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![]() Gearoid ReidyThe Japan Times |
In the end, even the most iconic of Japanese artisans have to bow to demographics. The announcement that Studio Ghibli, the famed animation studio...
Shopping might be the most capitalist of all activities. Little wonder, then, that where we shop reflects capitalism back to us, capturing the...
It has been 20 years since an aging Bill Murray and a young Scarlett Johansson introduced Tokyo to a generation in Sofia Coppola’s "Lost in...
They’re the scourge of Tokyo’s streets: bright-red go-karts, driven by foreign tourists waving and clad in cartoon costumes. The providers of...
A hundred years ago this month, Tokyo was flattened. The Great Kanto Earthquake, a magnitude 7.9 event, demolished the nascent Japanese capital,...
The world is finally awakening to challenges that have been building in China for years. That means it’s open season among the commentariat on the...
For a group of Japanese politicians, what was meant to be a moment of frivolity in France has become a grievous faux pas. At first blush, a photo in...
New statistics regularly pop up to illustrate the accelerating decline of Japan’s population. Just the other week, the first-ever drop of locals in...
What can we learn from a country’s choice of when — or whether — to screen World War II drama "Oppenheimer"? Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster...
In a city that is constantly changing, some residents are pushing back. Plans to redevelop Jingu Gaien, a century-old park and sports center in...
In a city that is constantly changing, some residents are pushing back. Plans to redevelop Jingu Gaien, a century-old park and sports center in...
Bloomberg – Hong Kong is so opposed to Japan’s plan to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant that it’s banning seafood products...
Next month, Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani will take the stage at the Rakuten Optimism conference, his e-commerce firm’s biggest event of the...
The sun pierces through the curtains. Birds are chirping. The thermometer nears 30 degrees Celsius (86F). It’s not yet 5 a.m. It’s a pretty...
Taking place in the first city to suffer an atomic bombing, this weekend’s Group of Seven summit has a certain poetry. The choice of Hiroshima as...
It turns out it might be worth remembering his name after all. The international scorn over how rapidly Japan changes leaders had led some to wonder...
Tokyo has struggled for years to pitch itself again as a major financial hub, but its ambitions might be saved by what Homer Simpson once called the...
What looked to be a once-in-a-generation event threatens to become a new trend. When Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, was...
At the height of his fame in the early 1990s, Nintendo’s iconic Super Mario was, according to one widely cited survey, more recognizable to U.S....
The slogan used by the Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions sums it up: “Secure Jobs for a Secure Future.” Throughout the country, talk and...
The past 30 years in Japan is often painted as a period of stagnation, decline and waning international influence. But sport is one major exception as...
Tokyoites are getting back into a pre-COVID-19 tradition. This month sees the return of hanami, the cherry-blossom viewing parties that are part of a...
If the multiverse of Academy Award sensation “Everything Everywhere All at Once” exists, then in some alternate reality this scenario unfolded...
Japan doesn’t tend to do social change quickly — or in public. It’s all the more unusual a recent confluence of events that has brought a...
Earthquakes can neither be prevented nor predicted. If a Category 5 typhoon nears, evacuations are possible; there can be time to move to a safe zone...
Japan says it’s the last chance to reverse the trend of its declining birthrate. The poster child for aging society is nearing a “whatever it...
Inflation is the modern era’s “Black Ships” that forced Japan to open trade with the U.S. 170 years ago, according to the head of the...
The Bank of Japan did exactly what it said it would do: nothing. Yet traders were stunned. The market churn after the Jan. 18 decision to keep policy...
When Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visits the White House Friday, he’ll be doing so at a time when his country has rarely been so important...
How much would you accept to leave one of the world’s greatest cities? Japan is offering families in Tokyo ¥1 million ($7,640) per child to depart...
In its economic heyday of the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a curious phenomenon of Hollywood celebrities showing up in Japanese commercials:...
Long a master of theatrics and timing, Haruhiko Kuroda spent 2022 making everyone upset — even before his pre-Christmas cracker of an announcement,...