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November 25, 2024
 

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Mike Sunda

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Mike Sunda
Mike Sunda is a music writer focusing primarily on electronic music and the Tokyo club scene. He graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England with a degree in Japanese and has been contributing to The Japan Times since 2010.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 14, 2015
China Online
To paraphrase a blundering local politician quoted in this book, Chinese must be one of the easiest languages to learn — why else would nearly 1.4 billion people speak it?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 24, 2015
Caribou explains reasons behind the songs on his 1,000-track playlist on YouTube
The worlds of indie and club music are hardly irreconcilable, either in difference or distance, but it can often be hard to spot crossover success that extends beyond one-off hits or remix packages.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015
Message trumps the medium at JMAF
When Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase "The medium is the message" in the mid-1960s, the ensuing dialogue on media theory encouraged an approach that persists to the present day: to examine new types of technology through the societal and cultural changes that they engender.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015
Ruben Pater: Current advancements in drone technology are worrying
Dutch artist Ruben Pater discusses drones and survival in the modern age:
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015
Kazuhiro Goshima: The sheer amount of information in 4K ‘exceeds’ reality
Japanese artist Kazuhiro Goshima discusses film, movies and everything in between:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 31, 2015
Hallucinating in print with Keiichi Tanaami
Prolific is a word that hardly does justice to Keiichi Tanaami. Born in Tokyo in 1936, Tanaami has worked ceaselessly, imparting a lasting legacy on the landscape of Japanese Pop Art. He has been described as "Japan's Andy Warhol," but unlike Warhol, Tanaami's works are consistently psychedelic; full...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 15, 2015
Documentary festival delivers an encore to Tokyo audiences
Last November, Japan Times film critic Kaori Shoji predicted that the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival's (YIDFF) program of screenings would slant toward sociopolitical analysis, focusing on substance over style. Audiences must have welcomed this weighty exposition of the documentary...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 10, 2015
Yoshitaka Amano: The World Beyond Your Imagination
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 25, 2014
'Kawaii' gets a landmark
While Japanese cool hunters might lament the lack of pop cultural exports in recent years — all the more conspicuous when compared to K-Pop's successful forays westward — kawaii (cute) culture has quietly permeated into global consciousness with all the effortless grace of singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 20, 2014
Rivers
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 16, 2014
Rock, J-pop and dance: Albums we liked in 2014
The year-end album charts in Japan have a tendency to prop up the same acts year after year: Exile, anything that ends in a "48," and almost every group from the Johnny & Associates stable of boy bands. Writers at The Japan Times, however, spent the year looking past the charts to find a few gems lurking...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 19, 2014
Musician Rory Viner turns Japan's suicide statistics into a song
Train delays due to jinshin jiko, which euphemistically translates to "human accident" — often a suicide on the tracks — are far from an infrequent occurrence in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 29, 2014
Two weddings and a 'Funeral' at Fuji
It's hard to know what the organizers at Fuji Rock Festival were thinking when they decided to have Jack Johnson headline the main stage on the event's last day. Not the infectious cheer and endearingly kitsch theatricality of The Flaming Lips, who performed directly before, or even the guaranteed singalong...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 29, 2014
Jungle: 'When you write a song certain people want to hear ... that's when you start making crap music'
As Jungle, Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland — who go by 'J' and 'T' — produce classic soul and funk with an unmistakably modern feel to it. The duo has also been racking up fans and YouTube hits alike with a series of strikingly idiosyncratic, dance-oriented music videos. Jungle recently launched...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 1, 2014
Leftfield J-pop, '70s influenced rock and shadowy R&B: Our favorite albums of 2014 (so far)
In his Strange Boutique column last week, Ian Martin wrote about the need for a canon in Japanese music in order for newcomers to the scene — especially those writing about it — to gain some context into what is being released.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 16, 2014
Dommune welcomes British broadcasting platform Boiler Room to Tokyo
It might not be a substitute for experiencing music in a night club, but the live-streaming medium has become increasingly popular over the years, offering viewers a chance to watch their favorite DJs from the comfort of their own bedroom.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jun 5, 2014
Cheer on the Samurai Blue at events across the country
It may be nicknamed the "beautiful game," but these days it can sometimes be hard to see soccer as anything but ugly.
Japan Times
CULTURE
May 31, 2014
Essential summer festivals 2014
A summer without festivals simply wouldn’t be a proper summer in Japan, so now that the humidity has returned, it’s time to slop on an extra layer of sunscreen and line up some outdoor activities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 13, 2014
N.O.R.K. muddies the gap between indie and R&B on 'ADSR'
Japan's electronic-music scene has long seemed to suffer from a stylistic and unbridgeable gap between popular and independent music — one side characterized by overzealous polish, the other by lo-fi charm. In the case of N.O.R.K., the two sides have collided in spectacular fashion.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 1, 2014
LA lifestyle gives starRo a new take on making music
Video-chatting with Los Angeles resident Shinya Mizoguchi toward the tail end of a particularly testing Tokyo winter, it's hard not to feel a twinge of jealousy. I deliberately avoid defaulting to my typically British weather-related opening gambit of small talk, but it's not long before the topic is...
Taiwan stuns Samurai Japan to capture Premier12 title
Japan starter Shosei Togo reacts after allowing a three-run home run against Taiwan in the fifth inning of the Premier12 final on Sunday.
Woman dies after train collides with car in Tochigi
A Moka Railway train car
Japan beats Taiwan ahead of rematch in Premier12 final
Keita Sano celebrates with his teammates after scoring on Kotaro Kiyomiya's two-run triple against Taiwan during their Premier12 game at Tokyo Dome on Saturday.
Tokyo’s newest three-star chef wants ‘harmony across every detail’
British-born Daniel Calvert earned his third Michelin star last month — a stunning achievement considering his restaurant, Sezanne, has only been open for just over three years.
'Kohaku' still matters for J-pop bragging rights
Emerging Gen Z J-pop group ME:I will perform on this year's "Kohaku Uta Gassen," national broadcaster NHK’s New Year's Eve spectacle.
Tokyo’s newest three-star chef wants ‘harmony across every detail’
British-born Daniel Calvert earned his third Michelin star last month — a stunning achievement considering his restaurant, Sezanne, has only been open for just over three years.
133-year-old Kyushu railway station remains to be partially preserved
The remains of the original Moji Station in Kitakyushu
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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