And yes, there is a reason Mercy is dressed that way.
With Japan being home to many of the world’s most passionate gamers, Japan Railways Group periodically partners with popular video game franchises to add a little extra fun to fans’ train travel in Japan, like we’ve seen in previous tie-ups with the Final Fantasy and Pokémon series. For its next video game collaboration, though, JR Central (a.k.a. JR Tokai) is teaming up with a series that hails from the U.S.
This summer, characters from the cast of Blizzard’s Overwatch will be taking a ride on the Shinkansen as part of the Payload to Osaka campaign (a reference to the game’s “payload escort” missions). The promotion’s key art shows Hanzo, D.Va, Genji, Kiriko, Mercy, Hammond, and Jetpack Cat getting off the bullet train at Shin Osaka Station, the closest stop on Japan’s high-speed rail network to downtown Osaka. The artwork contains a few tips of the hat to Osaka’s famous food culture, with Hammond snacking on takoyaki octopus balls and Hanzo scarfing on a steamed pork bun (and you’ll note that Hanzo is eating it after getting off the train).
From July 17 to September 23, passengers onboard JR Central Shinkansen trains can take an Overwatch-themed quiz via their smartphones, and correctly answering the questions gets you one of seven phone wallpapers. While the wallpaper you win is randomized, you can take the quiz as many times as you want during your ride (10 questions are randomly pulled from a pool each time), and JR Central guarantees you won’t get any duplicate wallpapers until you’ve completed a full set of all seven.
Even if you’re not up to taking the quiz, you can still receive a PC wallpaper image of the illustration just by answering an online questionnaire, which, like the quiz, can be accessed through the promotion’s official website, while onboard the bullet train. This also serves as a record of your Shinkansen ride, which you can then show at the Osaka Nipponbashi branch of anime merchandise store chain Animate to receive an Overwatch cleaning cloth with the same illustration.
Animate Osaka Nipponbashi will also be hosting an Overwatch Payload to Osaka popup store with character pins and acrylic mini standees from July 17 to 26.
While Overwatch does have fans in Japan, the series’ most passionate supporters tend to hail from other countries. With international tourists accounting for so much travel in Japan these days, though, especially on the JR Tokai section of the Shinkansen network that connects Osaka with Kyoto and Tokyo, JR Central most likely expects to get a lot of interest from non-Japanese fans, enough so that the company felt the need to follow up on its official Twitter announcement for the collaboration with a statement that “These items are available in Japan only.”
Speaking of the Twitter announcement, at least one non-Japanese fan was furious about the clothing that Mercy is wearing in the artwork.
What is this kind of OUTFIT? ugly as hell pic.twitter.com/4wkggD4fpR
— 𓆩♡𓆪
From the choice of words and capitalization, that was probably meant as a rhetorical question, but hey, there’s actually a reason for this outfit (sorry, OUTFIT). Aside from having a vibrant food culture, Osaka is also known for its flashy fashion sense, in particular its ladies’ fondness for animal prints. Granted, it’s usually associated with women of a more mature age than Mercy, but a little touch of Osaka style isn’t completely out of place here.
Related: JR x Overwatch Payload to Osaka official website, Animate Osaka Nipponbashi
Source: JR Central via Hachima Kiko
Images: JR Central
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A video on X showing a behind-the-scenes video of a photo shoot at Tiger World Thailand has gone viral and highlighted a serious problem in the country.
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Founded in 1919 by Walter Owen Bentley in Cricklewood, London, the Bentley motor company quickly established a reputation for exceptional performance and engineering, famously dominating the 24 Hours of Le Mans throughout the 1920s with the help of the legendary 'Bentley Boys'. Following financial difficulties during the Great Depression, the company was acquired by Rolls-Royce in 1931, moving production to Derby and later to its iconic factory in Crewe, Cheshire, in 1946. After decades of being closely associated with Rolls-Royce, Bentley was purchased by the Volkswagen Group in 1998, a transition that sparked a significant revitalisation of the brand's identity as a manufacturer of luxury, high-performance grand tourers that continues to define its legacy today.
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The spots people queue for despite bad weather might surprise you.
When you live and work in a city, you tend to move through it in different ways to a tourist who might be seeing it with fresh eyes. So when Typhoon Jangmi approached Tokyo on 3 June, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the capital, locals who could work from home did just that, while others took earlier trains on their morning commute to avoid being late for work. For many tourists, though, sightseeing was still on the agenda.
Our reporter Seiji Nakazawa, who lives in Shibuya, could’ve worked from home on the day of the typhoon but decided to stick to his usual routine of catching the subway to the office in Shinjuku. That meant he was able to get a feel for what Shibuya was like, and to his surprise, it was much, much emptier than usual.
▼ The typhoon was eventually downgraded to a tropical storm, but the rain remained heavy throughout the day.
▼ In some areas there was more water than people.
Shops, streets, and even the area around the station felt strangely deserted, but there were two places where people gathered, with the first being the Dotonbori Theater.
Though most people will associate the word “Dotonbori” with the lively theatre and entertainment district of the same name in Osaka, this theatre is located in Shibuya’s Dogenzaka district, a short walk away from the station.
The retro, lantern-style sign out front is evocative of Dotonbori’s exciting atmosphere, and that excitement continues inside because this is a Japanese strip club. Popular with older locals and curious tourists, this live adult entertainment venue is restricted to adults aged 18 and over.
Bemused at the realisation that people will brave extreme weather conditions to watch an erotic performance, Seiji wondered what else might have the power to draw crowds in a typhoon-turned-tropical-storm. That’s when he saw another gathering of umbrellas right outside the station.
▼ What were they queuing for?
▼ The Hachiko statue.
Seiji was surprised to see so many people taking commemorative photos with Hachiko in the pouring rain, and what’s more, they were all foreign tourists with big smiles on their faces. As a local, Seiji usually walks by the statue of Shibuya’s famously loyal dog without giving it a second thought, but seeing the joy it brought these tourists made him appreciate its significance. It also made him realise how these people in the queue might be visiting Japan only once in their lives, and this might be their only day to see Hachiko, so his appreciation for the statue, and the tourists who braved the weather to see it, grew exponentially.
As he walked by, Seiji was struck by another surprise – the vibe of the queue. Usually, lines like these have a sense of tension to them that can make you feel a little on edge, but this one gave off a sense of warmth, due to the joy and passion of everyone in line. It was as if everyone here was living life with no regrets, and as he thought about it, that’s kind of what he felt outside the strip club too.
The pure warmth, free from negativity at the weather, transferred itself onto Seiji as he walked past the strip club and the line of Hachiko admirers. It was as if everyone’s emotions had intensified in the rain, and the energy he felt buoyed his own spirits as he dodged puddles on his way to work. He soon found himself smiling like the tourists, and as he did he realised that’s the power of Shibuya, a place that never loses its magical charm, even in the pouring rain.
Images©SoraNews24
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With the rainy season here, this umbrella companion is a Daiso-premium bargain.
Having flipped the calendar to June, we’re clearly not in spring anymore, but many Japanese people would argue that we haven’t really made it to summer just yet. That’s because we’re at the start of tsuyu, or “the rainy season,” a roughly month-long stretch of wet weather that precedes the idyllic fun-in-the-sun section of summer.
As a matter of fact, Tokyo is getting drenched with heavy rains at the time of this writing, which is why we’re happy that we recently hit up Daiso and picked up an extremely handy item that we’re going to be putting to good use in the weeks to come.
This is actually one of Daiso’s premium-priced products, costing double what the chain usually charges for its items. Of course, with Daiso being Japan’s most famous 100 yen shop, that means that the Telescopic Umbrella Cover is still only 200 yen (US$1.30), and for how useful it is, that price feels like a bargain.
Even with Japan’s excellent train/subway network, life here tends to involve a lot of walking, since you’re at least going to need to get to/from the station. But while an umbrella will keep the rain off you while you’re outside, once you head inside or onto a train, you’ve now got a sopping shaft of damp fabric that’s going to wet your clothes, or the clothes of anyone standing close to you on one of Japan’s famously crowded trains.
Daiso’s Telescopic Umbrella Cover is here to solve that problem. Essentially a plastic cup with an accordion-like construction, it’s conveniently compact when scrunched down to its smallest size, but expands to accommodate umbrellas.
Simply insert your umbrella into the cover and push until it reaches your desired length.
Daiso’s case has a number of advantages compared to the disposable thin plastic bag-style slip-on covers provided at some shopping centers and stores in Japan. For one, there’s no trash generated with Daiso’s reusable cover, and unlike the disposable versions, the Daiso cover works not only with long umbrellas with pointy tips, but shorter folding umbrellas, the kind most popular with travelers, too.
Also, when you take your umbrella back out from a plastic-bag cover, you’re left with a bag of water from all the drops that dripped off the fabric. Daiso’s cover instead has a removable cap at the tip so that you can pour out the water in an appropriate place.
And while some umbrellas come with cloth covers to be slipped over them when wet but not in use, you then end up with a soggy fabric cover that’ll need to be washed once you get home, and repeated washings can damage its moisture absorbency. On the other hand, since Daiso’s case is made of plastic, you can simply wipe off the interior surfaces and it’ll be ready to go again.
Really, the only drawback we could see is that the case didn’t completely cover an extra-large 70-centimeter (27.6-inch) long umbrella that we included in our testing, but even then, it provided a long area length of protection.
Daiso’s Telescopic Umbrella Cover even has a chain so that you can clip it to your bag for easier carrying, and with sudden showers being something that can happen even after the “rainy season” is done, we might have one of these with us all summer long.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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An old carriage house on Chestnut Street near First Street in the New Orleans Garden District neighborhood
Bogotá, Colombia – Mexican authorities have said they will tighten security around tourist sites following a shooting on Monday that killed a Canadian tourist and injured twelve others.
The attack at the Teotihuacan pyramids by a lone gunman has renewed concerns about fan safety ahead of the 2026 World Cup Games, which will be co-hosted by Mexico.
But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sought to re-assure visitors, maintaining that mass shootings are rare in the country and describing the incident as a one-off.
“Our obligation as a government is to take the appropriate measures to ensure that a situation like this does not happen again,” said Sheinbaum on Tuesday morning.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch added that state security forces had been ordered to “immediately strengthen security” at tourist destinations across the country.
The Teotihuacan pyramids are a UNESCO Heritage Site and one of Mexico’s most visited archaeological complexes.
But Sheinbaum was also careful to stress that attacks like the one on Monday are incredibly rare in Mexico: “Clearly, we all know — Mexicans know — that this is something that had not previously taken place.”
Unlike in the United States, guns are difficult to obtain legally in Mexico and mass shootings targeting members of the public are uncommon.
While Mexico has grappled for years with high homicide rates, shootings tend to happen in specific areas marked by cartel violence and rarely affect tourists.
Rather than a sign of broader security struggles, authorities maintain that Monday’s shooting was perpetrated by a ‘lone wolf’ actor driven by extremist views.
Sergio Ortiz Borbolla, head of campaigns and communications at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, maintained that Julio César Jasso Ramírez, 27, was a Nazi sympathizer inspired by other mass shootings.
“Although the investigation is still ongoing, several factors point to an ideological motive,” said Ortiz.
He noted that Monday’s shooting happened on Adolf Hitler’s birthday and the anniversary of the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in the U.S., which killed 14.
The perpetrator’s social media included posts where he performed a Nazi salute and a framed AI-generated photo of him side-by-side with the Columbine shooters was found at the scene of the attack, according to authorities.
“The incident… highlights the growing influence of extremist online communities on acts of violence, a trend that transcends national borders,” noted Ortiz.
Mexican Attorney-General Cervantes also described “a psychopathic profile of the attacker, characterized by a tendency to imitate situations that occurred in other places, at other times, and involving other individuals – this tendency can be referred to as copycat behaviour”.
Monday’s shooting is the latest headache for the Mexican government ahead of this summer’s soccer competition.
A wave of cartel violence in February, including in World Cup host city Guadalajara, sparked concerns about the threat posed by organized crime in the country.
But the government has been engaged in a push to assure visitors that the country is safe, announcing plans to mobilize 100,000 security forces this summer. It also said it will deploy an additional 2,100 military vehicles, 24 aircraft, and 33 drones.
But, as Ortiz noted, the type of violence seen in Mexico this week is “not common.”
“There is no indication that this type of attack poses a widespread risk to tourists,” he concluded.
Featured image description: The Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan – one of the largest in Mesoamerica, México.
Featured image credit: Marcelosan via WIkimedia Commons
The post Mexico boosts security after pyramid attack but plays down shooting risks appeared first on Latin America Reports.
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