GONZO anime, games for sale in Singapore's online cafes [Mania.com]

Studio GONZO's teamed up with an evil multimedia conglomerate in Singapore and Malaysia, plotting to let up to five people at a time into rooms with subbed anime and online games. Not a bad idea in this downloady era, but I wish the press release woulda been, y'know, readable. :/

Anime 'n manga exhibit now open at north California museum [Ask.com]

Pretty cool even if your travel budget for the year is shot. Y'see, the Napa Valley Museum got this idea, not from attendees or nerdy volunteers, but the Executive Director himself: Rick Deragon calls manga "hip, cool, stylish, common, uncommon, mysterious, fantastic, realistic — provocative in so many ways." Rock on!

Protesters clash with police at shrine memorial [Japan Probe]

Or, sorta bounce around and yell a lot. Yesterday, on the anniversary of Japan losing the war, people traveled to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine to pray for the dead, and with 'em came uyoku (right-wing nutjobs) and other protesters. What's really interesting is that their conflict with attendent police mostly seemed for foreign media's benefit.

Tetrapods on and along Japanese beaches [Pink Tentacle]

So THAT'S what those things in Katamari Damacy were!! (Nice photos.)

TV Tokyo: 18.1 billion Yu-Gi-Oh! cards sold [ICv2]

Some remarkably high sales figures here, with a little mention of a Guinness Book petition for Most Cards Sold or similar, if that's even a category. They also brag about how Pokemon and Naruto are pretty popular. Hard to argue with two trillion yen, ain't it?

Sento, a Japanese bathhouse photo series [PingMag]

I really loved this set of Japanese bathhouse photos by a German woman who chronicled some of the culture and, yes, naked ladies in the Japanese families that still go to public baths. NSFW by default, and no porn-star boobies, but still a great read.