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November 22, 2024
 

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KOBO ABE

A Tokyo man who scuttles around the city in a dirty cardboard box finds himself fighting off odd characters in Gakuryu Ishii’s “The Box Man.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 17, 2024
'The Box Man': Absurdist Kobo Abe adaptation speaks to the present
Director Gakuryu Ishii makes the novel’s philosophical musings and metaphorical conundrums more audience-friendly while saying something true about the modern day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 13, 2021
‘Woman of the Photographs’: An existentialist fable for the Instagram age
Takeshi Kushida's debut feature playfully riffs on Kobo Abe's novel, “The Woman in the Dunes,” in a surrealist fable about the pitfalls of image retouching.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 1, 2020
‘A Late Chrysanthemum’: A short story collection full of pathos and maturity
This anthology of short stories may tend toward the morally dubious, but it's a solid introduction to literary masters of the 20th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Dec 8, 2018
Kobo Abe's 'The Ark Sakura': A surreal narrative worth reading twice
'The Ark Sakura,' Kobo Abe's puzzling, dream-like narrative about an obese recluse living in a vast underground bunker, is a dense interlacing of punning wordplay, psychological excavation and surreal imagery.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Oct 13, 2018
Kenzaburo Oe's 'Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness': Reflections on father-son relationships
In Oe's 'Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,' the lifelong sense of obsession and profound sense of guilt engendered within his own familial history finds acute literary expression.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Jun 9, 2018
Kobo Abe's 'Kangaroo Notebook' is absurdist, surrealist and occasionally exasperating
Is this bizarrely oneiric journey, daikon sprouts and all, really just Kobo Abe's exteriorized exploration of a tortured psyche?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Apr 7, 2018
Lose yourself in 'The Face of Another,' Abe's existentialist fantasy
Losing face and the public humiliation associated with it is something that we all dread but, in Kobo Abe's 1964 fantasy 'The Face of Another,' the metaphorical term is made real.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 29, 2015
Mishima, Murakami and the elusive Nobel Prize
Will he or won't he? It's about the time of year when the Japanese media descends into a frenzy of speculation about whether Haruki Murakami will land the Nobel Prize in literature, becoming the first Japanese literary laureate since Kenzaburo Oe in 1994.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2015
A disfigured face drags ghosts back to postwar Berlin in 'Phoenix'
In Kobo Abe's 1964 novel "Tanin no Kao" ("The Face of Another"), a scientist left disfigured by an industrial accident dons a synthetic mask and poses as a different man in order to seduce his estranged wife. When she responds rather too readily to his advances, he reacts angrily, only to discover that...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jan 1, 2015
Donald Keene reflects on 70-year Japan experience
My first visit to Japan was very short, only a week or so in December 1945. Three months earlier, while on the island of Guam, I had heard the broadcast by the Emperor announcing the end of the war. Soon afterward, I was sent from Guam to China to serve as an interpreter between the Americans and the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Dec 27, 2014
The Woman in the Dunes
Certain books must be read, even with the knowledge that the reading will be painful. Kobo Abe's masterpiece "The Woman in the Dunes" is one such book. Called an "existential fable," it is no surprise that Abe's favorite writers were Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche and Edgar Allan Poe.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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