Categories
JapaneseIdols

Miri Hanai

After the idol DVD release experience where I only had one minute to take pictures the next step was a full idol photo session I went this weekend. Once again, Danny easily convinced me to go, this time the name of the girl was Miri Hanai (花井美理). I didn’t know her, but it seems she is pretty famous in the idol world. It’s been only four years since she started her career but she has already been in more than 20 DVDs, she was the model for Metal Gear Solid 3 posters and she appeared in a Nike CM.

Danny likes Miri Hanai, so he spent lots of time taking zillions of pictures from different perspectives. I preferred the other girl who was also in the same photo session, you will have to wait to see her pictures until next week. Let’s see what I managed to take using my new Nikon D40:

miri mirihanai hanai idol girl japanesegirl japaneseidol gravure

Danny concentrated taking juicy pictures for his readers.

This time we had plenty of time, the mood was relaxed, there were many photography otakus and I had time to learn photography techniques. For example, I learned the importance of white balance, you need to setup it correctly if you want the skin color to look natural.

miri mirihanai hanai idol girl japanesegirl japaneseidol gravure

White balance setup time.

miri mirihanai hanai idol girl japanesegirl japaneseidol gravure

This is the girl I liked, you will have lots of pics next week.

If you like Miri you can continue with: video 1, video 2, video 3 and her blog.

Categories
Funny JapaneseCulture

Kancho

“Kancho” is a procedure in which you attack your victim from behind putting together both of your hands in a “kancho position” (see the pictures), the purpose is to hit your “rival’s” ass with your index fingers. When I first listened about it, I was very skeptical, I thought the guys who explained it to me where making fun of me. But yes! there is people doing kancho, it’s very popular among Japanese kids and even among asian kids in general, specially in Korea. I find it amazing that there is a word in Japanese for “putting your index fingers in someone’s anal region”, this is the slang definition for kancho that comes from the serious original meaning kancho = 浣腸 = enema. When using the slang definition you should write it using katakana -> カンチョウ.

Kancho

“Kancho” became famous on the Internet thanks to an english teacher who wrote about his experiences while teaching in Japan, he was usually the victim of many “kancho” attacks performed by his pupils. In his website you can find some hilarious texts explaining in detail the kancho phenomenon: article 1, article 2 y article 3.

Reading those articles almost 3 years ago inspired me to write about “kancho” in the Spanish version of this blog. I think it was the first time ever someone was talking about kancho in Spanish (OtakuLevel++), the day after I published the post about kancho this blog had around 200.000 pageviews!, after many years that’s still Kirainet.com’s PVs record in one day. Nothing can beat kancho? But the most interesting thing is that the buzz I created surpassed the virtual world barriers and entered the real world, Spanish kids started knowing about “kancho” and performing it!. I noticed it because I was receiving many emails from Spanish teachers talking to me about it! I was indirectly influencing a hole generation of kids with Japanese “culture” ^^ (OtakuProudnessLevel++).

Years have past and there is much more information on the net about kancho. Right now there are even two sites making money from kancho: kancho.jp and kanchono.com. I like kancho.jp, specially the kancho university section where there is a very detailed explanation on how to kancho.

If you want to have fun while traveling through Japan, when you see a bunch of Japanese kids in a temple or wherever, just say “kancho!!!” and enjoy the reaction. Watch next video where a kid performs a kancho on his teacher.


In this video you can appreciate the whole process to perform a good kancho. If you are not tired you can continue watching kancho movies here.

Kancho
For those of you who are Naruto fans, I’m sure you know the Thousand Years of Death technique, it’s a kancho.

There is even a kancho world cup championship, I found it while reading the manga “Inachu“.

Kancho
Kancho world cup, 1995 edition.

Kancho
Kancho battles during the “kancho world cup”.

Kancho

Kancho

Kancho
Look how the “receiver” prepares himself 🙂

Those images are extracted from Inachu manga. But there there is even weirder stuff, there is an arcade machine that allows you to kancho!!

Kancho

This arcade machine was created by a Korean company and presented at Tokyo Game Show in 2000. It seems it was well received by the Japanese market, in the game you can choose the character you want to kancho, it seems the most popular are the “ex-girlfriend”, the “ex-boyfriend” and the “mother-in-law”.

Categories
Food

Preparing instant noodles

“Instant noodles” are pretty common in Asia and USA but they are pretty unknown in Europe, don’t know why. “Instant noodles” where invented by Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin, the biggest instant noodles producer in the world.

“Instant noodles” are not a very healthy food, but what the heck! They are really useful when you are tired after a long day. It’s one of those things I love about living in Japan, and I really miss instant noodles when I’m in Spain for holidays.


Many noodle varieties.


This what you get when you pay.


Inside.


The ingredients.


Just pour some hot water. Wait some minutes and…


Final result.