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January 22, 2025
 

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CULTURE

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Akutagawa Prize winners (from left) Jose Ando, author of "Dtopia" and Yui Suzuki, author of "Goethe wa Subete o Itta," and Naoki Prize winner Shin Iyohara, author of "Ai o Tsugu Umi."
CULTURE / Books
Japan's most prestigious literary awards go to a trio of contemporary voices
Jose Ando and Yui Suzuki take home Akutagawa honors, while Shin Iyohara nabs the Naoki Prize.
CULTURE / Books
‘Fracture’ dissects 100 years of Japanese graphic design
Ian Lynam puts his kaleidoscopic expertise to work examining Japanese graphic design from an internationalist and feminist perspective.
CULTURE / Books
Guitarist Marty Friedman goes to bat for J-pop in new autobiography
"Dreaming Japanese" tells the story of how the Megadeth guitarist navigated Japan's music industry.
Jay Rubin’s new translation of Haruki Murakami’s “End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” in part set in a walled city where inhabitants’ shadows are forcibly removed, speaks to the author’s quirky, exhaustive attention to detail when rendering his imaginative world on the page.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 16, 2024
Jay Rubin takes us back to Haruki Murakami's world
By Kris Kosaka
A new translation of “End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland” brings the fan favorite closer to the original Japanese text.
"Butter," Asako Yuzuki’s thrilling novel inspired by a real-life femme fatale, was named the Waterstones Book of the Year in 2024.
CULTURE / Books / 2024 in Review
Dec 15, 2024
Women are writing a new chapter in Japanese literature in the 2020s
By Mike Fu
From the deadly serious and deeply weird to the fluffiest of diversions, a bounty of Japanese fiction in translation has delighted readers and critics this decade so far.
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2024
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
By Kris Kosaka
Ko Shinjo’s novel, a bold exploration of the twisted psyches of criminals, is best appreciated as a companion work to the recent Netflix series of the same title.
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 19, 2024
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
By Thu-Huong Ha
“The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” newly translated into English, is an explicit rerun of the author’s older works with an alternate ending.
The facade of the Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum graces the cover of Paul Tulett’s new book “Brutalist Japan: A Photographic Tour of Post-War Japanese Architecture.”
CULTURE / Books
Nov 16, 2024
Brutal beauty worth saving from the wrecking ball
By Zoria Petkoska
Paul Tulett advocates for preserving concrete Brutalist architecture in his new book “Brutalist Japan.”
Taiwanese writer Yang Shuang-zi’s novel “Taiwan Travelogue” provides a portal to the past and allows the reader to explore a bygone world with their eyes, ears and stomach.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 15, 2024
The sentimental gastronomies of ‘Taiwan Travelogue’
By Mike Fu
Yang Shuang-zi’s layered tale of female companionship takes readers on an epicurean frolic through Taiwan's colonial era.
Izumi Suzuki’s autobiographical novel “Set My Heart on Fire” is the first novel by the author and actor to appear in English.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 12, 2024
‘Set My Heart on Fire’: Izumi Suzuki captures the heady cravings of youth
By Thu-Huong Ha
The cult writer’s autobiographical novel follows its unapologetic groupie narrator as she romps through Yokohama’s underground music scene in the 1970s.

Trump pledges to save U.S. from 'decline,' vowing new 'golden age'
U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Monday.
Cedar pollen is already in the air in Tokyo
Climate change and urbanization are believed to have contributed to the earliest ever observation of cedar pollen in Tokyo, on Jan. 8, an expert says.
What went wrong at Fuji TV's news conference on allegations against Nakai?
Fuji TV President Koichi Minato speaks at a news conference on Friday in Tokyo.
BOJ likely to raise rates this week in absence of immediate Trump tariffs
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda is still signaling caution ahead of the central bank's January meeting.
Survey finds 80% of people want to take leftover restaurant food home
52.0% of people questioned in a survey said they want to use containers to take leftovers home if they are provided free of charge, and 28.8% showed willingness to use takeout containers whether they are free or not.
Japan looks to learn from the past with bid to build Australian warships
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Mogami frigate, of the class of the same name, is anchored at the MSDF's naval base in the city of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in September 2022.
Amid rising world hunger, a Japan-inspired group in Kenya is making a big impact
Wawira Njiru, the founder of Food4Education, serves food during the opening of a new kitchen in Mombasa County, Kenya, in 2022. The organization started in 2012 by feeding 25 children out of a single kitchen. Now it feeds nearly half a million every day.
From Tokyo to Manhattan, Takuma Watanabe stirs up a stiff drink
It's taken Takuma Watanabe little time to establish himself as one of New York's hottest bartenders.
For tourists in search of seasonal sights, Yamagata makes its case
For some time away from Tokyo's suffocating urban sameness, Yamagata Prefecture is home to a soothing array of natural abundance.
A slow dive into ‘a moment and an eternity’ with Ryuichi Sakamoto
From the mid-2000s onward, Ryuichi Sakamoto created a number of installation works, often in collaboration with Shiro Takatani, of multimedia art collective Dumb Type.

Podcast

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

Longform

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.
Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go
By Kazuaki Nagata and Richard Meyer

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