Tokyo man arrested for attempted black magic on school kids

One man learns the hard way that dabbling in the dark arts does not pay.

On the morning of 26 September in Tokyo, schoolchildren on their way to a day of learning and play at Edogawa Elementary School were crossing a pedestrian land bridge. However, hanging from the rail was a little doll made of straw along with a note which read “All you f***ing brats jump from here and die.”

In Japan, straw dolls (waraningyo) are used in a somewhat similar fashion to a voodoo doll, in that they are both effigies used to summon a curse upon people. Judging by the note, it would appear that someone had intended to make the children to jump to their own death through the power of the straw doll.

▼ Here’s an example of a straw doll in super-spooky action

That someone is believed to be 41-year-old Takeshi Inaba who lives near the school. According to the Tokyo Metro Police, Inaba confessed to inflicting the curse saying “Those kids running wild in the park are too noisy.”

Inaba is facing charges of criminal intimidation which, considering his supernatural method, seems a little excess.

If I were his attorney, I would argue that traditionally, the doll is made with hair or some possession of the intended victim and then nailed to a tree or wooden pillar to really get the magic flowing. By not including any personal effects or even nailing the doll, the defendant was pulling off a pretty half-assed attempt at spiritual assassination.

On the other hand, if I were the prosecutor, I would counter that he could have been adhering to Hell Girl logic in which removing a red string from the straw doll causes a demon girl to appear and devour the souls of those from whom revenge is sought.

Sure Hell Girl never showed up in this instance – most likely because she’s fictional – but that doesn’t erase his culpability.

While it’s debatable whether this incident is technically a threat, it certainly is creepy and a public nuisance. It should be noted that Inaba is also suspected of several cases of graffiti which read “Kids are too noisy!” on benches and the toilet of the local park where students are known to play.

He is also believed to have sent over 30 letters to staff and parents of Edogawa Elementary bad-mouthing them about their inability to control those “noisy kids.” So while he probably won’t get hit with the full force of the law, the suspect may have a date with a mental health examiner in store.

Really though, the guy should have just given them some money and told them to go play at a game center or ice cream shop or something. Sure it would have set him back some yen, but it seems like a small price to pay considering the mental anguish he seemed to have experienced.

And in doing that, everyone would have been satisfied with the result. Take that, people who say money can’t buy happiness!

Source: Jiji Tsushin, Hachima Kiko
Top image: YouTube/Yousuf Ali

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Japanese manga artist draws hilarious parody of Your Name’s Hollywood live-action remake

What if Taki was a white guy and Mitsuha was a black girl?

Ever since the confirmation of a Hollywood live-action remake of blockbuster anime Your Name, serious doubt has been cast on whether a production steeped in Japanese culture will translate well into westernized film.

Japanese manga artist @yokoyama_bancho may have just envisioned how the movie will turn out using sprinklings of American stereotypes and a little bit of imagination.

Featuring male protagonist Taki Tachibana as a white guy from New York and Mitsuha Miyamizu as a black girl from New Orleans, hilarity ensues when they discover their bodies have been switched.

▼ Live-action Your Name, part one.
English translations courtesy of Twitter user @nise_shi. (Read right to left.)

▼ Part two of the parody.

There’s no telling who will star in the actual movie, but Japanese netizens seem to appreciate the comic at least:

“Hollywood Mitsuha seems really strong and Taki looks like a squad leader in Attack on Titan.”
“I live in America so I can relate to all of these.”
“It won’t be a Hollywood movie without big explosions.”
“I want to see this so much.”
“It’ll be rather interesting if the movie is a parody like this!”

J.J. Abrams could take a few pointers from these for the upcoming film, but short of a total overhaul of critical plot elements like the shrine ritual scenes, he has a daunting task ahead of him indeed. While I would like all Hollywood producers to leave our anime alone, perhaps some good can come out of it, particularly if it incorporates a slam dunking Mitsuha.

TAnd if it doesn’t turn out well, we can still pin all our hopes on the Fullmetal Alchemist live-action remake.

Source: Twitter/@yokoyama_bancho, Twitter/@nise_shi via Otakomu
Top image: Twitter/@nise_shi

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6 Original Couples' Costume Ideas For The Couple Who Really Wants To Stand Out

Happy “time to plan what to be for Halloween” season — the best part of the year! It's the season where you only have one thing on your mind: to have the best and most creative costume on Halloween, so your Instagram pics get a lot of likes. But if you're dressing up with a significant other, this task gets even harder. One thing is for sure, though. You're definitely going to need some original couples' costume ideas so that you can stand out from everyone else at the party.

Let me tell you what every couple at all the Halloween parties you go to will be dressed like. You'll have your Wes Anderson couples, or your Game of Thrones couples. Maybe couples dressed up as Betty and Jughead from Riverdale or as Sandy and Danny from Grease. You'll have a hot couple dressed up as Hugh Hefner and a Playboy bunny, and a funny couple dressed up like pizza. You don't want to be one of those couples. You want to be something creative and special — something no one else will be.

So here are six original couples' costume ideas for the couple who really wants to stand out. I want you to be getting compliments all night long.

1. Wine And Cheese Couples Costume, $50, Spirit Halloween

Spirit Halloween

For Halloween, why not dress up as one of your favorite things to do as a couple? Everyone loves a little wine and cheese night with their boo. (Except for me, because I don't drink, and I'm lactose intolerant, but either way, this costume is cute.) Plus, it gives you a reason to bring wine to any party you go to and drink it directly out of the bottle. And if you want, you can carry around a hunk of brie and eat it, too, Liz Lemon style.

2. Comic Book Couple, $100, Yandy

Yandy.com

Are you and your significant other artsy? Do you frequent museums and know the difference between a Picasso and a Lichtenstein? If so, then this is definitely the Halloween costume for you guys. Plus, this will really allow you to show off your makeup skills. In fact, that's one of the most important aspects of the outfit.

If you know you need a little help in the makeup department, though, you can watch a pop art makeup tutorial here:

3. USB Port And Stick Costume, $25, Jet

Jet Halloween Costumes

Will USB-mine? In this digital era, dress as a product that we use, in some capacity, almost every single day. Then, at the end of the night, you can always ask your date if they want to stick their USB in your port. Just be careful not to get a virus.

4. Pair Of Sneakers, $50, Costume Super Center

Halloween Super Center

People will get some real kicks out of this costume. LOL. Anyway. Prove to everyone that you and your partner are a great pair by dressing up as a literal pair of shoes for Halloween. Great for any couple with a foot or shoe fetish.

5. Rock, Paper, Scissors, $35, Amazon

Amazon

Can't forget about any non-traditional couples out there! For any groups of three who want to dress up together on Halloween, this Rock, Paper, Scissors costume is a great idea. And if you get into any fights during the night, you can always play a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to settle the score.

6. Flip Flop Costume, $60, Halloween Express

Halloween Express

If you and your partner keep flip flopping on your relationship status, then why not dress up as a pair of literal flip flops for Halloween? It might send your significant other a subliminal message that it's time to make a decision when it comes to your relationship. Plus, if you're sick of all those costumes that are overly revealing, this outfit is a great alternative.

Do you have any ideas for original couples costumes for Halloween? Let me know in the comments!

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6 Original Couples' Costume Ideas For The Couple Who Really Wants To Stand Out

Credit: Dating – Elite Daily

If You And Your Partner Make Each Other Feel These 3 Things, It's True Love

Vampire Doesn't Feel Invited

Nintendo releases official, free online PDF of EarthBound player’s guide for anyone to read

While you’re waiting for a SNES Classic, take a look at one of the best player’s guides of all time.

EarthBound is my favorite game. It was the first RPG I played as a kid, and I vividly remember making a giant chart with a hundred empty boxes that I’d fill in each time I beat it. So yeah, I was a bit of a lonely child with a lot of free time, but I did fill up that chart eventually, just like EarthBound filled up my heart.

And honestly one of the reasons that I loved the game so much was because of the player’s guide that came bundled with it. Unlike other guides, this one wasn’t just a bunch of terrible “pro tips” mixed with grainy screenshots.

The guide for EarthBound is nothing less than a masterpiece, which may sound strange to say about a player’s guide, but it’s earned the accolade. It has gorgeous visuals, 3D clay models of almost every enemy, made-up newspapers and stories for each location, not to mention the hilariously-infamous scratch and sniff cards, great information, secrets, and inside jokes.

▼ Here’s the fake newspaper for Onett, the first town.
It doesn’t just give the story, but conveys the tone perfectly too.

Unfortunately many people who have only been introduced to EarthBound recently via virtual console have never been able to play through the game alongside the guide. It really is a different experience, kind of like watching a great movie then reading the great book it was based off.

But now, to go along with the recent release of the Super Nintendo Classic Edition (which has EarthBound as a playable game), Nintendo has officially put up a free PDF of the player’s guide for anyone to enjoy.

▼ The cover of the guide. A 90s Nickelodeon-esque green splat with a badass alien,
plus postcards from around the world somehow sums up the game perfectly.

It seems like the guide was uploaded by Nintendo due to a happy accident. All of the other SNES Classic games just have their instruction manuals uploaded, but since EarthBound never came with an instruction manual — it only ever came bundled with the strategy guide — we get the whole thing instead.

Up until now the guide has been prohibitively expensive for anyone wanting a hard copy, sometimes running over US$100 online. But now that Nintendo has just made it free online, anyone can follow along on their computer, tablet, or even printing it out and binding it together!

▼ Just look at this gorgeous page. The colors, the overlapping action, the details on
all of the miniatures, especially Frankystein Mark II in the bottom left. It’s amazing.

▼ I love how the guide isn’t afraid to just put in random real-world
photos next to screenshots. It’s hilarious and fits the game.

▼ Each location gets a step-by-step quick guide. I will say though that “Enlist King’s
Help” (fourth down) confused me as a kid (“King” being the default name for the dog).

▼ The guide does make a few other odd choices too. Like making a huge
deal out of how to get the Sword of Kings, Poo’s ultimate weapon…

▼ …but then relegating all of the other ultimate items
to the bottom left of a random newspaper page.

▼ And then saying you get the Gutsy Bat from Kraken, but you actually get it from Bionic Kraken later… which they said drops the “Legendary Bat” in the previous image!

But still, despite a few errors that probably came with the writers working with an earlier version of the game, we love this guide. In fact, we’re not pointing out its mistakes to be mean, we’re just remembering them fondly, like reminiscing with an old friend about stupid high school stuff you did together.

If you’ve never played EarthBound before, then you should get on that immediately, and be sure to play alongside the guide. And if you have played it before but never used the guide, then consider giving it another playthrough. It will make you feel like your first time playing the SNES all over again.

You can check out the EarthBound player’s guide here, and the instruction manuals for all the other SNES Classic games here.

Source: Nintendo via Polygon
Top image: Nintendo

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Lust-filled faces from erotic manga and anime now available to buy in clothing form

Show your love of erotic manga and anime, and disdain of social conventions, with a T-shirt!

Anime or manga T-shirts, like band T-shirts, are a popular way of announcing to the rest of the world your interests and how you identify yourself. Similarly, wearing your sports team’s colours may show the pride you have in your hometown (or the necessity to kick six bells out of each other in the case of the Old Firm).

Funnily enough, not many people choose to show their love of animated pornography through their clothing, presumably one reason why being a dearth of buying options. No longer is that an issue, as an ahegao (the name given to faces showing unbridled lust in anime and manga) clothing range allows wearers to show their predilections, and look good, or more likely creepy, doing it.

AliExpress, an online retailer which gathers together a number of Chinese manufacturers large and small (some of whom have a very relaxed policy towards copyright infringement), is now selling the over-the-top face of desire on a range of clothes.

▼ With several different designs, in black & white and colour, you can have one for every day of the week!

If you already have a favourite T-shirt, you can have the ahegao design plastered all over your lower half instead, including some attention-grabbing face placement. Well, you do need something to wear on those occasions you can tear yourself away from your pillow.

▼ As winter is coming, you can wrap up warm while giving your target the eye, or the many eyes of child-like faces. What girl/guy could resist?

The prices vary between sellers on the site, but the T-shirts and trousers generally cost between one and two thousand yen (US$8.88-17.77) and the hoodies retail for between two and three thousand. Whether the clothes count as NSFW or even not safe for wearing outside the house, is up to you. For one thing, the images might cause spontaneous nosebleeds among fellow aficionados.

Source: Kinisoku
Top image: AliExpress
Images: AliExpress (1, 2, 3, 4)

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