Star Wars circuit board phone and train pass cases light up without batteries

See this, you must!

Daily life for many people in Japan involves taking the train, be it to school, work, or just into town for some shopping. Instead of buying a ticket every time, a lot of train commuters opt for an IC card – an electronic, rechargeable train pass which allows you to simply tap in and out of your departure and destination stations, automatically withdrawing the correct fare. But undoubtedly the coolest thing about having a train pass is getting a pass case for it.

There are pass cases for every taste and style, but we’re pretty sure this is the first time you’ve seen one that lights up when it’s tapped.

Osaka-based company, Denshi Gihan, has released a line of Star Wars themed pass cases, as well as cases for the iPhone 6/6s, featuring a blueprint design of the X-Wing in the style of a computer circuit board. Actually, the cases are real circuit boards, finished with gold plating and a super transparent resin to cover the electronic parts. The red LED light flashes when the case with card is tapped at the ticket gate. So far, it has not been tested for use with passes outside of Japan, except for with FeliCa cards in Hong Kong. The pass cases come in slack white, green, and even black, and come packaged in a gift box with its strap, for 11,000 yen (US$105.95).

The iPhone6/6s cases come with the same unique design, but these use the phone’s electrical signal to convert to electricity, making the LED light up when the signal is strong enough. You can purchase the standard case (size 138 by 68 by 10 millimeters), containing 55 electric components, for 15,000 yen ($143.88)…

…or the iPhone6/6s Plus (size 158 by 80 by 10.5 millimeters) with 67 electronic components for 16,000 yen ($153.48).

Not quite with the Force? Not to worry- you can choose the Tokyo train map train map design, which looks just as awesome, for 12,000 yen ($115.10).

You can purchase these (and many more!) items from the PCB ART moeco site here, but as they appear to only ship within Japan, if you’re living overseas you’ll need to use a reshipping service like JWS , or rely on the help of a kind friend. While it is important to remember that the train pass case hasn’t been tested for overseas compatibility, the iPhone case at least should be universal. And there’s sure to be no one who can match your style!

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Rocketnews 24 edited by JWS

Source and images: Denshi Gihan

Star Wars jackets are the perfect combination of fashionable and geeky!

“Wear me, you will. Looking good, you will be.”

Fans of Star Wars and traditional Japanese clothing, your day has come! These new hanten, traditional short-sleeve Japanese jackets, perfectly mix old and new without going overboard in any direction. Called “和Robe” (“Wa-Robe” or literally “Japanese-style Robe”), the jackets come in beige, ivory, and black and you’ll have two designs, which feature different images on the inside of the jacket, to choose from. One jacket sports an image of Yoda on a rock looking contemplative and is available in beige only, and the other offers an image of the poster for the original Star Wars film, which you can have in black or ivory.

▼ Calm and serene or…

▼ …vibrant and badass!!

Of course, it might seem odd to put the graphics on the inside of the jackets, but we think it helps maintain a good balance. And each one features “Star Wars” in large, bold letters on the back of the collar, so your love for the franchise is never totally hidden.

▼ Also, you can do this “action star” pose in photographs!

▼ He wouldn’t look out of place on Tatooine, would he?

▼ The three jacket colors and lettering

In addition to the jackets, a juban shirt (basically a Japanese-style undershirt) will also be available with a print that features both the Millennium Falcon and X-wing fighters. You can pair these undershirts with one of the Wa-Robes for a truly Star Wars-themed torso!

▼ The bold lettering probably isn’t necessary here…but who’s complaining?

The Wa-Robes and juban shirt won’t be available until June, but you can pre-order them now on Trove. The jackets are 19,440 yen each (about US$177) and the juban shirt is 11,880 yen (about $110).

Rocketnews 24 edited by JWS

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Sources: Trove

Let the force clean your teeth.

In an era  of electric toothbrushes, sensodyne, dental floss and jetwashers to keep our teeth clean, there is still a place for the humble toothpick. Back in good old Mesopotamia and the Roman empire, toothpicks were the main means of dental hygiene, and the fact that they ate little sugar made them sport those fantastic white Hollywood smiles..(this is a historical fact, we at JWS take our facts seriously, using all kinds of trustful sources like Gladiator and Ben Hur.)

Look perfect teeth right?

Nowadays though the toothpick would be fighting  a losing a battle against our high-sugar diet, but thanks to our improved dental cleaning methods, the toothpick can sit down and take it easy and only makes it appearance on the dinner table.

But now you’re sitting opposite of your date eating a delicious dinner and just when you want to smile about something she said, you feel that there’s something stuck in your front teeth…with your tongue you try to pry it loose, but to no avail…you look at your dish trying to figure out what it could be, if it’s white she might not notice, but ah your eye falls on the little black sesame seeds on your dish and you know that you have a problem….

How you wished that you had paid attention to this site..you would have known about the tooth saber from Bandai.

This is maybe the second best thing to a real light saber for getting rid of unwanted food particles in your mouth.

It’s genius really, you have this little Darth Vader figure on your table, looking all mysterious, and when you pull the lever on his back, he’ll hand you a toothpick hidden in his cape.  There are a total of 10 toothpicks hidden in his cape.

It’s genius for other reasons too, you can finally put a Star Wars figure in the living room without anyone making a fuss,and  if you run out of talking material, you can say “let me show you a  trick”, and fill up another 10 minutes with conversation.

Of course toothpicks also make for great finger/fork substitutes.

The Darth Vader ToothSaber is now up for pre-order with estimated release in June, and the price is 2,627 yen.

Get it now or let us get it on Amazon Japan

Hirano Tomoko JWS

 

 

 

 

 

Star Wars collectible 1/6 scale figures.

Only the true die hard Star Wars fans need to apply, because with a price card of approx. 30,000 yen ($280,-) and a long waiting time(delivery July 2016), this product is not for everyone.

Let’s see what you get for this money and patience;maker Hot Toys created  a truly detailed (I mean detailed with a capital D), 33 centimeter figure with now less than 30 movable body parts. Metal parts are created with multi-layer coating according to today’s top-class technological standards and they applied the “weathered “look to the whole figure as to give it the “yeah I’ve done some serious butt kicking” look. Facial expressions are realistic and the light sabers light up.

Now you can you make your own Star Wars episode, it won’t come cheap, but definitely not as much as the original movie.

38,000 yen-31,920

They come in several versions Kylo Ren,Captain Phasma, First Order Flame trooper, Rey and Rey with BB-8, a storm trooper and a heavily armed storm trooper, Tie Pilot,  Darth Maul and finally Darth Vader..

35,000 yen

29,400 yen

37,800 yen

We checked around a bit and the prices are not always the same on each site, sometimes showing a difference of $7,- or more over the original price so it’s a good idea to let us do the digging.

Froovie

Blister Toys

These figures are only meant to be sold in Japan, but that never stopped any serious collector worth his salt right?

 

Honey, there’s a deathstar floating in my whiskey!

Have you seen it?　We have and it was awesome, much better than we expected…but after we came home the reality of real life settled in quickly..yeah I played with my light saber mimicking to be a jedi, but without any storms troopers to slice and dice the fun wore off pretty fast.

That was when my better half suprised me with a “high ball”, ready to drink my reality away I took a sip and just then I looked in the glass to see a very familiar shape bouncing in my yellow gold bourbon…it was the Death Star! I looked at the missus and she gave me wink…”I know you needed something special to cheer you up after the movie” was all she said.

1,080 yen

 

That was all what had to be said, these silicon ice tray are a must have for every Star Wars fan, they are detailed and they have hole in the top in which you can put a stick and create your own Star Wars ice Popsicle!

It also comes as BB-8, but is still up for pre-order

1,296 yen release date March 2016

They also have silicon ice trays which are not completely 3d

The Milinum Falcon

1,080

1,080 yen 110mm×150mm×33mm

 A gigantic R2-D2

1,620 yen 228mm（H)×180mm（W)×57mm（D)

Small R2-D2

1,080 yen 10mm×150mm×23mm

 

The deathstar costs 1,080 yen ($8) and BB-8 costs 1,200 yen, cheap as chips and shipping won’t cost you a fortune either

A really big frozen Han solo, I mean big as in big!

1,680 yen 272mm（H)×約152mm（W)×約65mm（D)

You don’t need to use these as ice trays though if you use your imagination you can create something like this;

They have plenty more at Kotobukiya craftmanship. And yes they have a (be it limited) English website, but you can’t order through them….but you can through us and we even throw in the points you earn for you to keep!

Check out their Star Wars page, it has some really cool stuff.

For the ice trays you have to visit their online shop

JWS japanwebshopping website renewal.

Let me first thank you all dear customers/friends who have been putting your trust in our service, without your help we’d all be working for other companies and we wouldn’t enjoy our jobs/lives as much as we do now.

We’ve been  getting the most surprising and unusual requests and thereby expanding our horizon in what you want and we learn what makes our fellow human being tick. Communicating with folks from all around the world has been a challenging at times (we had to bring in a part-time Spanish speaker/translator  and on a rare occasion a Russian translator), but besides  these rare hiccups, chatting with you through Skype/WordPress/mail and Facebook has been a blast.

We also value your input a lot, and a common complain was that our website loaded like snail…our mistake was that we tried to put as much information and connecting links in it as possible, thereby creating a headache for those without high speed internet access.

So we went a bit simpler this time, and changed the look to a more material/metal look. The pages load a bit faster and it’s definitely easier to the eye. Our love for manga and anime are also more present this time around.

 

 

This dark metallic look continues in the separate product pages.

We still haven’t completed the whole site yet though(especially the Japanese section), but we’re working hard to have it finished before Christmas.

Thank you all so much for your patience and in the meantime we will continue to be the best/safest/cheapest (and most personal) personal shopper for you.

Japanwebshopping.com

JWS

Official ukiyo-e project brings a bit of historical Japan to a galaxy far, far away

Japan is just as crazy about Star Wars as the rest of the world and everyone is eagerly awaiting the new movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, on December 18, 2015 (Good news! It’s being released in Japan at the same time as most of the world!). So it’s the perfect opportunity for a number of Star Wars affiliated projects to get under way. One project is striking a chord with our love of Japan and our love of Star Wars as it combines a traditional art form with a very non-traditional universe.

The connections between Japan and Star Wars are well documented and quite amazing. Even visually, just by looking at Darth Vader’s iconic helmet you can see that it was inspired by the headgear helmets worn by the samurai in the way it extends down the neck and features a faceplate. It’s also easy to find Star Wars merchandise with their own Japanese spin on them like lightsaber chop sticks, Star Wars inspired sake cups and Star Wars characters re-imagined in a Japanese style.

This latest project, funded through the Japanese crowd funding site Makuake, puts a traditional stamp on the Star Wars universe. While the characters have been drawn in an ukiyo-e style before, this might be the first time prints have been officially approved by Lucasfilm. Three gorgeous prints combine the epic Star Wars tale with the beauty of Japan by depicting scenes and characters from the movies.

The real gem of the bunch is the close-up okubi-e of Darth Vader. An okubi-e is a Japanese portrait print in the ukiyo-e style showing only the head or the head and upper torso.  Masumi Ishikawa, the designer of these ukiyo-e, wanted to arrange the Death Star like a moon in the background and have Darth Vader standing in the middle of flames of hatred. This print also includes the name “Darth Vader” represented by ateji, kanji that sounds like the name. Usually the characters are chosen for their sound only, but these kanji have a meaning as well. Ishikawa chose the ateji, 堕悪巣俾荼 which can be read as “daasu beida“ and also has the meaning of a “suffering servant that fell to the webs of evil”.

The other two prints feature a scene from the Battle of Hoth and Queen Amidala posed with R2-D2. Each piece of artwork is intricately crafted in wood and then expertly printed onto paper. You can see some of the work in a behind the scenes video from their Makuake page.

As traditional art and an official Star Wars product, the ukiyo-e prints are not cheap. A single print can be purchased by supporting their Makuake project for 54,000 yen (US$ 438.84), while a lucky few have already purchased the limited run of all three prints for 162,000 yen ($1,316.54).

If you have the money to spare, this might be the most traditional Japanese way to display your geekiness to the world. The Makuake campaign just started, but each piece is only being printed 100 times and they are going fast. Head on over to their project page if you want to own one of these amazing pieces of art for yourself.

Update: Darth vader and the 3 piece set are sold out for now, while the other two are close to being sold out.

Let us know if you want to own a very unique piece of art, don’t think too long though.