Menu
Search
 
October 03, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

CULTURE

Books

Film
Books
Art
Music
TV & Streaming
Stage
Entertainment news
“Archipelago of the Sun” by Yoko Tawada is part of a trilogy billed as a dystopian future under threat of climate crisis.
CULTURE / Books
Yoko Tawada’s wandering trilogy concludes search for the 'land of sushi'
In “Archipelago of the Sun,” the merry band of polyglot friends board a boat crossing the Baltic Sea, still vaguely in search of a disappeared Japan.
CULTURE / Books
Why Japan’s most melancholic writer speaks to today’s youth
Osamu Dazai's works are enjoying a new boom of retranslations and readers 80 years after they were first published.
CULTURE / Books
‘Swallows' untangles the murky ethics of selling motherhood
“Swallows” examines the intersections of class and reproductive issues with a focus on its protagonist who is talked into becoming a surrogate for a wealthy couple.
"Animator Skill Test Textbook” was written in concert with a test created and administered by the Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association since 2024. The test was designed to help set a baseline for those studying animation, and so that animation studios can get a better idea of applicants' current skill level.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 4, 2025
English textbook targets a skills gap in Japan’s growing anime industry
By Matt Schley
From "dōga" to “lip flap,” the Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association’s "Animator Skill Test Textbook" teaches aspiring animators how to talk like the pros.
“Sympathy Tower Tokyo” is centered around Sara Machina, a star architect designing a new experimental prison in central Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2025
ChatGPT controversy is the least interesting part of 'Sympathy Tower Tokyo'
By Thu-Huong Ha
In Rie Qudan’s futuristic Tokyo, AI and architects take on the prison system.
A board announces that no works were awarded the Akutagawa and Naoki literary prizes on Wednesday evening in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 17, 2025
Akutagawa and Naoki award decision marks rare absence of literary prizewinners
By Alyssa I. Smith
Selection committee members were disappointed by the lack of a majority vote in the second round, insisting that the nominated works moved many readers and were worth reading.
Mod's memoir “Things Become Other Things” chronicles his walking trips across the Kii Peninsula, surveying “a graceful end to a certain life cycle.”
CULTURE / Books
Jul 16, 2025
Craig Mod's life in motion in a disappearing Japan
By James Hadfield
In “Things Become Other Things,” the longtime resident of Japan captures that grace that lingers in slowly vanishing countryside towns.
Author Minae Mizumura strolls through the garden of her cottage in Oiwake, Karuizawa, in a photograph taken by her friend and collaborator Toyota Horiguchi.
CULTURE / Books / Perspectives
Jul 8, 2025
Between reality and fiction: A summer’s day in Karuizawa with Minae Mizumura
By Hanako Lowry
The author speaks on the Nagano Prefecture town's unique positioning between Japan and the West, literary tradition and artificial intelligence.
At Mount Zine’s gallery in Komazawa, Setagaya Ward, one wall is for exhibiting, while another is for zines for sale.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 21, 2025
A buzzing zine scene across Japan packs passion in multiple formats
By Kim Kahan
In a world now dominated by digital media, small handmade books are a return to analog media and offline connection.
June is Pride Month, which means it’s the perfect time to get acquainted with how sexual minorities have been represented in Japanese fiction if you’re not familiar with these narratives already.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 11, 2025
Pride and prose: Novels that illuminate queer lives in Japan
By Mike Fu
From Yukio Mishima and Haruki Murakami to Li Kotomi and Akira Otani, dive into Japanese fiction’s LGBTQ+ narratives in honor of Pride Month.

A secret no more: Russia and North Korea's battle against Ukraine is celebrated in Moscow exhibit
A woman visits an exhibition of North Korean art at a museum in Moscow on Monday.
Prices to rise for 3,024 food products in Japan in October
A wide range of products will see higher prices due to rising material and labor costs.
Koizumi and Takaichi continue to lead in LDP presidential race, polls show
Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi (right) reacts as former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi speaks during the Liberal Democratic Party Presidential Election Candidate Debate at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, on Sept. 24. Koizumi and Takaichi remain head-to-head in the race, media polls show.
The party that ruled Japan for decades is in danger of crumbling
Haruo Tsukamoto, a rank-and-file member of the Liberal Democratic Party and a rice farmer in Ibaraki Prefecture, questions if the party still stands for people like him.
Same-sex partners recognized under more laws in Japan
A couple poses with the rainbow flag, which they brought from their home for a wedding photoshoot in Tokyo in November 2023.
Japan's far-right party courts Trump allies and vows not to get 'wacky'
Sanseito party leader Sohei Kamiya speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Sept. 25.
How Ohtani has boosted Japan's soft power and made LA even more baseball-obsessed
Fans at Dodger Stadium pose in front of a mural highlighting the Dodgers' Japanese stars from past and present during a game earlier this year.
Japan faces fresh energy challenge as it seeks to expand power-hungry data centers
Data storage tapes at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center facility in Berkeley, California. Data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and water, and that will only rise as generative artificial intelligence takes off in earnest.
Architecture art exhibition highlights unsung industry artists
Yuanhui Li's illustration is one of the awardees in the student category of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators' annual award for artists.
On defense and foreign policy, LDP candidates largely align — except where they don’t
The Liberal Democratic Party presidential election candidates in Nagoya on Friday

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons
Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

Latest News

Don’t poke the bear: Learn how to sort your garbage the right way
29 mins ago
Saga police to face special probe over faulty DNA analyses
11 hours ago
Share of female execs at major Japan firms rises to 18.4%
11 hours ago
8,432 foreign children in Japan seen not attending school
11 hours ago
Parliament expected to elect new prime minister on Oct. 15