While English-language magazines in Japan are fast becoming a species in danger of extinction, Europe is experiencing a renewed interest in this country thanks to a veteran French journalist who since 2010 has been publishing Zoom Japon (and its English version, Zoom Japan), a free monthly magazine about all things Japanese.
Like other people born in 1964, Claude Leblanc believes that being born in the year of the Tokyo Olympic Games was a sign of things to come, and he was bound to fall in love with Japan.
"In my youth, I lived for a few years in the Netherlands," Leblanc says. "Close to my house lived Anton Geesink, the famous Dutch judoka who shocked the Japanese when he won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. He told me many things about Japan.