Ever found yourself out and about and suddenly in need of a guide to Japanese mushrooms?

If you recognise this situation and are an iPhone / iPod touch owner, you’ll be pleased to hear that help is now at hand.

The Japanese publisher Shogakukan has recently released ‘Japanese Mushrooms: The basic 50 types’ [iTunes 230yen]

There’s also been a fair bit of online coverage of their forthcoming sushi app, sushi neta zukan (illustrated sushi encyclopedia), which is to debut in the app store in January. However, as has been pointed out elsewhere, if you simply can’t wait there are already a couple of sushi apps for iPhone / iPtouch out there, Sushimonger and SushiTime.

Whilst writing this, the most interesting thing I discovered was that whilst Shogakukan is widely known for its distribution of films such as iChi the Killer, it’s company profile reads:

Though it is not possible for publications to solve the world’s problems, they are capable of sowing small seeds that move people’s hearts in a positive direction. It is the task of publications to sow seeds that bear fruit in our lives and bloom as flowers. That is our philosophy.

Hmm. I’m not quite sure how sadistic violence and rape fit in there…