A group of people fishing for kingfish last weekend got quite a surprise when a mako shark leapt onto their boat.

"What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" a couple of guys on the charter boat could be heard saying in the video below. — Read the rest

My family and I loved the movie We Are Little Zombies (see my 2020 post about it). I just found out that on September 1, Japan House Los Angeles is streaming a live conversation between the film's director, Makoto Nagahisa, and Sundance Film Festival programmer Kim Yutani. — Read the rest

I love this NSFW video that Margaret Chardiet made with collaborators Jacqueline Castel and Caroline Schub for her track Devour, from her 2019 album Devour. Check out how the grain and static works to obscure and then reveal the various scenes of flesh and destruction that flicker throughout the video. — Read the rest

For his project 'Exobiotanica,' Makoto Azuma launched a 50-year-old Japanese white pine bonsai and an otherworldly sculptural floral bouquet into the stratosphere.

Psst, hey kid. You wanna see some clips from the dissection of one of the largest mako sharks ever caught? Sure you do.

This NOAA video has amazing footage of the shark's stomach — so big it fills a tall Rubbermaid tub — and the even more amazing footage of scientists lifting an almost completely intact sea lion head out said shark's stomach. — Read the rest

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How Teenage Girls Made a Nation Cool, by Brian Ashcraft and Shoko Ueda, looks at how this archetype has become such a distinctive international symbol. Following is an excerpt, about the artwork of Makoto Aida, from the book. — Rob

Vladimir Zimakov is an illustrator, book artist, designer, and printmaker who lives in the Los Angeles area. Many of his pieces are meant to illustrate books, but they really contain their own stories. His work oozes with mood and emotion. These two linoleum cut illustrations ("The Card Play" and "Danse Macabre") are for a classic novel titled Walpurgisnacht, by Gustav Meyrink (1868-1932). — Read the rest

10-year-old Angelos Mako loved Dungeon Rampage, a simple Facebook game that had the player hack and slash their way through procedurally-generated dungeons. Fun as it was, it distracted him from troubles at home and offered an escape—until it was unceremoniously shut down. — Read the rest

Yesterday marks the passing of one my favorite musicians, Amadou Bagayoko of Malian duo Amadou & Mariam. The couple won a ton of awards over their lengthy and prolific career and I'm sure there are ample formal eulogies floating around on the internet today, so instead I'll go the more informal route. — Read the rest

Researchers from the University of Auckland in New Zealand spotted something unusual in the waters of the Hauraki Gulf, off the island of Kawau. It was a short-fin mako shark, but something was on its head. They worried the shark might be injured, so they used a drone and an underwater camera to get a closer look. — Read the rest

Kazuo Umezu, master of horror comics and a manga pioneer whose careers spanned nearly seventy years, is dead at 88. Asahi Shimbun reports that the author of The Drifting Classroom and Makoto-chan first made his debut in 1955 illustrating rental books. — Read the rest

Amazon's Fallout TV show was surprisingly good, against all odds, and it seems that they're striking while the iron is hot. A second season of Fallout is on the way, of course, but Amazon has recently announced another show based on another beloved sci-fi game: Bioware's Mass Effect. — Read the rest

After two Boeing whistleblowers mysteriously died within weeks of each other, Boeing planes continue to fall apart. One of the latest Boeing disasters — of at least three this week — happened last night when a Boeing 737 with 85 people on board skidded on a Senegal runway and caught fire before it even took off. — Read the rest

Red Cat Ramen is a manga about a ramen shop run by cats and it's delightful.

From MangaPlus:

Meet Tamako, who's found her way into an interview at a ramen shop run solely by cats. When the feline manager asks if she likes cats, Tamako admits that she's actually more of a dog person…only to be hired on the spot!

One of the top producers in Japan's anime world was arrested on child pornography charges.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, 52-year-old Koichiro Ito, a 20-year veteran who produced beautiful blockbusters such as director Makoto Shinkai's recent Weathering with You, Suzume, and Your Name, has been accused of contacting a 15-year-old girl over social media and talking her into sending him nude selfies. — Read the rest

Where did the expression Jesus H. Christ come from? And what does H stand for? Holy? Hecking? Harold?

According to Wikipedia, "One commonly held origin is as an initial for the name 'Harold,' which is mentioned by [author Roger] Smith as the basis of a variant form, 'Jesus Harold Christ.' — Read the rest

A Florida nurse who allegedly poisoned two cats and a pregnant dog faces three counts of felony animal cruelty and one of depositing poison in a public area. Polk County Sheriff's Office announced Thursday that they arrested Tamesha Knighten, 51, after the three pets were killed. — Read the rest

For people with jobs that demand a ceaseless happy face, Smile Mask Syndrome (SMS) reveals the darker side of obligatory cheer. Sufferers of SMS, primarily young women in the Japanese service industry, exhibit depression and physical ailments as a result of being forced to smile for hours on end. — Read the rest

HP wants you to print things through its cloud service, wherein you pay a subscription fee for ink and your usage is routed through its servers. To encourage you to do this, it covers the USB port on one model with a sticker with a No Smoking-style "No USB" logo on it–lest you simply plug in your printer and start printing things with it before you've endured the hard sell via network setup. — Read the rest

Photographer Kirill Neiezhmakov's hyperlapse tour of Vienna, Austria kicks off at the St. Stephen's Cathedral and goes on to explore landmarks like the Graben, Hofburg Palace, Wiener Riesenrad, Schonbrunn Palace, and more. Throughout the beautifully edited adventure, keep an eye out for Austria's elusive marsupials, which is a nod to the "No kangaroos in Austria" meme. — Read the rest