Check out this music video by Asobi Seksu, a New York based band, entitled "Walk on the Moon". By the way, "asobi seksu" is a Japanese term meaning "casual sex".

A couple of years ago, Japanese mother Makiko Ogawa's son found kindergarten a traumatic experience. He hated school and every time she took him there he would cry himself silly. In order to comfort him, Makiko started making special "charaben" lunches for him.

"Bento" is a Japanese term for a boxed lunch, which can be homemade or bought in a store. "Charaben" means character bento. In other words, Ogawa shapes and decorates the food to look like anime characters or cute little animals, etc.

Ogawa is so good at making charaben that she has fans all over the world. She has even been approached by corporations that want to commission her work. While she is flattered by the attention she still sees her charaben primarily as a show of love for her children. She has a blog in Japanese:

http://cuteobento.blog43.fc2.com/

If you just want to see pictures of her bento she also has a Flickr site that has English captions:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuteobento/

I will be adding her Flickr page to my website under "Japanese Sights & Sounds". She says she updates it about every two weeks. She encourages you to leave comments in English.

Podcast manga review of Yotsuba volume 6 by Kiyohiko Azuma. Translated by Amy Forsyth. Originally published in Japan by Media Works. Published in the US by Yen Press, $10.99, Rated All Ages.

From the back cover:

Yotsuba's getting a biiike!! Didja know the wheels of a bike go round and round and round and round...oh, Yotsuba's getting dizzy...whoooa...

My Grade: A+

Here's a cool video shot on the streets of Shibuya that Danny Choo turned me on to. Backed by simple instrumental accompaniment, it shows some of the interesting people you might see just walking around the area:

Shibuya Faces from eleven23 on Vimeo.