Reviews

If for some reason you wind up in cinema hell in the afterlife, try to strike a deal with the devil and avoid seeing Gozen Reijini Kisu Shini Kite (Come…

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…

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…

Yakuza. Samurai. Monsters. NoFace. Lost face. Here's a guide to take you through the most memorable movies (including the bad, the good and the ugly) that adorned the Heisei era…

In the children’s picture book Teach me Enma-sama, written and illustrated by Hiromi Tanaka, Enma who is the King of Hell in Buddhist mythology teaches children how to behave in…

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…

he book reveals in a deeply observant way how ultimately, Japan and Japanese women refused to be messed around with, particularly by a foreigner. And in the end, Houchen's wife…

Hollywood executives hear the word 'Asians' and immediately conjure an image of sweating maidens in rice paddies, or yakuza with swords in Shinjuku, or maidens and yakuza hooking up in…

In 1978, 33 years after the Japanese surrender, Joel Robuchon was appointed master chef at the Hotel Nikko de Paris (now the Novotel Paris Centre Tour Eiffel) Coincidentally, Robuchon himself…

On another level, "The Trial" shows up the very Kafka-esqueness of Japan's judicial system - the long, grueling process of scrutiny between arrest and indictment, and how, once indictment kicks…