With 2007 entering its final throes, now is the time to look back at Pink Tentacle’s most popular stories of the year. Here is a rundown of the top ten crowd-pleasers of 2007 (based on total page views for the year). Enjoy!

1. Rice paddy art: Photos of wonderful crop art in the village of Inakadate. (See also the harvest photos.)

2. Otaku fuel tanks: This mini-gallery of custom-made anime-themed fuel tank door decals was a hit on the Japanese internet tubes.

3. Transparent frogs: Because sometimes it’s more convenient to have see-through skin.

4. Frilled shark: This prehistoric darling became an overnight internet sensation when rare footage of the creature emerged in January. The ganked video was #1 on YouTube for days and tallied about 1.8 million views before the copyright police pulled it and shut down the Pink Tentacle account (the new account is here).

5. Extreme custom vans: Links to photo galleries of extreme custom vans.

6. Neo-Ruins: Hisaharu Motoda’s haunting lithographs of post-apocalyptic Tokyo.

7. RFID powder: Hitachi brings us RFID chips in powdered form.

8. Yuki-taro: What’s not to love about a cute robot that gobbles up snow and defecates blocks of ice?

9. Electro-conductive cement: Slightly Star Trek?

10. Japanese buzzwords: List of 60 popular words and phrases of 2007.

Continuing in this navel-gazing vein for moment, I’d also like to thank everyone who helped make 2007 a fantastic year for Pink Tentacle! Mega-kudos to all the friendly bloggers for your link love, great heaps of gratitude to the regular readers who keep coming back for more (and a one-tentacle salute to those of you who went out of your way to volunteer positive feedback), and a special shout-out to the staff of PC Magazine for listing this site among their 100 favorite blogs, to the readers of What Japan Thinks for voting this site the Japan technology blog of the year, and to the handful of TV and radio programs, newspapers and magazines that mentioned this site on their airwaves and pages.

Next year promises to be chock full of excitement, so make sure to visit again soon!

As 2006 comes to a close and Pink Tentacle celebrates its first birthday, I’d like to thank all the readers for making this a rockin’ first year for the site! In 2007, Pink Tentacle will continue to probe the less explored regions of the Japanese web in search of excitement. In the meantime, here’s a quick look back at the site’s top 10 stories of 2006 in case you missed them. Enjoy!

10. AIST develops 3D image projector — Coming soon: eye-popping signs and ads that float in mid-air. (Watch a short video of this technology demonstrated at SIGGRAPH 2006.)

9. Hiroshima engineers develop robotic carp — Robocarp!

8. Asimo: ‘Help me, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ — For many, the only thing more amazing than a robot climbing stairs is a robot falling down the stairs. Poor Asimo. This video spread like wildfire just as Asimo’s new commercials were set to debut in the UK. However, rumor has it that Asimo is playing us all for fools, deliberately taking a dive to generate buzz for the commercials before their release. Even so, Asimo may never live it down.

7. Eco-friendly bra doubles as shopping bag — Just say NO to plastic bags (and YES to braless grocery shopping).

6. Tourists bask in blue glow of firefly squid — Toyama owes its economic existence to the bioluminescent firefly squid, a fishery product that also fuels the local tourist industry. Local residents recently worked with Solid Alliance to develop a USB drive modeled after their beloved glowing beast.

5. Dekotora photo galleries — Wild Japanese art trucks!

4. Gallery of fantastic creatures — Roam the hallways of Hajime Emoto’s Museum of Fantastic Specimens.

3. Through the (zero-reflection) looking glass — Is this glass truly invisible?

2. Actroid DER2 fembot loves Hello Kitty — Fembot for rent. She ain’t cheap, fellas, so start saving your yen.

1. Device uses waves to “print” on water surface — AMOEBA (Advanced Multiple Organized Experimental Basin) writes on water. Check out this short video of AMOEBA in action.