The Unbearable Pathos Of Poop (Okiku’s World film review)
oop is the main thing that remains in the mind after watching Okiku's World. Lots and lots of poop. Ninety-nine percent of the film was shot in black and white which…
Japan Goes Up in Smoke
I hail from a family of smokers. My parents, their siblings, my cousins, my grandparents. New Years’ family get-togethers were marked by cramped living rooms dense with smoke, full ashtrays…
Egoism and Love: Not mutually exclusive
Egoist. The title seemingly belies this love story. From the vantage point of today’s incessantly narcissistic and increasingly toxic dating/relationship culture, Egoist is the exact opposite of what it claims to be.…
Samurai play soccer and other fairy tales: Japan and the world cup
In the early naughts an older co-worker sidled up to me one afternoon in the company corridor and told me with a mix of swagger and sincerity that if I…
“A Man” Takes Imposter Syndrome To New Dimensions
Life seems to be going incredibly well for them until Daisuke is killed in an accident. At the one-year memorial, his estranged older brother turns up from Gunma prefecture, clear…
Washoku
Once they get married, Japanese women will do pretty much everything they want, because age - looming on the horizon like Godzilla lurching closer with each passing year - justifies…
Intimate Strangers: Mothers Without Sons—new suspense film explores the depths of human connection
Intimate Stranger is about a woman with a missing son, who connects with a 17-year old boy during a mask-clad, pandemic stricken winter in Tokyo. The woman works in a…
A Farewell To Japan’s King of Toxic Masculinity: Shintaro Ishihara
Ishihara hated outspoken women and liberal men; he had no kind feelings for the US and refused to be enthralled or intimidated by western culture. Ishihara reserved his most acidic…
Driving In Winter With Haruki Murakami… and Why We Still Need Him
Murakami's story is part of a compilation titled Men Without Women, a fate which, in the Murakami scheme of things is akin to death by torture. Men cannot exist without…
My Brushes With the Yakuza – Reflections of Life in Akasaka, Tokyo
My first encounter with the ‘yakuza’ or the crooks and gangsters of Japan’s underworld, happened when I was 14 years old, on my way home from cram school. It was…