October 08, 2025

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COMMUNITY

Issues

Musical act Petalhead, comprised of Jaime Alise (left) and Riku Ogura, performs at More Than Music’s beachside event in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture.

COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element

Aug 25, 2025

More Than Music makes space for creative communion

By Shyam Bhardwa

Since 2018, Tokyo-based duo Justin Sachs and Atsuko Sunaga have been organizing live shows and curating a community with shared passions.

Kinga Skiers (left) co-founded the Tokyo chapter of Food Not Bombs in 2023. The organization aims to provide the capital’s homeless population with food and other essentials.

COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element

Aug 18, 2025

Solidarity with Tokyo’s homeless residents, one day at a time

By Shyam Bhardwa

Since 2023, the Tokyo chapter of Food Not Bombs has been supplying vegetarian meals and everyday goods to homeless people across the city.

From left to right: Green Legacy Hiroshima volunteer staff Mariko Kikuchi, Tomoko Watanabe, Nassrine Azimi and Sophie Qano stand before one of the trees that survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

COMMUNITY / Issues

Aug 9, 2025

A campaign to preserve Hiroshima’s historic trees for another 1,000 years

By Patrick Parr

A total of 170 trees survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Since 2011, a nonprofit organization has been dedicated to sharing their seeds and saplings with the world.

Canadian-born Jesse Cunningham came to Japan to teach in the JET Programme, and later found opportunities to learn traditional blacksmithing in Kochi Prefecture.

COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element

Aug 4, 2025

The international artists supporting Japan’s craft legacy

By Laura Pollacco

From Kochi to Kamakura, non-Japanese craftspeople are training with local artisans and carving out a niche for themselves.

Wakana, a Japanese fan of Thai BL, visits a temple in Thon Buri, Bangkok featured in the Thai adaptation of the Japanese series “Cherry Magic.” Her media consumption kindled an interest in Thai culture and language, and ultimately led her to relocate to Thailand. “I fell in love with the whole country,” she says.

COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element

Jul 28, 2025

Boys’ love dramas from Thailand make waves in Japan

By Agnese Dionisio

Thailand has become a top producer of BL (boys’ love) dramas — and audiences in Japan are among the most ardent consumers.

Pham Thi Bich Hau (fifth from left) began translating and interpreting for the Vietnamese community in Japan in 2013, when she was working for a trainee management organization. She went on to found the Vietnam Women's Union in Japan, organizing activities like the Tet festival pictured here.

COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element

Jul 21, 2025

The mothers holding up Japan's Vietnamese community

By Nguyen Bao Anh

Online support groups and in-person events are helping Vietnamese women from all walks of life manage motherhood abroad.

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.

COMMUNITY / Issues / Longform

Jul 14, 2025

How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan

By Megha Wadhwa

Remote work is reshaping how Indian professionals navigate life, family and identity in a post-pandemic Japan.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.

Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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