Latest news with #WasedaUniversity
Tokyo Weekender
a day ago
- Automotive
- Tokyo Weekender
Tamiya Chairman Shunsaku Tamiya Dies Aged 90
On Tuesday, Tamiya Inc. announced the passing of its chairman and former president, Shunsaku Tamiya. The man who helped turn the plastic model company into a globally recognized brand died on July 18, aged 90. A private funeral service has already been held in accordance with his wishes. The company added that it will release information about potential memorial events in the coming days. Tributes came pouring in from around the world following the announcement. Among those to pay their respects was Takashi Namba, the mayor of Shizuoka city, where Tamiya was born. 'I would like to express my deepest sadness and heartfelt condolences,' said Namba. 'He developed the company into a global brand for plastic models and was the driving force behind making Shizuoka city a 'city of models.' I truly respect him.' Remembering Shunsaku Tamiya Born in 1934, Tamiya started making model cars at a young age and was instantly hooked. 'You can't understand how excited I was to see the model I made running. I was in the fifth grade of elementary school when the war ended. I made the motor myself using dry batteries and I was so satisfied when I hooked it up and started swinging it,' said Tamiya at a Shizuoka hobby show last year. Tamiya joined the family-run business, then known as Tamiya Shoji LLC, in 1958 after graduating from Waseda University. Appointed head of the product planning division two years later, he initially focused on wooden designs, before Tamiya shifted to plastic model manufacturing. The company started to attract global attention in 1968, when it participated in the Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany for the first time. Taking over from his father as company president in 1978, Tamiya helped turn the family business into one of the world's most well-known model kit companies. Some of Tamiya's most famous products include its first electric-powered radio control led (RC) car, the Porsche 934 Turbo model, released two years before he became president, and the and the fast Mini 4WD racers, introduced in 1982. Nobuo Tamiya, the husband of Shunsaku's granddaughter, took over as president last year. Discover Tokyo, Every Week Get the city's best stories, under-the-radar spots and exclusive invites delivered straight to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy . Related Posts Dragon Ball Creator Akira Toriyama Passes Away at Age 68 Noriko Ohara, Voice of Doraemon's Nobita Nobi, Passes Away at 88 Princess Yuriko Dies Aged 101
The National
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Arigato from Japan: Emirati guides win fans at Expo 2025 Osaka
Under tall columns that replicate palm trees, beaming Emirati guides invite millions of Japanese visitors to the popular UAE pavilion at the Expo 2025 Osaka. Emiratis who have mastered the Japanese language strike up long conversations with Japanese residents in Osaka that go well beyond warm greetings of konnichiwa (hello), yokoso (welcome) and arigato (thank you). The UAE pavilion at the world's fair has welcomed more than two million visitors since it opened in the Japanese port city in April. A small team of Emiratis are the driving energy behind the pavilion and represent the country as youth ambassadors through the six-month global event that ends in October. Meznah Al Ansaari, 24, said immersing herself in Japanese culture connects her with the country. She learnt the language in 2019 when she spent more than a year in Tokyo and went on to study for a bachelor's degree in international relations. 'Japanese is one of the most difficult languages in the world but very fun to learn which eases the process,' said the Emirati who graduated from Tokyo's Waseda university a few weeks before the Expo opened in Japan. 'The reason I chose Japanese is because, growing up like many Middle Eastern child, I watched a famous Japanese animation called Spacetoon. For people who want to speak on a more advanced level, I suggest a technique called immersion which is basically immersing yourself in the language through listening. One of the ways I did that was by re-watching the Spacetoon anime in Japanese.' She enjoys bringing the UAE pavilion to life by talking to visitors from all across Japan about traditional architecture, food and culture. 'This pavilion is a multisensory experience. When you enter, you see towering pillars, you also smell a pleasing scent bakhoor and smell the palm trees. You can touch sand and taste Emirati food in the restaurant. I tell people welcome, we are waiting for you.' Japanese fans The guides wear the traditional Emirati kandura or abaya and are a crowd favourite with many Japanese families asking them to be part of group photographs. Visitors are often surprised to hear Emirati guides speak fluent Japanese. They ask detailed questions about hand-carved incense burners, listen intently and ask for more information about exhibits from a black and white traditional loom to the UAE's space programme. 'I like their enthusiastic energy and confidence in speaking Japanese,' said Hayase Okuhira, an accountant from Kyoto. 'We took lots of photos with them and we do want to visit UAE now.' 'It's really cool that they are so young and speak Japanese so well,' Eri Sachi, a Tokyo mother of three. 'My children asked so many questions and they learnt a lot because the guides could explain in Japanese with so much description.' Emirati Alia Aleissaee, 29, enjoys expanding people's knowledge about the Emirates. 'When we mention the UAE, some people have an image that it's all desert, but actually we also have oases like we show in the pavilion. The theme is 'From earth to ether' and that represents how we aim for the sky while we are rooted in our culture and traditions,' said the sales engineer who works in a Japanese company in the UAE. She taught herself Japanese in the UAE and is upgrading her skills at the Expo. 'I never had the opportunity to talk with native Japanese speakers before I came to Osaka. I always wanted to live in Japan so this is a learning experience and I'm excited,' Ms Aleissaee said. 'Every day at the Expo I meet new people, learn new stories, share our culture and tradition.' Ties with Japan Many Emirati guides have deep educational ties with Japan having studied in the country. Ahmed Al Darei completed his bachelor and master's degrees at the Tokyo University of Technology. 'When I was young, I got really interested in Japanese culture, especially things connected to manga, ninja, samurai. I knew when I finished high school, I would go to Japan to study. This was my dream and I made it came true – now I'm speaking Japanese to the Japanese,' said Mr Al Darei, on a sabbatical from work at the UAE Space Agency. The question he gets asked most is about the 90 columns that replicate towering date palm trees spread across the glass-encased UAE pavilion. 'They ask, 'what is this made out of?' I tell them in Japanese how these beautiful columns are made out of date palm tree waste. I'm really lucky to be able to speak in Japanese and introduce our people, beautiful country and the amazing projects to visitors.' His advice to is for people to learn a few words of the language when visiting Japan. 'Even if you speak a little Japanese, the people are very warm and will open up to you. Start with greetings like – hello or konnechiwa and the magical thank you which is arigato. 'Learn to say your name or ask how much is this? Once the Japanese people see you are doing your best, they are happy and you will have a good time.'
The Mainichi
2 days ago
- Automotive
- The Mainichi
Chairman of Japanese toy model maker Tamiya dies at 90
SHIZUOKA (Kyodo) -- Shunsaku Tamiya, chairman of Japanese plastic model kit maker Tamiya Inc., known for its radio-controlled cars and Mini 4WD models, has died, the company said Tuesday. He was 90. Tamiya, who died Friday of undisclosed causes, was credited with raising the global profile of the Shizuoka-based toy maker. While the funeral was held privately by close relatives, the company plans to hold a memorial event. The Shizuoka native long served as the company's president, helping raise his hometown's standing in the plastic model industry through trade and hobby shows, according to the maker. After graduating from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1958, he joined Tamiya Shoji & Co., which was then operated by his father, Yoshio. Tamiya became president of the company in 1984 and was named chairman in 2008.
Japan Today
4 days ago
- Japan Today
Caves are Japan's last unexplored frontiers
By Michael Hoffman For all the good that can be said of modern life – and much good can be said of it: it's fast, efficient convenient, stimulating, automated, virtual, comfortable, healthy, materially abundant if you've money (and money is to be had if you work hard, play your cards right, resist extravagant temptation and aren't uncommonly unlucky) – there is something, and very few fail to feel this at one time or another, missing at the core of it. What? Easier to feel it than name it. Brutus magazine (July 15) asks a pertinent question: 'Why do people still long for adventure?' Because, the short answer would go, we are adventurers at heart: hunters, warriors, explorers. We evolved that way. Then we evolved farther. Too far? Not far enough? Or in the wrong direction? Away, in any event, from adventure. Hunting even as a sport is in decline, with a resulting surge in wildlife and the threats it poses. War is still with us but not its glory; it's an evil, murderous, soulless business, a sinister survival of darker times, the sooner transcended the better. Exploring? The world is mapped, packaged, the wilderness suburbanized, the frontiers become tourist resorts. What's left to explore? You'd be surprised, is Brutus' reply in effect. Terra incognita is not extinct, just hard to get to. Very hard. A sign at the metaphorical entrance might read: For adventurers only. Adventurers – not all but most – are marked from birth. As kids they're not like other kids. Kids' stuff bores them. They bide their time. They don't know what they want. They may despair of ever finding it. Yusuke Kakuhata, growing up in rural Hokkaido in the 1970s, was like that. Later, as a student at Waseda University, he joined the exploration club and discovered the lure of remote regions. Not remote enough. He graduated and went farther. First, the Tsangpo Grand Canyon in Tibet, in 2002-3. Alone. That's the point. Solitude: a common thread linking all Brutus' adventurers. Adventure with friends is fun. Adventure alone is self-discovery. Even with friends – in extreme moments, we're alone. Tsangpo is the world's deepest canyon. The river flowing through it, the Yarlung Tsangpo, is known as the 'Everest of rivers.' You must earn your passage through an environment like this. Of his experiences there Kakuhata says, 'Tsangpo for me was simply a geographical exploration, filling in empty spaces on a map.' 'Simply.' At times he was hopelessly lost, at times face to face, he thought, with death. It's good material for a book, and he wrote one. But there's more, there's better, meaning worse, more dangerous, more extreme. And he needed it, something in him needed it. He found it. In 'polar night.' Night doesn't get blacker than at the poles in winter. 2012 found him in far northern Greenland and Canada – alone again, unless the dogs pulling his sled count as company. He came prepared, a conscientious student of Eskimo ways and Eskimo survival skills. He knew how to hunt Eskimo fashion, how to train dogs, how to live in an environment you almost have to have been born into to tolerate. Perhaps he'd been there in a previous life. For four months he trekked, on and on into the endless night. He felt at times his spiritual inadequacy. 'If my supplies ran low I'd think to myself, 'If I don't find prey I'll starve.' The Eskimo doesn't think like that. He knows he'll find prey – and so always does.' Kakuhata did too, evidently, since he lived to tell the tale – another book in embryo – the nub of which he expresses for Brutus this way: 'We who never leave daylight behind can scarcely imagine the grandeur of unending night. I kept thinking to myself, 'What will I feel when at last I see the sun coming up?'' The months passed, the sun rose – 'that feeling' – there's no putting it into words. Maybe no need to put it into words. The point is: extreme exploration is self-exploration. It's yourself you're discovering. Where are Japan's unexplored regions, where is its endless night? A narrow, crowded island country in the temperate latitudes suggests dim prospects for either – but have you considered caves? What made Katsuji Yoshida consider them? 'I don't even like caves,' he says. No wonder: 'I'm afraid of the dark.' How to explain, then, his commitment to cave exploration over the past 30 years? Fate? Destiny? The mysterious warps in the human psyche that lead us where they lead us? – not irresistibly maybe but the price of resistance is the incomplete life, the feeling at the end of it that you had something really special within reach and didn't reach. Caves are Japan's last unexplored frontiers. No one knows how many there are. You're climbing rocks, or kayaking down a river, you see an opening, maybe it's a cave; you venture inside; maybe it's a dead end; you're blocked, stymied; maybe, on the other hand, it opens before your very eyes, a world hitherto unknown, blacker than any polar night, its ground never trodden by human feet – probably by few enough animal feet – yours to discover. That's what Katsuji lives for. Born in Osaka in 1966, he knew as a child those energy surges, he tells Brutus, that lead one to pick fights for no reason and get into all kinds of trouble with the forces of law, order, convention and authority. He left high school without graduating, worked in construction, on a whim took up mountain-climbing, didn't like it, tried scuba diving, didn't like that either, and if not for caves – but how did he get into caving? He doesn't say – maybe his fear of the dark suggested an enemy within to conquer. Whatever it was, he found himself one day or night in a nameless cave somewhere in Aichi Prefecture, some four and a half tatami mats wide, and 'I'll never forget the feeling' – best not described because the reach of words, though vast, is not unlimited. Suffice it to say, as he does: 'This is what I'd been searching for!' A find that perpetuates the search, and so it remains 30 years later. Imagine this, he says: lowering yourself by rope deeper into a cave than Tokyo Tower is high, or entering a river cave on a raft; if it rains the cave fills with water, to say nothing of the danger of falling rocks or getting hopelessly lost, 'you've 30 minutes' worth of air in your tank' and a miserable end stares you straight in the face. 'Well, you have a choice: panic or stay calm.' Why force such a choice on yourself, when you could be doing a comfortable office job, drawing regular pay, living quietly at home, watching your kids grow up, looking forward to your next paid vacation and telling yourself the cost of living won't rise forever? Suffice it to say it's just what some people do in answer to some inexplicable need in them. © Japan Today
The Mainichi
4 days ago
- Automotive
- The Mainichi
Japan industry, academia team up to build hulking rescue robots
KYOTO (Kyodo) -- Japanese electronics maker Murata Manufacturing Co., Waseda University and two other companies teamed up to develop humanoid search and rescue robots as part of a wider effort to revive Japan's formerly world-leading robotics sector. The four entities, including Kyoto-based robot maker Tmsuk Co. and technology service company Sre Holdings Corp. in Tokyo, said in late June that they plan to develop a robot with all Japan-made components, such as sensors and precision instruments. The robot is designed to stand 3 meters tall, weigh 300 kilograms, walk at around 5 kilometers per hour and lift 100 kg or more. Given its demographic challenges, the companies believe disaster-prone Japan needs to develop such rescue robots. "We want to build a robot that is much stronger than a human and can move rubble," Tmsuk Chairman Yoichi Takamoto said at a press conference in late June. Japan was once a global leader in humanoid robotics, with Waseda University having developed the world's first full-scale bipedal robot, WABOT-1, in 1973. Honda Motor Co. led humanoid robotics technology with ASIMO, whose final model was released in 2011. Hoping to play catch-up with U.S. and Chinese manufacturers, the four partners aim to develop a pilot model by the end of 2026 and a mass-production version by March 2029, they said. "There are many technologies in Japan that we can be proud of," Tomotsugu Oba, a manager at Murata Manufacturing's Mobility Robotics Business Development Section, said at the press conference. Oba said the project is Japan's "first step toward the goal of returning to the global (stage)." There are no humanoid robots anywhere in the world that have been developed to replace humans in search and rescue operations, they said.
