October 29, 2025

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COMMUNITY

Issues

The Betsukai Pilot Spirits welcomed new players (left to right) Yuta Yamanaka, Roman Guthrie, Scott Bellina and Leo Jiminian this year, pictured here with Yassir Lachkar of the Ishikari Red Phoenix.

COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element

Sep 1, 2025

Overseas sluggers step up to bat in small-town Hokkaido

By Justin Randall

The residents of Betsukai, Hokkaido — where cows outnumber people 7-to-1 — have extended a warm welcome to five players from overseas who joined the Pilot Spirits.

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.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.

Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

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