The Oscar win for documentary “The Cove” is not getting much applause in Taiji, the port city in western Japan where Louie Psihoyos and his crew secretly filmed the annual dolphin slaughter.

“This film has mistakes of fact,” mayor Kazutaka Sangen told local press. “I’m surprised that it won the award even though its content is not truthful.”

Tokyo-based Medallion Media will release the doc in Japan this summer.

The official PV for one of the two a-sides from Berryz Koubou’s 22nd single titled Otakebi Boy WAO! has been released.
Members at time of release:
Shimizu Saki (Captain) (清水佐紀)
Tsugunaga Momoko (嗣永桃子)
Tokunaga Chinami (徳永千奈美)
Sudou Maasa (須藤茉麻)
Natsuyaki Miyabi (夏焼雅)
Kumai Yurina (熊井友理奈)
Sugaya Risako (菅谷梨沙子)

Not only does s/mileage(スマイレージ) have an Official site, but twitter accounts and personal blogs of each member as well have all been started. The Hello!Project band is trying to be more involved with their fans by giving their fans more of what they want – themselves. The site has videos, twitter feeds, bios and you name it. Now all of the members from S/mileage have some sort of public blog either on Gree or on Ameblo which will allow fans to keep up with their daily lives. …

Kirsten Dunst is eating up Akihabara in a new video which covers the Vapor’s “Turning Japanese.”

Pictures of her were taken a few months back in cosplay and “Akihabara Majokko Princess” must be the final result. The famous Japanese artist Takashi Murakami produced the video.

If, you have gotten off the train in Yoyogi, you may have noticed the guys and sometimes gals in black and leather with their hair either greased or sprayed to perfection. Yoyogi Park is home of the Tokyo Rockabilly Club. The video above spotlights them and was the official music video for Nothing to Worry About. The first single off the album Living Thing by Peter Bjorn and John. The video was directed by Andreas Nilsson and Filip Nilsson.
Get the song on

Every year Ueno Zoo performs an animal escape drill. Not sure I would want to be the guy in the tiger suit, though. Tokyo has had it’s fair share of monkeys in subways. Other metropolises have their animal antics as well. One of the latest was a zebra escaped from a circus walking along 285 in Atlanta.

The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) is endemic to Japan, where it is known as Ōsanshōuo (オオサンショウウオ/大山椒魚?). With a length of up to almost 1.5 meters (5 ft),[2] it is the second largest salamander in the world, only being surpassed by the very similar and closely related Chinese giant salamander (A. davidianus). It is considered near threatened by IUCN, and is included on CITES. It can be found on the islands of Kyushu, Honshu, Shikoku in Japan.
Gi­ant sala­man­ders, some grow­ing up to 5-​feet in length, face a …

An anti-whaling activist from New Zealand is in custody on a Japanese vessel and will be taken to Japan to face charges after secretly boarding the ship as part of a protest, officials said Tuesday.

Peter Bethune, a member of the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd activist group, jumped aboard the Shonan Maru 2 from a Jet Ski on Monday with the stated goal of making a citizen’s arrest of the ship’s captain and presenting him with a $3 million bill for the destruction of a protest ship last month.

Vocaloid Hatsune Miku dances and sings to “Ren’ai Circulation,” a song by Kana Hanazawa.

So how about a look at Valentine’s Day in Japan?
Chocolate love and the art of giving here is a totally one-way street with men being the receivers, but it has it’s rewards one month later for the women on White Day.