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Jargal Lhagvasuren practicing an aerial routine at the Mongolian Circus School in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on May 18. Contortionists and acrobats with celestial skills train in squalid conditions as the promise of a former sumo wrestler to restore the national circus to its past glory has gone mostly unfulfilled.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 26, 2023

Mongolians are circus stars all over the world, except at home

The promise to return state circus in Ulaanbaatar to its former glory remains unfulfilled, forcing trained performers abroad.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son speaks at the SoftBank World 2023 corporate conference in Tokyo on Oct. 4.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 31, 2023

Will generative AI speed up Japan's digital transformation?

An initially cautious attitude has given way to wider acceptance in the public and private sectors, providing a boost to digitalization efforts.
Indian migrant women in Tokyo often face stifling social expectations. In contrast, they may feel empowered in more egalitarian societies like Berlin.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 3, 2024

How patriarchy perpetuates among Tokyo’s Indian migrants

Indian migrant women in Tokyo struggle to break free from the patriarchal structures they experienced back home. But in Berlin, a different picture emerges.
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.
Ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, resentment lingers over the handling of ticket sales last year that saw many locals priced out.
OLYMPICS
Jan 23, 2024

French gloom clouds Paris Olympics, six months from start

Several recent announcements have led to a spike in negative publicity for the sporting mega-event, which will start in just six months.
The Rurikoji temple pagoda is currently wrapped in tarps for renovation, which is scheduled to be completed by 2025.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2024

Yamaguchi rushes to prepare for tourists after New York Times pick

Only 9,000 foreign tourists visited Yamaguchi in 2022. Is the city ready to receive an influx of visitors?
Demonstrators hold a rally to honor the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2024

The lonesome death of a Russian opposition leader

The prison where Navalny died, Nicknamed “Polar Wolf,” is a freezing cold gulag for violent criminals. But Navalny — an anti-corruption lawyer and blogger.
Warriors guard Stephen Curry drives to the basket during a game against the Wizards on Tuesday.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Feb 28, 2024

Stephen Curry is battling the clock to win over sneaker fans

Curry, 35, is still a commanding presence in the NBA, but he has work to do when it comes to winning over "sneakerheads."
An employee organizes baby supplies at a store in Siheung, South Korea, on Tuesday. A lack of babies is speeding up the aging of South Korean society, generating concerns about the growing fiscal burden of public pensions and healthcare.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 28, 2024

South Korea keeps shattering its own record for lowest fertility rate

The number of babies expected per woman in a lifetime fell to 0.72 last year from 0.78 in 2022.
A young woman (Atsuko Maeda, right) reveals a traumatic event from her past to a one-night stand (Ryota Bando) in “Voice.”
CULTURE / Film
Feb 29, 2024

‘Voice’: Raw performances knit together moving omnibus

Yukiko Mishima’s film consisting of three standalone segments powerfully speaks to the emotional wounds of trauma.
Three years ago, Sean Ono Lennon became intrigued by the possibility of expanding the message of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” the 1971 protest song by his parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, through a narrative film. The resulting work is the 11-minute film “War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko,” directed by Dave Mullins.
CULTURE
Mar 7, 2024

How Sean Ono Lennon helped his parents send a message

To keep their legacy relevant for a new generation, he worked on the short “War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko.” Now it’s up for an Oscar.
Mayuko Kashiwazaki tries on her mask after getting into costume before a dress rehearsal for "Dojoji," a famous noh drama about the revenge of a betrayed woman.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 7, 2024

An 'all-women' noh production challenges traditional Japanese ideas

While women have been involved in noh for decades, older audiences tend to expect an all-male cast. Now, actors believe the times are changing.
Baseball player Shohei Ohtani poses with his Japanese interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara (right), and his agent, Nez Balelo, during a news conference after signing a 10-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers last year.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 22, 2024

Shohei Ohtani scandal raises the stakes on sports betting

The speed at which U.S. sports leagues have embraced betting put the Japanese star's fastball to shame.
Yayoi Kusama’s “Pumpkin,” once the victim of high waves that dragged it into the sea, sits at the end of a pier on the south side of Naoshima.
CULTURE / Art / Longform
Apr 6, 2024

Why is the most exciting art in Japan so hard to get to?

Japan has a unique movement of public art projects and festivals that are a slog to get to — by design. A writer examines the country's “inconvenient art."
Tokyo-based artist valknee has stood out as part of a wave of underground acts eager to tear down genre walls.
CULTURE / Music
Apr 12, 2024

Four up-and-coming music acts to start spring off right

Give your algorithms a nudge to put you in the mood for warmer weather with acts such as valknee, Uilou, Cho Co Pa Co Cho Co Quin Quin and kinoue64.
A guest room at the Muji Hotel Ginza. Ryohin Keikaku, the brand’s parent company, now has a new business called Muji Stay, which brings under one umbrella the retailer’s existing hotels, homes and camps.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 12, 2024

Japan’s Muji bets minimalist retail will work for homes and hotels

Muji currently has three hotels — one in Ginza, one in Beijing and one in Shenzhen, with rooms often booked out months in advance
The inhabitants of a tranquil mountain village see their local environment threatened by Tokyoites with plans to build a glamping site in “Evil Does Not Exist.”
CULTURE / Film
Apr 25, 2024

‘Evil Does Not Exist’ builds its dramatic tension to perfection

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s nuanced drama deftly meditates on humanity’s complex relationship with nature.
Yukio Tsunezuka holds a back issue of the Noto magazine in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, on April 22.
JAPAN / Society
May 3, 2024

Local info magazine in quake-hit Noto region set for revival

The New Year's Day quake struck just as the latest edition was about to be printed.
Kendrick Lamar has long been cast as the authentic and artistic representative of modern rap.
CULTURE / Music / Sound Off
May 10, 2024

Japanese MCs jump in on the Kendrick Lamar-Drake rap beef — and pick a favorite

The way artists here have joined the feud between two of rap's biggest names says more about hip-hop beefs in Japan than you realize.
The eighth edition of the Yokohama Triennale, held at the Yokohama Museum of Art, opened in March this year with the theme “Wild Grass: Our Lives."
CULTURE / Art
May 14, 2024

Yokohama Triennale's eighth edition makes room for context

Curators Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu's dynamic and vital show positions art at the vanguard of social change.
Lee Hsien Loong steps down as Singapore's prime minister on Wednesday, passing the baton to his deputy Lawrence Wong, the second non-member of the Lee family to lead the wealthy Asian nation.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 15, 2024

Lee Hsien Loong, the scion PM who modernized Singapore and stifled dissent

He has left his own imprint on the wealthy city-state after steering it through a global financial crisis and pandemic while diversifying its economy.
A gawky high school senior (Hsu Kuang-han, right) falls for an older colleague (Kaya Kiyohara) who gives him life advice in “18×2 Beyond Youthful Days.”
CULTURE / Film
May 16, 2024

‘18×2 Beyond Youthful Days’: Formulaic tearjerker hits the road for true love

Though the leads lack chemistry, they nonetheless earn kudos for their performances in Michihito Fujii’s Japan-Taiwan co-production.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research's Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator, is depicted as a circle in tactile drawing in the new book, as opposed to the three-dimensional figure in the source material that makes it appear oval, to avoid misunderstanding.
JAPAN / Society
May 29, 2024

Japan translates physics book into braille

The book was produced through cooperation among the authors of the source material, braille experts and researchers with visual impairment.
Junichiro “John” Imaeda (middle row center) decided to start Ajate, a band that infuses traditional Japanese festival music with Afrobeat, after spending three months traveling around Ghana and Burkina Faso to absorb the music of West Africa.
CULTURE / Music
May 31, 2024

Ajate's joyous blend of Afrobeat and Japanese festival music

The nine-piece project brings together sounds from disparate lands to celebrate connectivity and community.
Russian and North Korean flags fly at the Vostochny Сosmodrome in Russia's far eastern Amur region in September.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 13, 2024

China and Russia fail to stop U.N. meeting on North Korean rights abuses

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called on Wednesday for a review of sanctions against Pyongyang.
Harmony Korine (center-left, in orange) DJs a set with his EDGLRD crew at a Tokyo event promoting his film, “Aggro Dr1ft,” at WWW X on June 6.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2024

Harmony Korine wants us to dream movies, and he’s working on a ‘pill’ for that

Korine and his collaborators came to Tokyo to screen his new film "Aggro Dr1ft," his first visit to Japan in 17 years.
Gyaru Daijin poses in the city of Oita. Now a staffer at CGO.com, she has worked at Tenjin Core, a recently closed commercial complex in the city of Fukuoka that features gyaru fashion.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Jun 24, 2024

‘Gyaru’ culture makes comeback as businesses aim to loosen up meetings

The subculture is attracting attention as a way to make unproductive meetings and boring presentations more interactive and flexible.
Natsuko Imamura’s new short story collection "Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks" explores the worlds of three alienated girls whose problems are anything but typical.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2024

‘Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks’: Uncanny tales of troubled young women

Natsuko Imamura's narrators are young women with dogged resolve, few scruples and a naivete that borders on delusion.
After his Emperor's Cup triumph in Tokyo last month, Onosato (right) is the clear favorite to be the next wrestler to earn promotion to ozeki.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Jun 19, 2024

Onosato heads slim field of sumo wrestlers with ozeki potential

The wrestler's meteoric rise makes him the clear-cut favorite to become the sport's next "ozeki."
Toshiko Takaezu made vases and bowls in all shapes and sizes, some that could fit in your palm and some towering over your head.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2024

The Japanese-American ceramicist who made pots as big as her

The exhibit “Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within,” on view at the Isamu Noguchi Museum, is part of a resurgence of interest in the Hawaiian artist of Okinawan descent.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake