Here are a couple of new Japanese TV commercials for Kirin’s alcoholic drinks, courtesy of Japan Probe.The first is for Kirin’s Highball in the can, and features gleeful, bowler-hatted, multicultu...

I haven’t posted many bar reviews lately because I haven’t discovered anywhere ridiculous or surreal enough (although there’s a bar in Tochigi with monkey waiters that I keep meaning to visit). ...

Valentine’s Day, like everything else, has been warped by Japan’s cultural filters like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. Here’s what I had to say about it a couple of years ago.It is tradition...

Hey, I’m DJing at a wild, all-night shindig in Tokyo in a few weeks, so I thought I’d plug it here.It’s at Sangenjaya Hell’s Bar on March 21st. Should be fairly raucous and rad!Here’s the in...

I’ve had a chance to see a preview of the new film, “White on Rice”, which will be shown at the Osaka Asian Film Festival in March.The latest offering by Dave Boyle, the U.S-based Japanophile wh...

A trip to my local convenience store today revealed not one but two new chocolate-based alcoholic drinks, so I felt duty-bound to try them both and write about them here.First is Sapporo’s new choco...

A frisky octopus attacks a houswife in this Japanese TV commecial from 1980.I think it’s for some kind of anti-fungal ointment.Warning! Contains tentacles....

I wonder if George Lucas knew about this 1978 Japanese ad for “sea chicken” (tuna fish). I somehow doubt it!...

While most folks on the planet spend January staggering around, broke and bleary eyed, nursing month-long hangovers and waiting until that distant payday, the party continues in Japan.Here are some al...

Here’s a treat for Japanese readers- a clip from” Colpo Grosso”, a sleazy Italian game show from the 80s, in which some naughty ladies sing the “Chin Chin” song. “Cin Cin”, of course, me...

Here’s a video I shot for my friends’ fine band, The Harpy’s, edited by my mate, Miles. The song’s called “Tut”.(Before you ask, that apostrophe in “The Harpy’s” is theirs, not mine....

It’s time for all the shops to re-open for their post-Christmas sales. Ouside a clothes shop in Shibuya, I spotted the sign below, with a rather novel sales pitch....

Last night I met a Japanese guy with “More Beer” tattooed across his beer-belly. He was proudly displaying it in a live-house for all to see. Apparently he uses it to order beer in foreign countri...

Whenever I have a rummage through the CD sections of Tokyo’s recycle shops, it’s always there, without fail: “Scatman’s World” by Scatman John. There are usually multiple copies, always pric...

I wrote a couple of pages for this nice new travel guide to Japan (my bit’s about drinking and bars, naturally.)Be sure to snap it up if you’re thinking of travelling in Japan.It’s very tasteful...

Here are some recent alcohol-related news stories from the land of the rising sun. First off, Hokkaido’s wacky Abashiri brewery has made blue beer using water from melted icebergs drifting over from...

Another season, another pair of bizarre beverages in Japan, courtesy of the world’s premier competing cola companies.This Autumn, Pepsi’s odd offering is Azuki Pepsi. Azuki is a sweet red bean, of...

I’ve just discovered a soccer team with a great name.FC Drunkard are based in Yokohama, and evidently play under the influence of a lot of alcohol. Well, it never stopped George Best!...

Mari at “Watashi To Tokyo” has posted some groovy Sapporo commericals from a few years ago, featuring amazingly agile and dextrous beer-drinkers, leaping about in Matrix-style slo-mo.But when I’...

Wow! Evidently Japanese TV was much cooler in the 1970s.Playgirl Q was like like Charlie’s Angels “with nudity and sexual content.” Nice! It was shown on TV Tokyo from 1974-1976, and actually pr...