Authorities say latest quake not connected to viral manga prediction
Japan's weather agency said an earthquake that rattled small islands in the nation's southwest on Saturday was in no way connected to a manga author's disaster prediction that went viral on social media.
"It is absolutely a coincidence. There is no causal connection," Ayataka Ebita of the Japan Meteorological Agency told a press conference.
Earlier in the day, a temblor with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 struck off the Tokara island chain, the latest in a series of seismic events in the area.
Speculation has spread that Japan will be hit by a major disaster in July -- specifically on Saturday, July 5 -- based on a prediction made in "The Future I Saw," a manga authored by Japanese artist Ryo Tatsuki.
Tatsuki gained a profile after her prediction of a "major calamity" in March 2011 coincided with a catastrophic quake-tsunami that struck Japan's northeast and led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
Ebita said current science is unable to accurately predict earthquakes, and any that appear to fit the manga's prediction are purely coincidental.
"In Japan, earthquakes can happen at any time. Please be prepared always," he added.
The quake on Saturday occurred at 6:29 a.m. at a depth of about 19 kilometers, and no tsunami warning was issued. It measured upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7, the agency said.
The magnitude and depth of the quake's focus were revised from 5.3 and 20 km, respectively.
The number of quakes detected in the Tokara island chain area has exceeded 1,300 since June 21. A temblor with a magnitude of 5.5, measuring lower 6 of the Japanese scale, jolted the area Thursday.
Around a dozen residents evacuated from Akuseki Island, which has experienced strong shaking throughout the period of instability, to Kagoshima on the main island of Kyushu via ferry on Friday.
Akuseki Island has an area of less than 8 square kilometers and a population of 89, according to the local government.
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SoraNews24
3 hours ago
- SoraNews24
Japan Super Budget Dining – What's the best way to spend 1,000 yen at Saizeriya?
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Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Guilty Pleasures: Calorie-Busting ‘Sinful Gourmet Foods' Taking Taste Buds by Storm
Heavily seasoned 'sinful gourmet foods' that are high in calories and fat content and can never be called healthy have recently become popular, and these delectable guilty pleasures have often been found not only on restaurant menus, but also in corporate product promotions, manga and personal social media a recent day, Naoki Nomura, 44, the general manager of Meat & Cheese Forne, an Italian restaurant in Tokyo's Nakameguro district, asked me if I would like some cheese on top of a plate of steaming hot pasta. Nomura then placed a round piece of burrata cheese on the pasta and slit it open with kitchen scissors, and melted cheese flowed out like lava. The cheese went perfectly with the spicy tomato-flavored pasta and salty prosciutto, making the dish rich, smooth, distinctive and exquisite. A limited time variation of the Volcano Pasta, one of the restaurant's signature dishes, was offered until the end of June. The restaurant introduced the pasta on social media as the 'taste of sin.' The dish had more than 2,000 calories, but was popular especially among women who wanted to eat without worrying about their health once in a while or on a 'cheat day,' a scheduled break in a diet. 'The pasta may stimulate an emotional conflict as you want to eat something delicious while, at the same time, you are also worried about what happens later,' Nomura said. According to Emi Yamamoto, who analyzes food trends at Gurunavi, Inc., a Tokyo-based company that lists restaurant and other related information online, 'sinful gourmet foods' refers to dishes that evoke feelings of sin or guilt while providing a sense of gustatory satisfaction. Since they often feature plenty of high-calorie ingredients like meat and cheese, they also are called 'high-calorie gourmet' or 'guilty gourmet.' Menus with names that include the word haitoku, which literally means 'immorality' in Japanese, began to appear more frequently one Gurunavi's restaurant information website around the autumn of 2021, with the number of restaurants offering such dishes increasing each year. A survey of 1,000 people in their 20s to 60s found that about 60% of them had tried guilty gourmet fare, with 45% of them saying they ate such dishes as they wanted to enjoy eating meals. Thirty-five percent said they ate the food to help relieve mental stress. 'It may be an indication that people became weary of self-restraint during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. It could have been a backlash to health consciousness, too,' Yamamoto said. 'Also, the foods' extravagant appearance that looks good in photos appeals to young people who use social media a lot. Sinful foods are no longer a passing fad. They have become established as a genre of cuisine.' Spreading beyond restaurantsMarudai Food Co. jumped on board the trend in promoting its sausages. The company garnered an unexpected response when it posted a recipe on X for a late-night meal made with instant ramen, cheese, milk and its Kunseiya-brand sausages in autumn last year. The sinful Kunseiya carbonara ramen has about 1,050 calories. 'Dokagui Daisuki! Mochizuki-san' ('I Love Dokagui! Mochizuki-san') is a manga series created by Kamome Maruyono and published by Hakusensha. In the manga, Mochizuki-san, the protagonist, relentlessly eats a lot of rich, sinful foods. The ways Mochizuki-san experiences euphoria from the rapid rise in blood sugar as the result of eating are depicted with black humor. Dokagui means 'binge eating.' The manga quickly gained popularity as soon as the serialization started in May last year, leading to Hakusensha's collaborations with other companies, including Seven-Eleven Japan Co., which released bento box meals themed around the manga. 'The protagonist's pursuit of her own happiness through relentless eating in a stressful society may have resonated with readers,' said Yuta Yoshinaga, an editor in charge of the manga. Photos and videos of individuals cooking sinful gourmet dishes or eating them at restaurants are popular on social media, too. Cooking expert Ryuji, author of 'Bazu Reshipi: Mayonaka-no Haitoku Meshi' (Buzz-recipe: Midnight sinful meals), published by Fusosha Publishing Inc., also shares many recipes for sinful gourmet dishes on his YouTube channel, which has more than 5.25 million subscribers. 'In today's society, where people pursue safety and comfort, there are few opportunities in which they face danger, fear or something unfamiliar in their daily lives. They may be creating 'pseudo danger' by eating excessively high-calorie and unhealthy foods and enjoying the thrill of tasting them,' said Hideki Kiyoshima, a professor emeritus at Kindai University. 'Eating the dishes brings them not only satisfaction but also a sense of accomplishment,' the expert on modern culture said. OK once in a while According to Terue Kawabata, vice president of Kagawa Nutrition University and an expert in lipid nutrition, the recommended calorie intake per meal for women is about 600 calories, meaning having a meal of more than 1,500 calories obliges them to reduce their recommended intake by 900 calories in other meals. There is no need to completely abstain from rice to do so, for instance. You can offset the excess calorie intake without difficulty by having less sweets, soft drinks or alcohol compared to usual for about one to two weeks. Since high-fat dishes can take three to four hours to digest, it is best to avoid them before bedtime. Consuming fiber-rich vegetables with the dishes can help prevent overeating and slow down fat absorption. You can eat vegetables in another meal on the same day when it is difficult to eat them with high-fat dishes. 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Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Nihonga Paintings Express World of Classical Text ‘Manyoshu'; New Book Shows How Artforms Connect
Japanese literature specialist Susumu Nakanishi has published a book introducing the appeal of manyo nihonga, paintings inspired by works in Manyoshu, a compilation of classic waka poems of the eighth century. The 95-year-old author of 'Nakanishi Susumu to Manyoga o Tanoshimu' (Find enjoyment in manyo nihonga with Susumu Nakanishi), published by Tankosha Publishing, believes that poetry and painting are closely related. He talked about the pleasure of enjoying waka poetry together with paintings in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun. Manyo nihonga was created for the opening of the Nara Prefecture Complex of Man'yo Culture in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, in 2001. Nakanishi served as the complex's first director. The collection features work by 154 artists, including Matazo Kayama and Shoko Uemura. They depict landscapes and figures described in Japan's oldest anthology of poems. The ancient waka poetry and modern paintings meet and resonate with each other, creating vivid imagery. Nakanishi said that adding pictures to poetry is something 'essential' for human beings. The leading scholar of Manyoshu was a member of a university art club when he was a student. 'What you hear becomes literature, and what you see becomes pictures. Poetry and pictures are two sides of the same coin in terms of sensitivity, and, depending on the way we perceive nature, it becomes a picture or a poem,' he said. Manyoshu is a collection of poems by a wide range of people, from emperors to commoners. Various areas in Japan serve as settings, with many being composed by people while traveling for leisure or for example, a poem by Yamabe no Akahito about snow-capped Mt. Fuji reads: 'Tagonoura yu / uchiidete mireba / mashiro niso / fuji no takane ni / yuki wa furikeru' (When going out along the shore of Tago and looking at the lofty peak of Mt. Fuji, I see white, glittering snow on top) Inspired by this poem, Tamako Kataoka, in 'Mt. Fuji Seen from Tagonoura,' boldly depicted the mountain with a halo of light. 'The painting depicts well the deep shock the people of that period, who were accustomed to rounded mountains, must have had when they saw the sharp figure of Mt Fuji. It depicts the sacredness of the mountain, too,' Nakanishi said. He said Kataoka did not paint the mountain as it was, but instead 'broke down the concrete image of the mountain and reconstructed people's surprise.'Nakanishi also talked about colors. Shunei Nishida painted 'Losing My Way among Autumn Leaves,' inspired by a poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, which reads: 'Akiyama no / momichi o shigemi / matoinuru / imo o motomen / yamaji shirazumo' (With the lush yellow leaves of autumn mountain, I wander the mountain path seeking my lost wife) Nishida painted most of the canvas in red, depicting a landscape of autumn leaves. 'I was stunned by the bold blood-red color,' said Nakanishi. He also pointed to a small white waterfall painted in the background. Since ancient times, white has been considered a sacred color, and that is why he sees the waterfall as a symbol of an 'unobtainable, pure white soul' that Hitomaro was seeking. 'While you stare at paintings, you begin to feel as if they grow eyes and stare back at you,' Nakanishi said. The new book carries about 30 paintings and text by Nakanishi containing knowledge and thoughts about Manyoshu and columns by Sayaka Inoue, the planning and research section chief at the cultural facility. Written in simple yet profound language, the book serves as an introduction to the world of Manyoshu. Nakanishi believes that the world of poetry, which conveys something more than facts, is indispensable for modern people. He compared it to 'frills' on clothing. 'They may not serve any practical purpose but can comfort people and soothe their hearts. The role of poetry is essential to human beings,' he said. Poems in Manyoshu still stir the imaginations of people and touch their hearts. Manyo nihonga, which bring together the sensibilities of ancient and modern times, remind us of poetry's universal power.
