Twentythree

We spend the night in the new rising-star class of hotels in Japan.

There’s a new class of travel accommodation that’s been rising in popularity in Japan recently: the container hotel. Not to be confused with capsule hotels, in which you rent a slot in a wall of sleeping compartments for the night, container hotels give you an actual private room…but that room in enclosed within what’s essentially a converted shipping container.

Container hotels tend to be less expensive than conventional lodgings, but do those saving come at the cost of cramped, maybe even claustrophobic discomfort? To find out, we sent our Japanese-language reporter Takashi Harada to container hotel Cradle Cabin, located in the city of Tateyama in Chiba Prefecture, to spend the night.

As you can see, each container is narrow enough to fit inside a parking space. Granted, these are parking spaces wide enough to accommodate shipping trucks, but still, it doesn’t seem like a lot of left-to-right space from the outside. Things didn’t look any more encouraging when Takashi opened the door to his room, and he inwardly groaned a little at how narrow the layout appeared.

However, after stepping past the entry area, he discovered a surprisingly well-designed interior with all the space he really needed.

Sure, the dimensions are still cozy, but this is pretty much as much space as you get in Japan’s budget-friendly “business hotels.” As for why the area just inside the door seems so narrow, that’s because the container has its own self-contained bathroom and shower.

This was also a pleasant surprise, as Takashi had been bracing himself for the possibility that container hotels would only have a communal restroom and bathing facility. Instead, he had a fully private setup, again comparable to what you’ll find in most regular budget-priced Japanese hotels, including a nice washlet-type toilet.

Continuing to check for places Cradle Cabin might have cut corners, he next checked the bed. Once again, though, his worries were misplaced. The mattress was soft but supportive, and the housekeeping staff had laid out two pillows of differing firmness for him to pick from.

Neatly arranged on and in the desk were a smart TV, clock, phone, hot water kettle, coffee mugs, hair dryer, and tissue box, again, the expected array of niceties for a Japanese hotel…

…and next to the desk was a microwave, a rarity in Japanese hotel rooms, and a nicely sized refrigerator with a freezer compartment too.

Peeking into the shower again, Takashi confirmed that even the provided soap and shampoo are up to scratch, as they’re made by Pola, a well-respected Japanese brand…

…and while you have to grab them from the check-in desk, Cradle Cabin provides all sorts of toiletries like towels, slippers, cotton pads, razors, hair brushes, as well as complimentary coffee and green tea.

In short, this container hotel isn’t missing anything that you’d expect from a regular hotel, and considering the 8,080 yen (US$51) that Takashi was paying for the night, the quality of those amenities were actually above what you usually get in that price range.

But now for the big question: Does staying in a container hotel trigger a claustrophobia attack? Not in Takashi’s case. Yes, the lack of windows can feel a little strange at first, but once he was settled in for the night, lying down in bed and relaxing while watching TV, he stopped being really conscious of being surrounded by four solid walls. Later, after he turned off the lights and closed his eyes, he enjoyed a deep, restful sleep. There was no unwanted ambient light seeping into the room to wake him up in the early morning, and since none of his container’s walls were in contact with those of any other guests, there wasn’t any sound coming through them either.

That said, when Takashi stepped out of his container the next morning, he did feel acutely aware of how wide open the outside world is, and if your travel style involves spending a couple hours in the afternoon just relaxing in your room, the lack of exterior views might start to feel a little oppressive. But as a place to spend the night, capsule hotels are surprisingly comfortable, and now that Takashi has stayed in one, he’d have no worries about staying in another, like maybe Cradle Cabin’s new location it’s planning to open soon in Nishitokyo, west of downtown Tokyo.

Related: Cradle Cabin Tateyama
Photos ©SoraNews24
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Sauna Mother promises to provide the sense of calming security felt by a newborn baby.

A good sauna session should be refreshing, the sort of thing that lets you shed the stress from the myriad pressures and responsibilities of adult life. Ideally, you should emerge feeling reborn, and if you think the best way to do so is by recreating your time in the womb, and the immediate aftermath of your emergence. Tokyo has got a place for you.

Opening soon in the downtown Roppongi neighborhood is Sauna Mother, which touts itself as a place where you can “stop being an adult for two hours.” Rather than indulge in such grade-school level nostalgia as eating a bunch of ice cream or playing on a swing set, though, Sauna Mother takes customers all the way back to the prenatal stage of childhood. For example, instead of a regular old sauna, the facility has a Uterus Sauna, which reproduces the sensations of being in the womb through fleshy red lighting, muffled sounds, and a scent its designers say is evocative of the smell of a mother’s skin. You can even have your photo taken to be placed on your “rebirth certificate” that Sauna Mother provides.

Sauna Mother mercifully passes on reenacting the dramatic intensity of the birthing procedure itself, so after emerging from the Uterus Sauna you’ll proceed to the Newborn Bath, a cold-water bath meant as an allegory to the initial rinsing of birthing fluids off of a newborn child.

Subsequently, you’ll be warmed back up again in the Mother’s Lap Shower, for which guests are propped on a seat shaped like a woman’s torso and thighs.

Finally, there’s perhaps the most visually impactful part of the experience, the Mother Sofa, where guests are cradled, rocked, and watched over.

The first two parts of that come from a reclining sofa with carefully calculated contours meant to eliminate excess pressure on any point of the body while you lie there and the surface sways back and forth, at one of three selectable speeds, like a mother rocking her baby to sleep. As for being watched over…

…projected above you is the countenance of one of four motherly figures, either Izanami, the Shinto mother goddess, the Two-Dimensional Mother (who looks sort of like a Ghilbi-version of classic anime character Sazae-san), the Impressionism-inspired Art Mother, or the Mythology Mother.

The goal of all this, Sauna Mother says, is to provide guests with “the sense of security they felt as newborns,” which will have them feeling invigorated when their session ends. The possibility that this unique sauna experience will instead scare the hell out of people and leave them debilitatingly terrified is something the management doesn’t address in its promotional materials, but no one can accuse Sauna Mother of being anything less than upfront about what customers can expect, so the facility is unlikely to have any customers who are themselves uncomfortable with the aesthetics.

Sauna Mother says it’s on track for its grand opening at the end of this month, with reservations set to open through its website in mid-October. The price for a one-person, two-hour session is listed at 8,500 yen (US$54), but there are discounts for group sessions of two, three, or four people, or maybe they should be reffered to as twins, triplets, and quadruplets.

Related: Sauna Mother official website
Source, images: PR Times
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There are two reasons this figure is posed that way.

Prizes for UFO catchers/crane games in Japan tend to fall into one of two categories. In one you have stuff that you don’t really need, but which is awesome to have, like a giant Dragon Quest Shadow Slime plushie. Then you have the other group, stuff that’s desirable because it serves some sort of practical purpose, like skin care packs or sweet potatoes.

At first glance, this figure of Yujiro Hanma, from manga/anime franchise Baki the Grappler, might seem like it’s in the first category. After all, anime figures don’t do anything other than sit on the shelf and look cool, right?

Ah, but wait a second – there’s no base for the figure, so how is it even supposed to sit on your shelf? The answer is that it isn’t, because this isn’t any ordinary anime figure, it’s an anime figure that’s also a clothes hanger.

Baki, which started its still-ongoing manga run in 1991, is a martial arts series, and one that falls into a very specific niche of the genre. On the one hand, it’s got no interest in the sort of metaphysical/science fiction-elements of Street Fighter or Dragon Ball, so you won’t see Yujiro or the other fighters throwing fireballs or energy blasts at each other. At the same time, author and artist Keisuke Itagaki isn’t trying to tell a grounded, realistic story either. The result is a series filled with characters with unabashedly pulling off technically possible but highly implausible feats of physical prowess, and one that’s over the top by an especially wide margin is Yujiro’s ability to do the splits with a limberness far beyond what one would reasonably expect of someone with that much muscle mass in his lower body.

gym biceps back + baki tshirt today

goal : yujiro splits pic.twitter.com/lZegOj0pfM

— yassin (@212Hanma) February 13, 2026

Height is usually the key measurement for anime figures, but understandably manufacturer Bandai is instead listing the it’s width instead, which is 50 centimeters (19.7 inches), so it seems like Yujiro should be able to hold up jackets and shirts as well as the tank tops he’s supporting in the preview photos.

The Yujiro Hanma hanger is appearing in Japanese arcade crane games stocked by Bandai Spirits as of October 6.

Source: Banpresto via Denfaminico Gamer
Images: Banpresto
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No fewer than five nations are involved in the Malatang Pizza.

Pizza Hut Japan has always been an example of culinary cross-culturalism, but it’s become even more enthusiastically eclectic with some of its recent offerings, such as the chrysanthemum tsukimi and drinkable curry pizzas we saw earlier in the year. Now the chain has yet another innovation in their ovens with the launch of the Malatang Pizza.

The inspiration comes from the spicy Chinese noodle hot pot style called malatang, which originated in the Sichuan region.

Instead of Pizza Hut’s standard tomato sauce, the Malatang Pizza uses a mixture of Sichuan peppercorns and chili oil for a tinglingly spicy blend.

Also part of the package are sliced pork, wood ear mushrooms (called kikurage in Japanese), and what Pizza Hut describes as “Korean-style glass noodles.”

Tying everything together is a two-cheese blend of mozzarella and gouda, resulting in a mix of Chinese, Korean, and Italian elements, all offered by the Japanese arm of an American restaurant chain.

Of course, malatang isn’t a dish that Pizza Hut has a lot of first-hand experience with, so the new pizza was developed under the guidance of Chipao Maratan, a popular malatang specialty restaurant chain with branches in eastern, northern, and central Japan which regularly have long lines of local customers waiting to get in.

In addition to the standard Malatang Pizza (which starts at 880 yen (US$5.50) for a small, Pizza Hut also has a fancier Seafood Malatang Pizza (from 1,490 yen) with shrimp and squid…

…plus a Vegetable Malatang Pizza (from 1,310 yen) with asparagus and corn, proving once again that there is no way of completely dissuading Japan from putting corn on pizza.

The Malatang Pizza joined the Pizza Hut Japan menu on October 8 and will be available until November 4.

Source: Pizza Hut Japan
Top image: Pizza Hut Japan
Insert images: Pizza Hut Japan, PR Times
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Goodness gracious, great balls of rice and beef!

Komeda Coffee is a nationwide chain of coffee shops that’s earned a reputation as practitioners of “reverse fraud” (gyakusagi). 

More often than not, when looking at a restaurant’s menu, you’ll see images of towering burgers and overflowing fries, only to be greeted with a pale imitation of that on your plate. At Komeda, however, the opposite is more likely to happen. What might appear a modest pork cutlet sandwich on the menu turns out to be a huge feast you’ll have trouble finishing. It’s a phenomenon so sadly rare, we don’t even really have a good English term for it. I guess you could call it a “rip-on” maybe?

One example of this was Komeda’s Kome-Gyu from 2020. This was a burger with shredded beef short rib slathered in chili-mustard sauce and topped with shredded cabbage. It came in three sizes, with the largest having nearly a pound of beef.

It was a hugely popular item and cemented Komeda’s status as a reverse fraudster, because those burgers were way more hearty than even our photo above lets on. However, when they re-released Kome-Gyu on 9 September, there wasn’t much buzz. In fact, even our own gourmet writer Mr. Sato was unaware until they tweeted about it on 3 October.

The tweet quickly went viral, racking up over 10,000 likes and a million views as word of Kome-Gyu’s return spread like wildfire. Part of the reason no one noticed was that this Kome-Gyu wasn’t sold at Komeda Coffee but at their spin-off chain Komeya no Taro that specializes in onigiri rice balls. As such, this Kome-Gyu is not a burger but an onigiri.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, so Mr. Sato hurried over to Komeya no Taro to try it and some other offerings out. There are only three locations in the country, two in Saitama and, luckily for him, one nearby in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

This was our reporter’s first trip there, and he scanned the menu to get a sense of things. Komeya no Taro sells a decent variety of rice balls, each in “mini” or “regular” sizes. The prices also range a bit, from 190 yen ($US1.20) for a Salted Rice Ball to the Eel Rice Ball for 770 yen ($4.90).

Mr. Sato decided to buy three on this trip. First, he bought a regular size Salted Rice Ball for 310 yen. There was nothing particularly special about this onigiri, as it was just salt and rice. In fact, the only reason our writer bought this was because a Japanese word for “rice” is “kome” and “da” is the casual form of the “to be” verb and could be translated as “it’s,” which means this rice ball gave him license to write:

▼ “Komeda kome da!”

Having gotten that out of his system, Mr. Sato moved on to his next onigiri. The Miso Pork Tenderloin Rice Ball was easily the most eye-catching item on the menu and sold for 510 yen in its regular size.

The breaded and fried pork tenderloin cutlet jutted out the top to such a degree it didn’t seem right to even call it a rice ball. It had a drizzling of miso sauce down the side, like an erupting volcano.

Cutting it in half revealed that there wasn’t much pork inside the onigiri itself. Still, it can’t really be said that Komeya no Taro was being chintzy with the meat. It was more just arranged oddly.

Finally, it was time for the main event of the Kome-Gyu Rice Ball, which sells in a regular for 640 yen.

Looking at it, Mr. Sato didn’t get a sense of Komeda’s reverse fraud. It was a perfectly average-looking onigiri in terms of size, though the amount of beef appeared plentiful as it seemed to overflow from the top.

He tried cutting it open to get a better sense of what it contained, but it was so crumbly it more or less fell apart in the process.

It had a good amount of meat, but again, not so much that our writer would describe it as a case of reverse fraud. It all seemed perfectly reasonable. It did excel in the taste department, however. The taste of the sauce was outstanding and complemented the rice as well as the meat.

It made Mr. Sato realize that this kind of meat’s natural partner is rice rather than buns. It all went so well together that as he ate, he wished Komeda would just cut to the chase and release a proper gyudon beef bowl with these ingredients. Perhaps they will one day, and perhaps there was no reverse fraud this time because they’re saving it for Kome-Gyu’s final form.

Store information
Komeya no Taro / 米屋の太郎
Tokyo-to, Shinjuku-ku, Nishi-Shinjuku 1-25-1, Shinjuku Center Building B1
東京都新宿区西新宿1丁目25-1 新宿センタービル地下1階
Open: 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Holidays: None
Website

Photos ©SoraNews24
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Room-only stays usually mean no perks, but this hotel throws them at you, all in the name of having a good sleep.

There is a type of accommodation for all kinds of traveler, be it a gorgeous mountain retreat or a city-based hub for neighborhood exploration. For some people, accommodation means just having a comfortable place to pass the night, spending the rest of the time out and about, so they tend to go for places that offer room-only stays instead of hunting for one that has a decent breakfast menu. However, we were recently invited to a trial stay at Super Hotel Premier Osaka Hommachi Ekimae, where even with a room-only stay, alcohol, a hot spring, and amenities are all included completely free of charge.

Being located right next to Osaka’s Hommachi Station, served by the Osaka Metro Midosuji Line, Yotsubashi Line, and Chuo Line, means that it is incredibly convenient for any exploring you want to do while spending time in the city. Additionally, the popular shopping district of Shinsaibashi is well within walking distance, and the area around Hommachi Station is full of places to eat and drink.

Going up to the second floor, we were met with the front desk located inside a clean lobby, and a faint aroma drifted through the air.

Check-in is possible using a QR code for the tech-savvy, but it’s just as possible to complete the procedures at the counter, where the receptionist explains various things about the hotel:

• You can choose the softness and height of your pillow.
• Lobby coffee and tea are available to drink 24 hours a day.
• You can enjoy a welcome bar starting in the evening.
• There is a hot spring.
• You can borrow nightwear developed in-house.
• Women receive five skincare amenities.

All of this for just a room-only stay? It’s truly hard to believe, so we couldn’t wait to experience it for ourselves.

First, we meandered over to the coffee and tea provisions, which you are apparently allowed to bring into your room too.

▼ The tea bags were from TEARTH, with an extensive lineup.

However, the highlight is the welcome bar opening in the evening, where various types of alcohol are set out, and you can freely make and enjoy your own cocktails.

In the case you want to avoid alcohol, soft drinks are also well-stocked, and even small snacks like nuts and dried fruits are provided. It was even mentioned that it was possible to bring in food from the outside to enjoy with your drinks.

A drink in hand while idly gazing at the cityscape and flowing lights of cars… it was utter bliss.

There is a shower in the room, but since we were told about it, we had to check out the natural hot spring, which you can check the crowdedness of from the television in your room.

▼ Photograph taken with permission.

The hot water is brought in from the source spring Naniwa Onsen, and felt like a simple hot spring, but explanations in the bathing area introduced it as having beautifying and rejuvenating effects. Being able to stretch out your legs and thoroughly warm up your body, tired from traveling, is something to be extremely grateful for. After getting out of the bath, you’ll have the opportunity to enjoy the amenities on offer and ReFa hairdryers.

Of course, on the way back to your room you should also stop off at the lobby for some herbal tea.

To truly make your night special, you need to select your own custom pillow from the selection of various firmnesses and heights lined up in the lobby. We went for the Mochi-Fuwa Ladies Pillow, a collaboration with custom-made pillow maker Jibun Makura, and true to its name is apparently exclusively for women.

Furthermore, the mattress and pajamas are also Super Hotel originals, which have come about as a result of their exploration of good sleep in their partnership with universities under the name Good Sleep Research Institute (Gussuri Kenkyujo).

From the aroma in the lobby, the hot spring, the water, the duvet, to the room lighting, everything is specifically designed to help guests get a good sleep. Thanks to that, we fell sound asleep right through until morning.

▼ We couldn’t wait to test out our custom pillow.

Breakfast was at the Organic Table restaurant on the second floor for an extra fee of 1,500 yen (US$9.49), although there are also breakfast (and dinner) plans available. The buffet menu had plenty of vegetables and side dishes, making for a grand display of variety. There were even popular Osaka items like takoyaki and nikusui (beef soup), which are sure to please tourists.

Perhaps because we woke up feeling completely refreshed, our appetites were strong, and we thoroughly enjoyed the meal. We highly recommend this breakfast for anyone who wants a substantial meal to start the day.

Check-out was at 11:00 a.m., and with the room key being a passcode, there was nothing special to return; the procedure was completed simply by dropping the receipt with your room number, received at check-in, into the box inside the elevator. A comfortable hotel, packed with free services, and a comparatively late check-out to some other hotels… it feels almost criminal that we didn’t find out about this hotel earlier.

If a hotel is just a place to return to sleep at the end of the day, Super Hotel Premier Osaka Hommachi Ekimae is undoubtedly a hotel that will make you want to return to sleep, even after your holiday is over.

Hotel information
Super Hotel Premier Osaka Hommachi Ekimae / スーパーホテルPremier大阪本町駅前
Address: Osaka-fu, Osaka-shi, Nishi-ku, Nishihonmachi 1-5-10
大阪府大阪市西区西本町1-5-10
Check-in: 3:00 p.m.
Check-out: 11:00 a.m.
Website

Photos ©SoraNews24
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