Just like the regular toy there are two versions, black and white, both available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Touch the Otamatone’s mouth to make music, tilting your phone to change the pitch. The Otamatone app can also “follow” your sounds and you can record your efforts too. As the video below declares, “Let’s Performance!”

The app costs ¥350, $2.99 (US/CA) or €2.39, and can be downloaded from the iTunes Store.

[Via Tokyo Mango]

SNOW mag is teaming up with graniph to offer readers free t-shirts every month. But this isn’t just any old giveaway: graniph wants your input into their product line!

To enter you have to introduce them to an artist (illustrator/designer) you would like to see working with the retailer. This is a real way to recommend a talented person to the actual graniph design panel. Their designs could potentially become a future t-shirt.

Anyone from anywhere in the world can enter, and likewise the artists don’t have to be Japanese.

You can tweet or email recommendations to enter the competition. See SNOW mag for more.

No doubt with this stereotype in mind, the Japan Racing Association has been trying to re-vamp its image since 2008 with a series of TV ads featuring popular and good-looking celebrities. Now it has also launched Keiba Cinema, a web 2.0 campaign that lets you try the racing and betting experience virtually.

Through the site you can watch and take part in the “Japan World Cup”. However, it’s not true to say that you will learn what makes up a typical day at the races. This is very tongue-in-cheek, with wildly incongruous animals (giraffe, zebra and more!) and some very unorthodox riding technique. The one I watched finished with a circus performer winning while standing on their steed. More Wacky Races than the Emperor’s Cup!

As if one expensive Flash site wasn’t enough, JRA has also recently launched “Love and Horse”, which lets you tweet just how much you adore equestrians. They’ve naturally enlisted plenty of comedians and celebrities, since apparently no advertising campaign in Japan is complete without at least a gaggle of TV personalities.

But do TV commercials with Yu Aoi and fun interactive websites actually make you want to go out and see a race?

[Via Kokoku Kagi.com]

One of their newest products is the Mamemo, a funky electronic memo pad. Just sit it on your desk, and write and store all your notes and to-do lists digitally. There are no buttons; you control everything by the stylus and the touchscreen.

As you can see from this video the colorful little notepad is very easy to use with the matching stylus, and you can of course write in whatever language you like.

The Mamemo is currently only available in Japan but you can order it online from the JapanTrendShop.

We saw over on TokyoKinky.com (NSFW) this post about the Count Machine Onahole (NSFW) — a masturbator that measures how many times you, ahem, “prime the pump”.

This is an adult toy that is certainly useful if you are looking for pleasure and exercise at the same time, or for those of you who are just competitive in everything you do!

And you all know famed wrestler/porn star Hiroshi “Chocoball” Mukai, right? Apparently he achieved a record 426 times in a minute!