White Rabbit Press

The winners of the Japan Foundation (London) Japan Webpage Contest for Schools 2010 have now been announced, with the site created by Ballyclare Primary School in collaboration with their partner school in Japan, Tomei Primary School, taking first place.

• All finalists
• Winning site

The contest, which saw submissions from 32 schools across the UK, gave schools teaching Japanese or doing any projects related to Japan a chance to share their work with the world. The sites were judged by a panel of representatives from the British Council, the Embassy of Japan, CILT – the National Centre for Languages, Japan Foundation London and Northgate High School.

White Rabbit Press was delighted to be able to support the competition by providing participants with sets of Kana Flashcards to help with their future studies.

Congratulations to all of the schools that took part – we were really impressed by all submissions, and encourage our readers to check out the many imaginative sites now online.

TOKYO – Apr 19th, 2010

White Rabbit Press is pleased to announce that the first volume in its Tokyo Realtime guided audio tour series has been nominated as a finalist in the 15th annual Audie Awards.

This prestigious competition, organized by the Audio Publishers Association, celebrates the best in spoken word entertainment. Tokyo Realtime: Kabukicho has been selected as one of five finalists in the Package Design category, where it is up against industry heavyweights such as BBC Audiobooks America.

Tokyo Realtime audio tours provide a new way to explore the city’s most interesting neighborhoods. Interweaving narration and insider interviews within a soundscape of location ambience and music, they deliver a seamless mix of adventure and cultural insight while navigating real-world spaces. In addition to the 65 minute mp3 CD, the nominated package includes a waterproof map and a full-color booklet of area photography.

White Rabbit Press Creative Director and Tokyo Realtime producer Max Hodges created the series out of a desire to make Tokyo more accessible to visitors. Seeing a market for personal tours provided by experts, Max assembled a team of local insiders, passionate about their neighborhoods, and worked with them to create these unforgettable augmented reality audio adventures.

Uninspired by off-the-shelf options, Max worked with local printers to design an elegant new packaging form that is low- waste, yet substantial enough to earn a spot on customer’s bookshelves. This prototype was then passed to Tokyo-based designers AQ, who developed a striking, easily recognizable look for the series.

“We worked really hard with Max to make sure every element, from photography to typography, paper stock to ink, came together to express the unique culture of Kabukicho and delight the user, from the first time they crack open the case to when they’re actually taking the tour.”

Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice, praised the tour: “A decade ago as a police reporter for Japan’s largest newspaper, I was assigned to the 4th district, home of Kabukicho, and never forgot some of the crazy things I saw there. For a behind- the-scenes look at Japan’s seedier side, without getting mired in the sleaze, you can’t do any better than this tour. A wonderful insight for strangers into a very strange land.”

About White Rabbit Press
With customers in over 80 countries, Tokyo-based White Rabbit Press is widely recognized for producing outstanding Japanese language products. With the launch of the TOKYO REALTIME audio tour series, White Rabbit Press continues to receive praise for making Japanese language and culture more accessible to the world.

Download the press release

Download the full media kit

Here at White Rabbit Press we’re delighted to team up with Japan’s No.1 English language newspaper – The Japan Times – to mark the launch of their new community site Tokyo.JapanTimes

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Amongst the photos on Tokyo.JapanTimes are some taken by White Rabbit Press staff – Creative Director Max Hodges spent several hours standing in Meguro River to get these shots, whilst Marketing Director Joseph Tame spent 4 hours on top of the city’s highest skyscraper to get these photos.

To celebrate the launch, we’ve joined forces to give away some great prizes including:

• 3 x Prize pack 1: Tokyo Realtime Akihabara + Kabukicho tours as a set
• 2 x Prize pack 2: Kanji Flashcards Volume 1 + Kabukicho tour as a set
• 2 x Prize pack 3: Kana flashcards + Kabukicho tour as a set
• 2 x Prize 4: Huge (A0) kanji poster

We’re also giving away the grand prize of a US$200 Gift Certificate for use in our store! This can be used for any of our own products, or 3rd-party products.

Entering the competition is easy – if you have photos or stories of life in Tokyo just start posting them on Tokyo.JapanTimes – 12 winners will then be chosen by the Japan Times when the site officially launches next week.

The physical version includes a CD with mp3 audio, a waterproof map and a 20-page full-color booklet of area photography

With TOKYO REALTIME: Akihabara, visitors and residents alike can experience a unique behind-the-scenes tour of Tokyo’s ‘Electric Town’, a subculture hotspot for anime, games, manga, maids and more.

Assisted by his sentient GPS ‘Navi’, Akihabara expert Patrick W. Galbraith, author of The Otaku Encyclopedia, guides visitors through all the must-see places. Patrick provides historical background and cultural insight along the way, as well as breaking down insider jargon such as otagei, moé and itasha.

The release of TOKYO REALTIME: Akihabara marks the second volume in the highly-acclaimed Tokyo Realtime audio tour series. Interweaving narration and interviews within a soundscape of location ambience and music, Tokyo Realtime audio travel guides deliver a seamless mix of adventure and cultural insight while navigating real-world spaces.

“Producer Max Hodges has assembled a crack team of über-geeks from Japan and abroad to navigate Akihabara’s alleys and decode its mysteries. The audio guide is an illuminating portal into the neighborhood’s colorful history and vibrant currents of contemporary pizzaz.”

- Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica

This Akihabara audio tour features guest commentary by:

• Patrick Macias, author of Cruising the Anime City & editor of Otaku USA Magazine
• Danny Choo, pop-culture blogger & Tokyo Stormtrooper
• Kaichiro Morikawa, Meiji University professor & author of Learning from Akihabara
• and others

This 57-minute tour, available from White Rabbit Press, includes a CD with mp3 audio, an area map (printed on durable, waterproof paper) and a 20-page full-color booklet of area photography. Listeners simply transfer the audio program to their iPod, iPhone or any other portable mp3 player, go to the starting point shown on the included map and press play.

TOKYO REALTIME: Akihabara represents the second volume in the Tokyo Realtime series which launched with an audio tour for the Kabukicho district, Japan’s most imaginative entertainment zone. Each expert guided tour is brought to life through music, sound effects, location ambience and guest commentary from local personalities.

Additional details and audio previews are available on the Tokyo Realtime showcase site: www.TokyoRealtime.com. A media kit with images, sample audio and an interview with narrator Patrick W. Galbraith and producer Max Hodges is available for download here.

About White Rabbit Press

With customers in over 80 countries, Tokyo-based White Rabbit Press is widely recognized for producing outstanding Japanese language products. With the launch of the TOKYO REALTIME audio tour series, White Rabbit Press continues to receive praise for making Japanese language and culture more accessible to the world.

For further information, or to schedule an interview with Patrick W. Galbraith or the tour producer, Max Hodges, please contact:
Joseph Tame
Media and Communications Manager
joseph@whiterabbitpress.com

White Rabbit Press has joined the Twitter movement!

Follow us @WhiteRabbitJpn for news from our Tokyo office, to see kanji in use on the streets of Japan in our ‘Kanji in the Wild’ photo-tweets, and for the chance to win White Rabbit Press goodies!

See you there!