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November 26, 2024
 

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Scallops from Hokkaido are served at an event in Sao Paulo on Sunday to promote Japanese seafood.
BUSINESS
Jan 15, 2024

Japan promotes fishery products at event in Brazil

The move is meant to cut reliance on the Chinese market after Beijing banned seafood imports from Japan last year.
Takashimaya's managing director, Kazuhisa Yokoyama, holds a news conference on Dec. 27 in Tokyo to address the issue of damaged Christmas cakes that were delivered to hundreds of customers.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 16, 2024

Collapsed cakes and the price of perfection in Japan

As its labor crunch worsens, Japan might see more cases of skimping or slipshod quality.
In his new memoir, “Rental Person Who Does Nothing,” Shoji Morimoto describes his journey to becoming a professional blank page, citing his own posts on X (formerly Twitter), where he reflects on his transactions to nearly half a million followers.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2024

‘Rental Person Who Does Nothing’ finds value in just being

In his new memoir, Shoji Morimoto describes his unique business model: Do nothing for his clients.
A nursing student (Kotone Furukawa, right) is terrified by the bizarre goings-on in her hometown in “Best Wishes to All.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2024

‘Best Wishes to All’: Home is where the horror is

Yuta Shimotsu’s first feature about a small town gone mad delivers shocking frights but its message fails to surprise.
The final 10 contestants of the reality show “The Debut: Dream Academy” in November. The show aimed to select the members of a new global K-pop girl group.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2024

K-pop without the ‘K’ just won’t pop

The BTS hiatus may have slowed K-pop down, but the answer isn't to take the Koreanness out of it. If not, all that's left is run-of-the-mill pop.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced his resignation after eight years in office on New Year’s Eve, 1999. His chosen successor was then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who succeeded him.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2024

Putin’s search for a usable past

Money was the one thing that would animate his reign. It was clear from the start that the businessman took precedence over the politician in Putin’s personality.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel speaks during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 18, 2024

U.S. envoy to Japan vows to continue calling out Chinese ‘hypocrisy’

Emanuel also gave a speech on what he described as Japan’s “groundbreaking accomplishments” in fields such as defense, economic growth and diplomacy.
Rising directorial star Sho Miyake's new relationship drama, "All the Long Nights," centers on two colleagues (Hokuto Matsumura, left, and Mone Kamishiraishi) who form a bond when they discover they both struggle with health issues.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 19, 2024

Familiar faces return to the big screen in 2024

Amid a roster of hits such as "Demon Slayer," “Doraemon” and “Detective Conan," Japanese cinema gets a little more inclusive in the year ahead.
Cars drive past a damaged road, in the aftermath of an earthquake, in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jan 18, 2024

Japan rings in 2024 with an unwelcome disaster

Join us for the first episode of 2024 as we recap the massive New Year’s Day earthquake and its impact on the people of Ishikawa Prefecture.
Just over 100 days after Oct. 7, enduring pain is a key reason why polls in Israel show consistently high support for its military offensive in Gaza.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 19, 2024

Enduring pain keeps public support for Gaza war strong in Israel

The support comes despite optimism fading over whether Israel can achieve its stated goals.
Sudki Mansour is the 40-year-old owner of Bisan, one of Tokyo’s only Palestinian-style restaurants.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jan 22, 2024

From restaurant roots, expat dreams up a Palestine in Yamanashi

Sudki Mansour is the owner of Bisan, one of Tokyo’s only Palestinian-style restaurants, and a Palestinian-influenced campsite in Yamanashi Prefecture.
Rie Qudan speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Wednesday after being awarded the Akutagawa Prize.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 19, 2024

Akutagawa Prize draws controversy after win for work that used ChatGPT

Rie Qudan won Japan’s most important prize for early career writers for “Tokyo-to Dojo-to,” a novel that “exposes the prophecy of the AI generation.”
Newly appointed Australia head coach Joe Schmidt outside Rugby Australia's head office in Sydney on Friday.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Jan 19, 2024

New Zealander Schmidt confirmed as new Wallabies coach

Schmidt takes over for Eddie Jones, who acrimoniously quit in October after the team's calamitous World Cup campaign and was quickly hired to coach Japan.
A mid-19th century ukiyo-e woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi depicts Xu Fu’s voyage in search of the elixir of life. He can be seen near the left side of the image, with what looks to be Penglai, or Mount Fuji, in the background.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Jan 20, 2024

Eternal pursuits: A history of Japanese quests for immortality

Whether it's a permanent state of meditation or feasting on mermaid, the quest for immortality in Japan isn't too far off from those in other cultures.
The Tsukuba Geo Museum is a hands-on exhibition facility.
ESG CONSORTIUM
Jan 22, 2024

New geopark museum, cycle park showcase Tsukuba’s attractions

The Ibaraki city of Tsukuba in November launched a new facility, Mt. Tsukuba Gate Park, that focuses on promoting the charms of the Mt. Tsukuba Area Geopark and supporting Japan’s cycling culture. City officials stationed there explained what the facility offers and how they aim to nurture the civic...
Ryoji Ikeda’s “mass,” a site-specific installation at Helsinki’s Amos Rex museum, presents a stroboscopic video of black concentric rings that fill a square on the floor by rapidly expanding outward.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 20, 2024

Ryoji Ikeda adds to his universe of data in Helsinki

The Japanese composer and multimedia artist’s exhibition in Finland features two new site-specific installations that take advantage of the museum's unique interior space.
A single mom in Kobe moonlights as a sleuth in Simon Rowe’s “Mami Suzuki: Private Eye.”
CULTURE / Books
Jan 21, 2024

'Mami Suzuki: Private Eye': Kobe sleuth's colorful mysteries take readers around Japan

Simon Rowe’s straight-talking detective cuts a sophisticated figure as she solves matters the police won’t touch, all while looking after her young daughter and mother.
Journalist Shiori Ito sheds a tear as she speaks to reporters outside the Tokyo district court on Dec. 18, 2019, after hearing the ruling on a damages lawsuit by her, accusing a former TV reporter of rape.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 21, 2024

Japanese journalist brings lonely #MeToo battle to Sundance

Shiori Ito's fight for justice is the subject of "Black Box Diaries," a documentary she herself directed.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' campaign will be studied by the political world as an example of what not to do: Strategy miscalculations, financial mismanagement and a failure to fashion a likable candidate.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 22, 2024

How the DeSantis 2024 campaign unraveled: Hubris, infighting, awkward moments

The political world will study his campaign as an example of what not to do.
Takahiro Taya, the 10th-generation representative of lacquerware shop Taya Shikkiten in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, holds a lacquerware bowl discovered from a workshop destroyed by a quake on New Year's Day.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 22, 2024

Wajima-nuri shop resolved to protect craft after quake

When the shop started a crowdfunding campaign, donations — and many encouraging messages — came quickly from all over the country.
Hindu devotees gather in a procession on the eve of the opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, India, on Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2024

The slow death of India’s brief secular democracy

The opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, India, presided over by Prime Minister Modi culminates Hindu nationalism's ascent over secularism in Indian politics.
Toshiya Ikehata (center) helps prepare rice balls at a community kitchen in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 7. Ikehata runs a fine-dining restaurant in the city, which was among the hardest-hit areas in the Noto Peninsula earthquake.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2024

Shattered lives, unbroken spirits: Chefs step up to serve Noto communities

Fine-dining chefs rise to the challenge of feeding disaster victims in the hardest-hit areas of Ishikawa Prefecture.
An Oppenheimer film poster at AMC Lincoln Square Theater in New York in July
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jan 24, 2024

'Oppenheimer' to be shown in Japan, eight months after meme outrage

The release date is almost eight months after memes mixing visuals from the film "Barbie" with atomic blasts provoked anger from people in Japan.
An aspiring pianist who was blinded in a traffic accident (Minami Hamabe, right) finds a devoted protector in a mute custodian (Ryosuke Yamada) at her music college in “Silent Love.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2024

‘Silent Love’: Formulaic romance strains credulity

Unlike “Midnight Swan,” Eiji Uchida’s previous film that raked in awards, the director’s new melodramatic romance lacks depth and nuance.
Two lovers on the run (Misa Wada, left, and Takahiro Fukuya) wrestle with poverty and a monstrous mutant appendage in Taichiro Natsume’s “The Beast Hand.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2024

‘The Beast Hand’: Splatter movie has more soul than guts

Misa Wada proves a standout in Taichiro Natsume’s surprisingly soulful low-budget horror flick.
Taylor Swift attends the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California, on Jan. 7.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 27, 2024

Outrage over deepfake porn images of Taylor Swift

One image of the U.S. megastar was seen 47 million times on X, the former Twitter, before it was removed Thursday.
Gold badges distributed to Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly members after the April 2023 election. The prices for both types doubled from four years ago.
JAPAN / Politics / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Feb 19, 2024

Gold assembly badges worth millions of yen unreturned in Kyushu

Each elected member receives a new badge for every election and is supposed to return them on losing an election or retiring from politics.
Following the death of manga artist Hinako Ashihara, X users are going in search of clues, treating the internet as a virtual crime scene — and appointing themselves the arbiters of law and order.
CULTURE / Wide Angle
Jan 31, 2024

The internet goes in search of blame after the death of Hinako Ashihara

To piece together what happened, social media users are going in search of clues, treating the internet as a virtual crime scene.
The thick, supposedly lucky sushi rolls of Setsubun are full of it.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 31, 2024

How a trendy sushi roll usurped the traditions of Setsubun

The lore around “ehōmaki” sounds just whacky enough to make it an old custom, but it turns out to be a fairly recent phenomenon.
The most relevant measure to gauge plastic bag use isn’t how many carriers get used, but how much material is consumed and how much pollution is produced in their making.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2024

Plastic bag bans have failed in every way except one

Reusable plastic bags need to be used 52 times before its environmental impact drops below that of a disposable one, according to a 2018 Danish study.
Bluesky is booming in Japan — mainly for reasons other than U.S. politics
According to Similarweb, average monthly user numbers for Bluesky on Android in Japan quintupled in the 12 months to October.
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.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat
Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
AI boom makes 139-year-old cable maker Japan’s hottest stock
Fujikura's headquarters in Tokyo's Koto Ward. The company's share price has surged by more than 400% this year.
Japan and U.S. to form missile plan in case of Taiwan emergency
A U.S. Marine Corps M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and a Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force Type 12 Surface-to-Ship Missile (12SSM) system are put on display at a symposium at a base in Kisarazu, Japan, in June 2022.
Bluesky is booming in Japan — mainly for reasons other than U.S. politics
According to Similarweb, average monthly user numbers for Bluesky on Android in Japan quintupled in the 12 months to October.
Are you leaving your loved ones digital legacies or headaches?
The National Consumer Affairs Center reports a growing number of consultations regarding "digital legacies" — data and online services left behind when people die.
How Japan can exit the fossil fuel subsidies it can’t seem to quit
A man walks past a gasoline station in Tokyo on Thursday.
Corporate donations remain sticky point in political reform talks
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba addresses a meeting at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters on Thursday to discuss political reform.
An iconic 32-foot doughnut might give Randy’s an edge in Japan
Randy's Donuts in Inglewood, California. Replicas of the giant doughnut sculpture will be installed, where possible, at shops in Japan.

Podcast

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

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat
By Greg Dvorak

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