily basis. Our Japanese-language reporter has made multiple attempts to try it, but each and every time she stopped by, the staff told her that she was too late, and the day’s stock was already all gone. Finally, though, on her most recent attempt, there was a whole bunch of the stuff!

▼ ならパン = Nara Bread

This isn’t because Nara Bread has fallen out of favor with bread fans, though. Quite the opposite, as Masami lucked out on a rare day when the store had a second batch of bread, which had just been put out on the shelf a few minutes before she arrived.

No way was Masami going to let this chance pass her by, so she swiftly grabbed a 280-yen (US$1.80) load and hurried home for taste-testing.

Nara Bread has a firm crust and, from the outside, looks sort of like a compact baguette. After taking hers home, Masami warmed it up in her toaster oven for just a bit, and before taking a bite, she opened it up so that we can see that Nara Bread is…

…filled with Nara-zuke, or Nara-style pickles!

Nara-zuke is made by taking vegetables or fruits, such as cucumber, white melon, ginger, or even watermelon, and soaking them in miso, salt, and sake lees. The resulting flavor profile combines a pronounced saltiness with aspects of rice and sake, and also a sake-like aroma, though the pickles remain non-alcoholic. Nara Bread also adds a bit of mayo to the mixture.

Masami was honestly a little apprehensive about how well something so traditionally Japanese as Nara-style pickles would work with the decidedly Western elements of bread and mayonnaise, but together they turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable combination. There’s a delightful crunch to both the bread and pickles, and the mayo takes just a bit of sharpness off of the pickles’ flavor, so that all of the different tastes are tied comfortably together. Distinctly flavorful in a mature manner, Masami thinks Nara Bread is equally well-suited as a breakfast side dish, between-meal snack, or even as something to munch on a piece of while having an after-work beer, cocktail, or cup of sake.

As mentioned above, Nara Bread is, at the moment, only available at the Hari Terrace souvenir shop, which is located next to the Hari Interchange of the Meihan Expressway, which connects Osaka and Nagoya, so it’s something to put on you souvenir shopping list if you’re traveling in that part of Japan.

Related: Hari Terrace official website
Photos ©SoraNews24
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Toho’s Godzilla doesn’t often travel abroad in-movie, but he’ll be visiting the Statue of Liberty.

It’s an interesting era for Godzilla cinema, as in recent years the franchise has split into two separate but simultaneously active branches: the Hollywood Godzilla movies from Legendary Pictures, and the Japanese Godzilla movies from Toho.

Part of what allows the two types to coexist in a copacetic manner is that there’s a pretty clear distinction between what each is trying to do. The Hollywood Godzilla movies are aimed at fans of bombastic over-the-top action, while the Japanese ones focus more on the terror and drama that would come from having a skyscraper-sized monster rampaging through your city. Another key difference is their settings. Legendary’s movies take place on a global scale, while Toho has kept its storytelling largely within the Tokyo area for its last two installments. In the just-released preview for Toho’s upcoming Godzilla Minus Zero, though, it looks like the Japanese Godzilla will finally be causing destruction outside Japan by showing up in New York.

The short teaser is the very first look Toho has provided for the follow-up to 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, and while it’s intentionally mysterious in tone, it clearly shows the King of the Monsters standing next to the Statue of Liberty in its final shot. And while it’s true that there is a small-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty in Tokyo’s Odaiba neighborhood, Godzilla Minus Zero is set in 1949, several decades before the Tokyo statue was installed, as per the teaser’s onscreen text that indicates the year along with the warning “A new despair looms, two years after the last.”

The teaser does show Japanese settings and characters, so the new Japanese Godzilla movie won’t be set entirely in America. Even in the Japan-market version of the video, though, the opening dialogue is in English, with a pensive off-screen character saying “If their operation fails, maybe we’ll finally get to use it,” suggesting some sort of device or tactic that the U.S. had in mind during Godzilla’s attack on Tokyo in Godzilla Minus One, when Japan was still under occupation by the American military following the end of World War II. Moving the site of the kaiju’s aggression to New York could then potentially set up a situation where the powers that be have to decide whether using this presumably last-resort countermeasure is worth the potential damage it could cause to their own metropolis and its residents.

The events of Godzilla Minus Zero don’t look to all happen outside Japan, though, as the teaser also includes scenes set in the franchise’s home country as well. Also, as the first direct sequel to a Japanese Godzilla movie in over 20 years, it seems like a given that Minus Zero will also deal with the aftermath of Minus One’s ending.

Godzilla Minus Zero is scheduled to open in Japanese theaters on November 3, with its U.S. premier following on November 6.

Source, images: YouTube/東宝MOVIEチャンネル、Godzilla Channel ゴジラ（東宝特撮）チャンネル
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This event actually encourages the weather to rain on your parade in order to get the most out of it.

Anime theme park Nijigen no Mori in Awaji, Hyogo Prefecture, which is largely outdoors, may not be the kind of place you think of visiting when the weather’s not looking too inviting out. However, there’s good reason to go this year on gloomy days thanks to a special event at the park’s Naruto & Boruto Ninja Village, an area where visitors can immerse themselves in scenery straight out of the Naruto and Boruto anime series and take an active role in completing “missions.”

This event, dubbed the May Rain Festival 2026 to be held from May 9 through July 23, is meant to coincide with Japan’s early summer rainy season. Visitors can enjoy taking especially artistic photos throughout Village locales such as at the Akatsuki hideout and in front of Hokage Rock, which, when shrouded in mist on rainy days, evoke an otherworldly mood perfect for recreating somber scenes of the anime.

▼ Don’t cry, Itachi–you don’t have to take a rain check on your plans after all!

Visitors on such days will also receive a free rainy day-exclusive sticker depicting a famous scene from the anime, as shown below.

Another special offering will be paper omikuji fortunes that unveil themselves when floating in water.

While this style of fortune isn’t unheard of in Japan, it’s relatively uncommon and is a fitting way to learn your future luck while the raindrops are falling outside.

Finally, last year’s hit Japanese-style umbrella illumination event will also be back, bigger and better than ever.

While you’re at it, make sure you check out the real-life replicas of the Fourth Hokage’s kunai weapon that you can bring home while you’re at the park as well.

Event information
Naruto & Boruto Ninja Village May Rain Festival 2026 / NARUTO ＆ BORUTO 忍里 五月雨祭２０２６
Address: Hyogo-ken, Awaji-shi, Kusumoto 2425-2
兵庫県淡路市楠本2425番2号
Duration: May 9-July 23
Open: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Website

Source, images: PR Times
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Who’s a good girl who serves and protects?

April is the start of the business and administrative years in Japan, and so many organizations are welcoming a fresh batch of recruits this month. For example, on April 6 the town of Ibi in Gunma Prefecture had a ceremony recognizing the start of duty for new members of its police force, including one named Tsubu.

Tsubu is only two years old, but it isn’t her age that makes her unique among the recruits. No, what sets Tsubu apart is that she’s the Gifu Prefectural Police’s first-ever Shiba Inu police dog.

With their silly, self-satisfied, sometimes even dopey-looking facial expressions, plus well-documented bouts of photogenic stubbornness when they don’t want to go back home from a walk, Shibas have become one of the most memed breeds of dog in the social media era. However, long before any Shiba rose to Internet stardom, Shibas started out as hunting dogs, bred and trained to venture into brush and flush out game for their human partners. The shiba part of their name even translates literally as “brushwood.”

So while Tsubu may not be able to match the size of strength of the German Shepherds or Dobermans more commonly associated with police work, her linage does make her suited for carrying out searches for missing people or evidence. Her comparatively smaller frame could actually be an advantage, as she’s able to fit into narrower spaces than larger breeds while still being large enough to traverse various types of terrain, and since she’s not being used as an attack or patrol dog, the reduced intimidation factor isn’t really an issue.

In order to become a police dog, Tsubu had to complete a test in which her sense of smell, concentration level, and ability to coordinate with her human handler were measured by having her search a field for simulated evidence, which she passed in November, clearing her way for instatement as a contracted police dog.

▼ Video showing Tsubu taking her test

“I have heard that the Shiba Inu is an agile and exceptional breed, so I am expecting great things [from Tsubu]” said Ibi Precinct chief Takanori Morikami following the ceremony, and with Tsubu’s age of 2 years old making her effectively 24 in dog years, hopefully she’ll have a long career serving the people of Gifu.

Source: Tokai TV via Livedoor News
Top image: Pakutaso
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