These days, I see a lot of plushies. They are soft toys that people can collect. Some are characters from anime and manga. Others are dolls of popular singers and idols. Junior high school and high school students in Japan often attach them to their bags. Sometimes, there are so many plushies that you can hardly see the bags! When I was growing up, we didn’t have those kinds of plushies. We had stuffed animals like teddy bears, and we kept them at home. Then, zoos and aquariums started selling different kinds of stuffed animals and fish. At Disneyland, they even sell jumbo-sized characters of Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. What about you? Do you collect plushies and put them on your bag? Or do you have stuffed animals and keep them in your room? Send me an email and tell me your answers.    (145 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on

I walked half a kilometer underground from Nagoya Station to an office building the other day. It was nice because I didn’t have to go outside in the hot weather. Large cities like Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya all have large underground areas with shopping streets and passages to buildings. Even on extremely hot days, you can keep cool moving around underground. Although these underground areas are big, the biggest underground street networks in the world are in Canada. Montreal and Toronto each have more than 30 kilometers of underground streets. Why? Not because of the heat. Both cities have extreme weather in winter. In January, the average low temperature is -13 degrees Centigrade, and in some years, it can go down below -30 degrees! Without underground streets, these cities would probably shut down in winter.    (135 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and

When I want to relax and read something in Japanese, I choose a mystery. Most mysteries are not that difficult, and the stories are so exciting that I can’t put the books down. The last mystery I read was by Higashino Keigo. That’s why I was sad to hear the news of his death two weeks ago at the age of 68. Higashino was one of the most famous mystery writers in Japan. He wrote a lot! I think he averaged about two novels per year. Altogether he published 78 novels, and more than 20 of them were turned into movies in Japan. He is very popular throughout Asia as well, and three of his novels were made into movies in Korea.     (122 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a week, go to “Support Jaremaga” below for more

The Osu Shopping Arcade is a popular place for young people in Nagoya. Some people compare it to Akihabara in Tokyo. There are over 1,000 shops in the area, and they have many events during the year. On Saturday, there was a parade for the World Cosplay Summit in Nagoya. I missed the parade, but when I got there, one street was closed off to cars. There were trucks with DJs on top playing music, and everyone was dancing. I didn’t recognize all the anime characters, but I knew some from Ghibli and Marvel movies. One of the first cosplayers I saw wasn’t even a person. It was a meerkat, a small animal from southern Africa! It was on a leash, and it was dressed up in a happi coat.  (130 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a