Thanks to some uniquely designed mouse pads, fans of AKB48 can now place their hands where they never thought they would — right between the breasts of their favorite girls. But they’ll have to be quick. The group’s management doesn’t approve and could soon stop supply.

Yukan Fuji newspaper reports that the Chinese-made mouse pads, which feature photos of four of the group’s most popular girls — Yuko Oshima, Atsuko Maeda, Mariko Shinoda, Tomomi Itan — have proven extremely popular with fans. The AKB48 mouse pads can be purchased in game centers and arcades.

Auction prices rising…

“The mouse pad is ideal for the crazy fans, so it was all sold out. I saw them selling on a net auction for ¥20,000 each,” said one AKB48 member.

The manufacturer told the paper that copyright issues were all clear, but AKB48′s management AKS doesn’t agree.

“We were not privy to this mouse pad at all,” said an AKS spokesman. “The pictures used for the mouse pads were from DVDs, or sneakshots, so we are very upset about this. We have decided to bring this to legislative measures.”

Website Tokyo Kinky went so far as to compare the accuracy of the mousepads to real images and suggested some artistic licence had been taken.

TOKYO — A heat wave continued in Japan on Sunday, with the temperature rising to 35 C or higher at 114 observation points across the archipelago, particularly in western Japan, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The mercury soared to 37.4 C in Osaka, setting a new record for the longest streak of temperatures rising to 35 C or above at 14 days.

The weather agency forecast the heat would continue this week and called on people to take precautions against heat stroke.

Meanwhile, four people died and about a dozen others were injured across the country in mountain and water accidents, according to a Kyodo News tally.

Takeshi Isogai, a 55-year-old photographer, died after falling off a trail on a mountain in Nagano Prefecture, while Kenta Harada, a 21-year-old university student, drowned while trying to rescue two friends in Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. The two friends were safe.

At a beach in Kyoto Prefecture, Shu Oshima, a 28-year-old company employee, was found in the sea after going missing and was pronounced dead at a hospital. In Hiroshima, a 58-year-old man’s body was found at the bottom of a river.

© 2010 Kyodo News.

OSAKA — Police on Monday arrested an unemployed 60-year-old man for violation of anti-prostitution and child welfare laws after it was discovered he was allegedly employing high school girls as prostitutes.

According to Osaka investigators, the suspect, identified as Yasuhiro Takaoka, introduced around 50 girls into prostitution, of whom 20 were under 18 years of age, over the past 10 years. Takaoka introduced the girls to male clients, according to a blog written by one of the girls.

A second grade high school girl who responded to his solicitations was quoted by police as saying: “Since July of last year, I have slept with around 70 clients and made about 2 million yen. I wanted money for cosmetic surgery and clothes.”

Takaoka is reported to have split the girls’ earnings 50/50 and given them some money for living expenses. He has been charged with acting as an intermediary to prostitution between two men and two schoolgirls on Feb 15, and with incitement to commit obscene acts.

News reports

TOKYO — Police on Friday arrested the daughter and granddaughter of a man whose mummified body was found last month in Tokyo but was registered as alive, on suspicion of fraudulently receiving pension payments to which he would have been entitled.

The discovery of the remains of Sogen Kato, who would be 111 if alive, at a home in the capital’s Adachi Ward drew attention to the fact that many elderly people, particularly centenarians, are in fact missing despite being registered as alive. The arrests of Kato’s relatives are the first in connection with such a case.

The daughter, Michiko, 81, and the granddaughter, Tokimi, 53, are suspected of illegally receiving up to June some 9 million yen in pension money payable to Kato as a widower after his late wife, a former teacher, died in September 2004, despite knowing he was dead, according to investigative sources.

According to the police, Kato shut himself up in his room more than three decades ago after telling his family he had wanted ‘‘to become a living Buddha.’’ He appeared to have died around the end of 1978, police said.

A senior welfare pension for persons aged 70 years or older had been paid since 1969 to Kato, who was born in 1899. However, Michiko made arrangements to receive a bereaved family pension, which is worth more, after the death of Kato’s wife, the sources said.

Kato’s eldest daughter, her husband and their two children currently reside in the house, and had rejected requests from welfare commissioners and Adachi Ward officials to meet with Kato.

Police subsequently visited the house in late July and found his remains.

The discovery of his body has prompted the state and local governments to try to confirm the whereabouts of elderly people. Hundreds have been found to be missing.

© 2010 Kyodo News. All rights reserved.

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) A male teacher in Saga Prefecture was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of stealing a woman’s underwear from a self-service laundry in Fukuoka last month while dressed as a “hot blonde in a miniskirt,” police said.

Tsuyoshi Hirano, 43, a teacher at a prefectural public school for the blind, has admitted to the theft charge, according to the police.

He allegedly took two pieces of female underwear from a laundromat in the city of Fukuoka at around 3 a.m. July 18. The underwear belonged to a 22-year-old woman.

The police said video from a security camera in the facility showed a man wearing a blonde wig, a camisole and a miniskirt taking underwear away.

After the woman returned and realized her underwear was missing, she spotted Hirano’s car parked nearby. He was in the car and still dressed as a woman.

She reported the license plate number to the police.

They said they confiscated some 150 female garments, including underwear and other items, from his home.

A pension association has filed a criminal complaint against relatives of a Tokyo man found dead at his home last month on suspicion of fraudulently receiving payments he would have been entitled to as a widower, investigative sources said Tuesday.

The complaint, filed by the Japan Mutual Aid Association of Public School Teachers, has prompted Tokyo police to investigate if the family of Sogen Kato, who would have been 111 if still alive, illegally received the pension money payable to his late wife, a former teacher, by making it appear that Kato was still alive, the sources said.

Kato’s mummified remains were found in July at his home in Adachi Ward. His family claimed he retreated to his room around 30 years ago and refused to have meals and water. He appeared to have died around the end of 1978, according to police sources.

His wife died in September 2004 at the age of 101. Since then, ¥9.45 million in pension payments have been deposited into his bank account, of which some ¥6 million has been withdrawn.

The discovery of his corpse drew attention to the fact a number of elderly people in Japan are unaccounted for. As of Aug. 4, local governments in 11 prefectures had no notion of the whereabouts of 33 people who would be 100 years old.

On Friday, the health ministry said a Nagano Prefecture man who hasn’t been seen for 30 years would be 110 if still alive. The ministry plans to soon stop sending his pension.

Kyodo News.

SHIZUOKA — Authorities said Tuesday that 23 people have been injured since Sunday by monkeys, believed to be Japanese macaques, appeared in residential areas on the outskirts of Mishima in Shizuoka Prefecture.

The monkeys bit and scratched a number of local residents. According to city authorities, there have been a number of eyewitness reports of monkeys raiding homes in search of food throughout the last two months.

On Monday morning, a housewife was bitten on the leg after a monkey opened the screen door and entered her kitchen. On Tuesday, an 80-year-old woman was attacked from behind on the porch of her house and a first-grade school girl was also injured after she was scratched by a monkey that had entered her home.

Residents say the domestic incursions are usually performed by a single, male monkey, but that they have witnessed cases in which two other monkeys stand guard outside.

The local government is cooperating with the police and fire departments to prepare traps and perform searches in an attempt to catch the simian assailants as soon as possible. City authorities are also appealing to residents to firmly lock their windows.

TOKYO — The education ministry plans to boost the number of teachers at public elementary and junior high schools by 20,000 on a net basis over eight years from next April to reduce the maximum size of a class to 30-35 students from the current 40, ministry sources said Tuesday. According to the plan, the number of students in each class at elementary and middle schools is to be gradually reduced to 35 over the first six years. The class size for first and second graders at elementary schools is to be cut to 30 during the remaining two years.

The proposal may meet with resistance from the Finance Ministry amid the nation’s acute fiscal situation, however, as it will likely cost several tens of billions of yen in taxpayer money to implement. The class size reduction will be the first since fiscal 1980, when the maximum size was slashed to 40 from 45.

© 2010 Kyodo News.

TOKYO — A total of 41,020 people were taken to hospitals due to heatstroke from May 31 to Aug 22, of whom 145 were confirmed dead right after being hospitalized, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said Tuesday in a preliminary report.

The rate of increase in the number of transferred patients is the worst since the agency started compiling relevant data in 2008, it said, urging people ‘‘to remain cautions’’ amid ongoing heat spells expected to continue through September.

By age bracket, 46.3% were aged 65 or older.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said, as of Monday, that central Tokyo experienced extremely hot days with temperature over 35 degrees four times in July and five in August, far exceeding the averages.

Heatstroke is a disorder of the body caused by heat, accompanied with symptoms of dizziness, headaches and nausea. At its most severe, it can result in death.

© 2010 Kyodo News.

TAIJI, Japan (AP) — As children in inner tubes bob on the calm waters of this small ocean cove, a 250-kilogram dolphin zips through the crowd in pursuit of raw squid tossed out by a trainer.
Niru, a Risso’s dolphin caught locally, seems unbothered by all the people and the squeals of surprise and delight. The cove is packed — it is a bright summer Sunday, and hundreds of families have come.
But in two weeks, the waters of the cove will turn blood red, as it becomes a holding pen for annual hunts that capture and kill hundreds of dolphins each year.
The ancient village of Taiji, portrayed in the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” has a long and complex relationship with the dolphin. The film portrays the dolphin hunts as a sinister secret, cruel and dangerous because the animals have high mercury levels.
The hunts are no secret in this village, however, where Risso meat sells for $10 a pound at the local supermarket. And the villagers are deeply and stubbornly proud of their centuries-old tradition, whatever Hollywood says.
“We will pass down the history of our ancestors to the next generation, preserve it. We have a strong sense of pride about this,” Mayor Kazutaka Sangen told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “So we are not going to change our plans for the town based on the criticism of foreigners.”
For Sangen, dolphins are no more special than other animals, and fishermen have the right to start their hunts when the season opens again Sept. 1. He emphasized that he did not speak directly for Taiji’s dolphin hunters, who number about 60 and hunt with the permission of the national and prefectural governments.
To activists like Ric O’Barry, the “Flipper” trainer-cum-activist who stars in “The Cove,” dolphins deserve to be protected because they are different from other animals.
“Dolphins have a brain larger than the human brain. They’re self-aware, like people and like the great apes. They’re not fish, chickens, cows, pigs or other domesticated animals,” he said while in Tokyo to promote the movie in June.
The dolphins caught in the region are not endangered. In 2008, the prefecture caught 1,857 dolphins, far fewer than in other parts of Japan, which allows about 20,000 to be killed each year. Taiji fishermen use a method called “oikomi” to hunt dolphins, banging on metal poles in their boats to create a wall of sound and herd them to shore, where they are harpooned for meat or captured alive as show animals.
Nestled around a small bay, the tiny town of 3,500 is suffused with a fierce independence. It has refused to join surrounding villages as they merge, and ignores criticism as it seeks to become an international whaling and cetacean research center.
This was the birthplace of Japanese whaling in the 1600s, and shrines to the animals dot the streets, with the history celebrated in a series of annual festivals. While dolphins can be playmates, they are primarily seen as big game animals, a perception many foreigners find difficult to stomach.
The Cove’s success has thrust the town and its traditions into the international spotlight, with much of the attention negative. Local fishermen decline comment, saying their words have too often been twisted by foreign reporters.
The movie depicts a team of environmentalists with hidden cameras as they capture bloody footage of dolphins being slaughtered. The fishermen who try to block the film crew are presented as rough goons.
Sangen and other officials say that during hunts, the cove is the equivalent of a slaughterhouse, a gory place by nature and usually closed off from public view anywhere in the world.
“We just hope that this issue can be viewed in a more realistic way,” says Katsutoshi Mihara, head of the town council.
Taiji’s pride was on display this month at its annual whaling festival, when two sleek rowboats full of men in red loincloths chased a 30-foot (nine-meter) mechanized whale around the main bay, its artificial blowhole shooting up jets of water. It is a re-creation of the old hunts, when 200 men in dozens of boats would set out with knives and harpoons to kill a whale, young daredevils diving into the sea to prove themselves against an angry leviathan 1,000 times their weight.
Crowds line the dock to watch the “hunt,” then everyone settles in for a night of fireworks, which include giant sparkly whale and dolphin outlines.
Hayato Sakurai, a history curator at the local whale museum, says the town’s past links the issue to its pride and sense of duty, although few are directly involved today.
Taiji residents also carry their history in their last names, which many Japanese adopted in the 1870s, usually based on their occupation. Twenty-five percent of the townspeople still are named Ryono, which means “sea field” and was often taken by whaleboat rowers. Descendants of harpooners are named Seiko, after their pursuit boats, and lookouts became Tomi, literally “far seeing.”
The Japanese debut of “The Cove” a few months ago turned into a battle over free speech, with nationalist groups intimidating cinemas into canceling showings even while intellectuals urged them not to back down.
The accuracy of the documentary, and the context under which people agreed to appear in it, have been hotly debated in Japan. Unlike the U.S. version, most faces are blurred out, with disclaimers added that those interviewed are not protesting or supporting dolphin issues.
Many in the town say they are unhappy with how they were portrayed. Councilman Hisato Ryono, who talks about mercury levels in the dolphins, says he was deceived about the film’s content beforehand.
Louie Psihoyos, the American director, said that he was open about the subject of the film with those he interviewed, and complaints have only come after its success and the accompanying backlash against the town.
“It wasn’t a film on dog walking. There is only one reason you go to Taiji — that’s to film dolphin hunting. That’s what we were doing,” he told The Associated Press.
The success of the movie has emboldened activists and deepened their pockets. This year, the usual motley assortment of local English teachers, surfers and save-the-dolphin activists are likely to turn out in bigger numbers than normal to protest the hunts and perhaps scuffle with local fishermen. But a major nationalist organization also says it will go to “stop disturbances by Western white people,” while a more liberal group is planning a “Peace Walk” in honor of Taiji.
Even the more sympathetic in the town government say protests are unlikely to cause any change.
“They’re not going to stop the hunts,” says Ryono.
Several years ago he helped raise the issue of high mercury levels in local dolphins, the meat of which was being fed to school children, an issue later covered in the movie. That practice was stopped and a national lab was called in to conduct continuing mercury tests on Taiji residents. The results showed some abnormally high mercury levels in the villagers, but no ill effects have been found.
Local residents mostly roll their eyes when asked about the film. Many, such as Sen Morimoto, 61, a former firefighter, are more worried about the future of the town as its younger generations leave for broader pastures; two of his three children have moved away, and the third says business at the local auto company where he works is worsening.
Mayor Sangen says that most people in Taiji are unconcerned about “The Cove” or the protests.
“People here really don’t care about this,” he said. “They’ve been living the slow life for 400 years. Even if foreigners suddenly appear, and Japanese, waving flags and saying ‘it’s terrible, it’s terrible,’ we’ve always eaten this way.”
(Mainichi Japan) August 23, 2010