Grand romantic gestures typically fall into three categories: the ones that work, the ones that don't, and the ones that will land you in prison. A Japanese man is in hot water for the last one after police say he admitted to slashing the tires of some 1,000 women in order to strike up a conversation with them.

Ah yes, Akihabara. When you think of Tokyo's "Electric Town", you probably think of retro game shops, arcades, and a sea of anime, manga, and collectible figurines. Add go-karts to that list.

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake devastated the town of Namie in Fukushima. The surviving residents still cannot return to their homes. The area has been evacuated due to radiation.

Remember going to school as a little kid? Specifically, think about that moment in the morning, waiting outside in the cold, barely awake and wondering if you actually did your math homework or just dreamed you did. Now picture seeing the school bus come lumbering down the street to collect you. What's the feeling in…

Not to be outdone by Volkswagen, Toyota is slated to sell a nerdy car of its own: a Toyota Auris customized in the image of Gundam character Char Aznable.

I don't know about you folks, but when I go on vacation, I prefer to lie on a beach with waves lapping at my feet. A frosty beverage of a refreshing adult nature might also be involved.

Automakers are at their best when they are at their boldest. Building unconventional cars, entering into markets that are new to them, trying their hands at a different form of auto racing, creating some ridiculous niche vehicle — that's when they make the cars that people remember decades down the road, even if they…

The Toyota Crown is Japan's evergreen domestic luxury car and it has been as boring and conservative as you'd expect. It's like the Japanese Cadillac XTS. Now, though, there's something about the new generation car that tickles my enthusiast ball sack, and I think I know what it is.

Japanese tuners are a mischievous bunch, what with their zany paint jobs, tiny hellaflush wheels, obscenely loud exhaust systems and everything else they do.