Twentythree

Fireless fire spirit is ready to provide the cozy glows of the Ghibli anime film.

For some Studio Ghibli characters, the marketing potential is obvious. Totoro, for example, is so invitingly cuddly-looking that making soft plushies of him feels like the most natural possible extension of his on-screen persona.

But what about Calcifer, from Howl’s Moving Castle? Sure, he’s got a cute design and memorable scenes, but his body is made out of burning flames. How do you turn that into something for fans to own that still feels true to the character?

It’s a tricky question, but the designers at Ghibli specialty shop Donguri Kyowakoku have an excellent answer, placing a recreation of the fire spirit atop a candle. Well, I suppose since it’s made of plastic instead of wax, this would technically be a candle-shaped figurine, but even if there’s no wick to light, the Calcifer Candle Light actually does provide illumination!

There’s even a bit of cool simulated magic in how you turn the light on and off. There’s a master power switch, which the designers placed on the bottom of the candle, so that it’s out of sight when placed in its holder. As long as the master power switch is turned on, you can turn the light on and off by giving the candle a little shake with a wave of your hand.

And since flames don’t have a static, constant color, Calcifer’s light changes hues, with shifting tinges of red and blue if left on.

▼ Some might say he’s a little unsettling from certain angles, but Ghibli anime have often mixed some spooky elements in with their baseline cuteness.

Even the packaging shows a high level of design, with hatbox-like aesthetics that bring to mind heroine Sophie’s hatter background.

Oh, and the candle will automatically turn off after 15 minutes of stillness, making Calcifer a capable nightlight to have on as you drift off to sleep.

The Calcifer Candle Light has been out of stock for some time, but Donguri Kyowakoku says it’s now available once again, priced at 5.,940 yen (US$37), and if you’re looking to welcome him to your castle, orders can be placed through the chain’s online shop here.

Source, images: Donguri Kyowakoku
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No one can say exactly when the last time Tokyo got this much rain was, but it was a long, long time ago.

These are dark days in east Japan. And no, I’m not talking about an early start to spooky Halloween imagery or phenomena like people being attacked by gangs of wrathfully violent monkeys, but the weather.

Specifically, these are dark and rainy days in east Japan. Right now, it’s raining in Tokyo. It rained yesterday too, and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before…well, every day stretching back to August 27.

Yes, August 26 was the last day no rain was observed in the capital, meaning it’s been raining in Tokyo for 34 days in a row. This isn’t anywhere near normal. 34 days it the longest rainy streak for Tokyo in at least 150 years. Why “at least?” Because the government only started collecting official statistics of this type in 1876, so it’s possible that this is the first time in history for Tokyo to experience such persistent precipitation.

▼ The most recent ruler of Japan to have potentially seen this much rain in Tokyo was Emperor Meiji, and boy would it have messed with his epaulettes.

The current conditions break the previous record of 33 days of rain between June 27 and July 29 of 2019, and the gap is almost certain to get wider, as more rain is forecast for September 30.

Tokyo, like much of Japan, usually gets its heaviest rains in the summer, with the country’s rainy season typically taking place in late June/early July. It’s not unusual for typhoons to occur in August and early September, but there’s usually at least some respite of clear skies between storms. East Japan in particular can usually expect breaks from the rain at this time of year, since storms usually tend to form out at sea and come up from the southwest corner of the country, losing strength as they pass over Japan’s main island of Honshu, which Tokyo is located near the eastern end of. That’s not how things have played out this year, though. Typhoons 24 and 25 (also known as Toprical Storm Krovanh and Typhoon Dujuan), both remained near Japan with enough strength to sustain lingering wet weather throughout September, and while Typhoon 26 doesn’t look like it’s going to pass directly over Japanese soil, its associated rain front has still shown up to say hi to the country this week.

It’s worth noting that while Tokyo has had observed rain for 34 days in a row and counting, that doesn’t mean unceasing rainfall across the entire city. Still, this isn’t just a collection of scattered quick cloudbursts followed by clear skies, as meteorologists say that in 2026 Tokyo has only gotten about 40 percent of the amount of sunlight it would in a typical September.

Thankfully, it looks like there’s a light at the end of the dark and dreary tunnel, as current forecasts say Tokyo will be sunny with some late afternoon clouds on October 1. That’s assuming, though, that Typhoon 26 doesn’t decide to swerve closer to Tokyo as it heads east.

Source: Waether News (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Wikipedia/Adece033090
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We followed a tip we heard through the grapevine that Japan’s sweet grape variety is even sweeter when pickled in a bed of fermented rice bran.

Shine Muscat grapes are in season right now, and we’ve been craving them as a result. We bought our own bunch and began exploring creative ways of eating them besides straight from the fridge. That’s when we stumbled upon a tip to pickle them in nukadoko, a fermented rice bran bed that’s usually used to make nukazuke pickled vegetables and can be easily purchased at grocery stores, online, or even at Muji Japan stores. Would fruit really taste good using this method as well? There was only one way to find out.

The only two ingredients needed for our culinary experiment were a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) bag of aged nukadoko, like this one from brand Tsukemoto, and a bunch of Shine Muscat grapes.

▼ For the fastest pickling results, make sure that your bag says 熟成 (jukusei) like the one we used, which means that the mixture inside is already matured and ready for fermenting.

▼ Shine Muscats are on the pricey side, so we were a bit anxious about wasting them if this experiment didn’t turn out well.

We gently washed the grapes and removed the moisture, then laid them neatly inside the nukadoko bag…

…only to cover them up completely in the mixture as the last step. They need to stay like that for at least three hours, and we set our timer for four since even though we didn’t want to do the bare minimum, this was a brand-new bag of nukadoko and we wanted to avoid ending up with an overly strong flavor.

▼ Enjoy your special bath, grapes!

Once enough time had passed we removed them from the bag.

After washing them, there was no outward sign that they had been chilling in a fermented rice bran bath.

There was also no visible change when we compared one of them with a grape that hadn’t undergone a bath–both in terms of outer appearance…

▼ Nukadoko grape (left) and ordinary grape (right)

…as well as when sliced. Even when touching them we couldn’t discern any change in their texture or elasticity. Our doubts about this process were growing stronger by the minute.

Let’s see if they lived up to the online hype. First, we took a bite of a regular Shine Muscat to calibrate our taste. As usual, it was sweet, refreshing, and juicy, exemplifying its status as one of Japan’s favorite grapes.

Then it was time to sample the results of our little experiment. WHOAH! Even though it looked no different to the naked eye, the flavor of these grapes was unmistakably deeper and sweeter. It was as if that sweetness were concentrated and enhanced to a strong degree. There were no lingering smell or taste reminders of the fermented rice bran itself, but the saltiness and acidity of the bath must have drawn out the sweetness to the highest possible degree.

The end result? The remaining untouched grapes went right into the nukadoko bag for their own fermentation bath.

For now, the jury’s still out on whether we enjoy this other unorthodox approach to eating Shine Muscats more, so we invite readers to do a taste comparison and decide for themselves.

All images © SoraNews24 
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Tateyama Kurobe Alpen Route and Kurobe Gorge Railway will finally be connected this fall.

Located along the northern side of Japan’s main island of Honshu, the Hokuriku region has some of the country’s most amazing mountain scenery. As is often the case when heading into rural Japan, though, your options for navigating the area become increasingly limited the higher into the mountains you go.

This fall, though, there’s a new route for travelers looking to explore Hokuriku, with the opening of the Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route. Contained within the eastern part of Toyama Prefecture, the Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route connects two other transportation corridors: the Tateyama Kurobe Alpen Route and the Kurobe Gorge Railway.

▼ Kurobe Gorge Railway

▼ Tateyama Kurobe Alpen Route

Both the Kurobe Gorge Railway and Tateyama Kurobe Alpen Route have long been popular with travelers for the views from their trains and ropeway cable cars. However, because of the topography, they didn’t connect with each other. The Kurobe Gorge Railway only goes as far south as Keyakidaira Station, with a lot of rocky mountain terrain between it and Kurobe Dam, the closest stop on the Alpen Route.

▼ Keyakidaira Station

Here’s the thing, though. While the Kurobe Gorge Railway’s tracks stop at Keyakidaira Station, the rails laid by the Nippon Electric Power and Kansai Electric Power companies in building and servicing the Kurobegawa No. 4 hydroelectric power station go deeper into the mountain, and we mean literally into the mountain.

The Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route now gives travelers access to the power station’s narrow-gauge railway tunnel, which travels into a tunnel which connects to a 200-meter (656-foot) shaft elevator.

After ascending to the top of the shaft, travelers will hop on a battery-powered tunnel train…

…followed by a steep 815-meter funicular ride…

…before a bus takes them to Kurobe Dam.

With the battery train, funicular, and bus portions of the journey taking approximately 30, 20, and 40 minutes, respectively, there’s a lot for infrastructure fans to enjoy, but you won’t be in dark tunnels for the entire length of the Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route. At the top of the elevator is an observatory point with panoramic views…

…and once the bus exits the tunnels, you’ll be able to see the snowy ridges of Mt. Tsurugi.

These views, from these angles, were once exclusively for power plant workers and hard-core hikers, so getting to see them without an engineering degree or serious commitment to the outdoors lifestyle in definitely going to be a treat.

▼ Part of the train portion of the route will also let you see the 165-meter-tall Kumokiri Waterfall.

From Kurobe Dam, the end of the Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route, travelers can easily access the Tateyama Kurobe Alpen Route, heading either west, towards Ishikawa Prefecture, or east, crossing the border into Nagano Prefecture.

Linking the Tateyama Kurobe Alpen Route and Kurobe Gorge Railway makes it much more feasible for travelers to do both on a single trip to the region, as well as fold in a visit to the hot spring town of Unazuki Onsen, which sits along the Gorge Railway.

▼ Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route preview video

The Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route was initially scheduled to open in the summer of 2024, but this was pushed back following the Noto earthquake that occurred in January of that year. Now, though, it’s finally time for the Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route to have its grand opening on October 2. Reservations are required, and can be made through travel agencies such as JTB, NTA, and Hankyu Travel.

Related: Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route official website
Source: Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route official website, Traicy
Top image: Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route official website
Insert images: Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route official website (1, 2)
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Getting up early and heading outside the regular tourist circuit could lead to an unforgettable experience this autumn.

When looking at lists of sightseeing spots in Kyoto, there are certain names you’re going to see time and time again. Gion. Arashiyama. Fushimi. And while those districts are justifiably famous for their beautiful teahouses, bamboo grove, and torii-tunnel shrine, being famous also makes them pretty much perpetually crowded.

The trick, then, becomes to look for places in Kyoto that are beautiful but not famous, and one of the best ways to do that is by expanding your itinerary to include parts of the city that aren’t immediately recognized by name to the wider international tourist community, such as Yamashina.

The Yamashina neighborhood isn’t all that far from the city center, as it’s just a five-minute train ride east by local lines from Kyoto Station. However, Yamashina lies beyond Gion, Yasaka Shrine, Kiyomizu Temple, and the other attractions that are commonly thought of by travelers as the eastern edge of downtown Kyoto. That little bit of extra buffer from the package tours gives Yamashina a less congested, more tranquil atmosphere, but it still boasts stunning traditional scenery at Bishamondo Monzeki.

▼ Bishamondo Monzeki

▼ Walking route from Yamashina Station to Bishamondo Monzeki

Originally founded in the year 703, this temple has occupied its current location since 1665. A 15-minute walk north from Yamashina Station, Bishamondo Monzeki is tucked into the foothills of Mt. Bishamon, and its most striking feature is a stone stairway flanked by maple trees, whose falling form a canopy and carpet of crimson once the leaves show their fall colors.

Ordinarily, Bishamondo Monzeki is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the winter months. However, if you’re an early riser, there’s a way to see the temple grounds before they’re open to the general public, via an offer from JR/Japan Railway Company’s EX online travel booking service. This early admission allows you onto the grounds from 8 a.m., and reservations (1,800 yen [US$11] per person) can be made here for November 22, 28, and 29, or December 5. Those dates all fall nicely into the late-November-to-early-December window when Bishamondo Monzeki’s maples usually reach their peak beauty, and if you’re wondering when the rest of Japan’s autumn leaves will be changing color, we’ve got a forecast for that too.

Related: Bishamondo Monzeki official website
Source: PR Times, EX, Bishamondo Monzeki
Images: PR Times
Insert images:
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The purchasers are unknown, so let’s call them “anonymous individuals” or “AI” for short.

There is perhaps no better example of an independent business than the neighborhood used bookstore. But like many such businesses these days, it can be really hard to make ends meet as they compete with cheaper chain stores or faster and more convenient electronic alternatives.

So at first, it must have been a huge relief when a number of used book stores, in various parts of Japan, started getting huge volume orders for high-end books on non-fiction topics like history, medicine, and philosophy. However, when more and more such orders kept coming in at bizarrely regular intervals, things started to get creepy.

One bookstore in Tokyo sold more than 1,000 books in total to a single shipping address, but when the owner looked more closely, he noticed that each order was made at inhumanly precise intervals. Another owner in western Japan said that he received an order for tens of thousands of books from a company overseas. And in almost all cases, the orders are for non-fiction books rather than the usually top-selling fiction and manga titles.

Many of these orders are shipped to a logistics center in Okayama Prefecture, but when approached by the media, they refused to divulge who or where the purchaser is. Meanwhile, according to trade data, a major Japanese book distributor had sold over 50 tons of books in the United States in the last year but also declined to give specifics about what the sales entailed.

Those in the used book business, however, are growing increasingly concerned that these are being used to train AI models. Earlier this year, AI firm Anthropic revealed that they had been purchasing books to train their Claude AI chatbot and that it was a common practice in the industry. In most, if not all, cases, the books are destroyed in the scanning process and rendered useless afterward.

The likelihood that this is what their stock is being used for has left Japanese booksellers feeling conflicted. On one hand, the sudden boost in revenue is nice. On the other, having your stock of acquired human wisdom be sent to a shredder in order to feed a technology that may one day wipe out your own business is not an overly pleasant thought.

Online comments regarding this news seem to be split right down the middle, with some decrying this as the possible end of civilization and others believing that giving more Japanese culture and concepts over to foreign AIs might ultimately make the technology more useful to Japanese people.

“The books are cut, scanned, and tossed. And how faithful is this digital reincarnation? If the AI just devours it, then we risk losing our own history.”
“Books weren’t made for this. Foreign interests are exploiting Japan, and this represents an overall spiritual poverty around the world.”
“One time I asked an AI about a typo in a rather obscure book, and it could identify the exact page and line where it was. That’s when I knew it had been used for training.”
“Considering the current state of the used book market, shouldn’t these shops be thrilled?”
“A lot of them would have just been thrown away and incinerated anyway. Just don’t sell those things any rare or valuable books.”
“This is terrifying. I don’t go to bookstores much, but if I ever pop into one, I’d hate to see a bunch of empty shelves.”
“It looks like a win-win for both sides.”
“I’m worried that if AI gets better at Japanese, fraud attempts will become more believable.”
“If they aggregate all these old books into AI, I wonder if connections that humans haven’t seen will be revealed.”
“We’re getting to a point where if data centers go down, our whole culture goes with it.”
“In a lot of ways, used bookstores are like graveyards for books that no one buys, so export them and put them to good use.”
“At least they’re paying money for it, rather than stealing it from the Internet.”

There is also the issue of copyright and how Japanese law applies to the practice of destructive scanning to train AI models. Japan has some rather unique conditions for fair use in this regard.

First, a book’s copyright can be infringed upon on the condition that the infringer is not enjoying the content. I think we all can agree that AI models are not enjoying the works, which would make the action legal. However, there is also an exception where, if the infringement creates an “unreasonable prejudice” against the copyright holder then the act is not legal. Unreasonable prejudice means that the action obstructs the copyright holder’s ability to earn revenue on their work, and while you can certainly make the argument that AI does that, proving it in court is much harder.

Clearer legislation needs to be made to deal with this complex issue, but it would seem AI is growing at a much faster rate than lawmakers work, so we probably won’t figure this out until a lawmaking AI is developed to do it for us.

Source: NTV News, Hachima Kiko, BBC
Photos ©SoraNews24
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Parkside stop to rest turns out to be very costly.

On the night of September 23, a 38-year-old office worker in Osaka had been enjoying some drinks. Or maybe he hadn’t started knocking them back until after midnight on the 24th. Either way, in at some point in the pre-dawn hours his intoxicated fatigue became too much for him to handle, and he sat down to rest on the edge of a sidewalk-side planter at the edge of Nozaki Park in the city’s Kita Ward.

At around 3:50 a.m., he was approached by two men, who called out asking “Are you all right?”, to which the drunk man replied “I’m fine, so leave me alone.” However, it turned out that these two men weren’t actually offering help, and were instead looking to take his belongings.

▼ The section of the park where the encounter took place

While the man was still seated, the robbers suddenly shoved him, knocking him backwards so that his back was flat against the ground. They then grabbed his bag, which he says contained his wallet and roughly 1 million yen (US$6,300) in cash, and before running off, they removed and stole the victim’s shoes too.

▼ A CG reenactment of the incident

The man suffered a scraped elbow in the attack, but did not sustain any serious injuries. With his safety confirmed, many online commenters have been asking the same question: Why was he carrying so much cash?

“Shady.”
“Having a really hard time understanding who you’d go out and get drunk while you’ve got a million yen on you.”
“The robbers are the worst people in this story, but even still, there’s no good reason to put a million yen in your bag before going drinking.”
“If you’ve got that much cash on you, just go straight home without drinking all night.”
“Having a million yen in cash makes you think it’s got to be money that you can’t be open and upfront about.”
“The criminals probably somehow knew he had that money on him.”
“Did the robbers know he was on his way to meet up with someone and followed him?”
“Japanese safety is becoming a myth.”
“We’re living in a time when it’s not safe to stumble home drunk anymore.”
“Maybe it was some kind of insurance scam?”
“Do the robbers have some kind of a footwear fetish?”

Addressing the last comment first, the obvious reason for the robbers taking the man’s shoes is that it’d make it harder for him to chase after them. As for the startling amount of money he had on him, that’s actually kind of complicated.

While incidents have been on the rise recently, Japan still has very little street crime, and cash payments are prevalent, including for things, and at locations, that would be very unusual in many other countries. Several kinds of tax and utility payments, for example, can be made in cash at convenience stores 24 hours a day, and many online retailers also allow customers to place their orders through their website, then render payment, in cash if they wish, at convenience stores. If someone were planning to make several such payments in one fell swoop, they might have quite a few bills on them.

The area around the park is also rather urban. It’s located only about a five-minute walk from Umeda Station, one of Osaka’s main rail hubs, with a number of office and condominium high rises nearby. The victim himself lives in the neighborhood, and, ostensibly, there could have been some legitimate business or living expense-related purposes that the cash was earmarked for.

▼ Another video showing the park and surrounding neighborhood

Even with all that taken into account, though, a million yen is still far beyond what most Japanese people would consider a common-sense amount be carrying, by a wide enough margin that doing anything other than taking it directly home or to render payment is reckless. Carrying around that much cash while drunk is a baffling, understandably suspicion-arousing amount of risk to accept.

That said, the victim himself is the one who contacted the police and reported the incident, which doesn’t seem like something he’d do if the stolen money was also dirty money, and at this time the police are proceeding with the investigation with the robbery itself as the only crime that’s taken place.

Source: FNN Prime Online, Sankei Shimbun, YouTube/読売テレビニュース, YouTube/日テレNEWS
Top image: Pakutaso
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