Weathering With You (Review)
Certain facts of life we know to be true. The tide will turn. The sun will rise. Hayao Miyazaki is the god of Japanese anime. Still, the throne may be…
Statue of a Korean Girl Causes Meltdown at Aichi Triennale
by Kaori Shoji It’s 35 degrees Celsius in Nagoya City and the mercury is expected to rise even further. Maybe the recent incident at the Aichi Triennale has something to…
Dark Side of the Sun
Featured
Jake Adelstein
News
On the Record
Politics
Pop Culture
Uncategorized
Work Culture
[The Journalist] Shines Light on Japan’s Dark Side (film review)
Yoshioka completely lives for her job, to the point of excluding everything else from her life. It turns out that her father (also a journalist) had killed himself over an…
The Muji Hotel: Where Japanese Consumerism Meets Cute With Zen Minimalism But They Don’t Make Out
By Kaori Shoji I am at the reception counter of Muji Hotel – the much touted and long awaited hotel produced by Muji, Japan’s popular minimalist clothing and household products…
Mahjong Horoki 2020 – A Film Way Cooler Than Cool Japan
by Kaori Shoji Note: Theories abound as to how mahjong originated in China. Some say the inventor was Confucius who played it, was hooked and ultimately abandoned it because of…
The high price of cocaine in Japan (metaphorically & literally)
Pierre Taki may not be so lucky. Compared to kakuseizai, cocaine constitutes a serious offense and it's much more difficult to buy in Japan. Taki has never cultivated a squeaky…
Contemporary Culture
Dark Side of the Sun
Featured
Photo Essays
Pop Culture
Sex Industry
Underground Economy
Work Culture
Too Little, Too Late? Porn Mags Set to Disappear From Convenience Stores–And So Will Male Courage?
The PR for Family Mart stated that ultimately, the company leaves the choice to stock porn up to the individual outlet owners. "Some of our outlets don't carry magazines at…
Books on Japan
Contemporary Culture
Dark Side of the Sun
Featured
Jake Adelstein
Photo Essays
Pop Culture
Sex Industry
Underground Economy
Work Culture
Japanese magazine fucks up by posting ranking of “f*ckable female college students”
Weekly SPA, a magazine famed for insisting that sex and money are the only things worth striving for, came out with a story in late December about which colleges had…
Coming Events
Contemporary Culture
Featured
Jake Adelstein
Movies About Japan
On the Record
Underground Economy
The Way of the Sword Requires a Ton of Sacrifice/ZAN movie review
"I want you to think about all the mistakes you've made in your life up to this point," the Samurai tells his bleeding victim. "You have plenty of time for…
Japan Ten Years From Now. The Truth May Sort Of Be Awful But The Movie Is Great
Hayakawa imagines a near future in which the government launches the titular program: people over 75 are offered a quick and painless euthanising. In 美しい国, the story revolves around an…