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August 16, 2025
 

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CULTURE

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Osaka Asian Film Festival, which will hold its 21st edition early to draw on Expo 2025 visitors, is set to open on Aug. 29 with a restoration of “Tracing to Expo ’70.” The Taiwanese film follows a Japan-raised Taiwanese woman whose search for her long-lost benefactor takes her to the 1970 Osaka Expo.
CULTURE / Film
Osaka Asian Film Festival gets an expo boost
In a rare double bill, the Osaka Asian Film Festival will stage a special summer edition to make the most out of interest in the ongoing world's fair.
CULTURE / Film
‘Yukikaze’ turns fabled warship into floating snoozefest
The story of a “lucky” Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer that survived World War II is given a lightly fictionalized treatment in Toshihisa Yamada's first feature.
CULTURE / Film
Futuristic mermaid tale ‘ChaO’ makes a splash
Yasuhiro Aoki’s feature film debut reimagines “The Little Mermaid” in vibrant detail.
Three teenage student nurses (from left: Karin Ono, Asuka Kawatoko and Hinako Kikuchi) face the aftermath of the atomic bombing of their hometown in “Nagasaki: In the Shadow of the Flash.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 7, 2025
‘Nagasaki: In the Shadow of the Flash’ honors young nurses thrust into hellish nightmare
By Mark Schilling
Searing and based on true accounts, Jumpei Matsumoto’s drama follows teenage girls turned wartime caregivers as they navigate the unthinkable.
In “Stigmatized Properties: Possession,” Yahiro Kuwata (Shota Watanabe, left) is a steel worker from Fukuoka who moves to Tokyo to become a TV personality and ends up renting a haunted apartment.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2025
'Stigmatized Properties: Possession': Layered lead faces ghosts and show business
By Mark Schilling
In the sequel to his 2020 haunted apartments horror, Hideo Nakata creates goose-pimply moments of terror with common paranormal phenomena.
A pair of Japanese soldiers (Shinichi Tsutsumi, left, and Yuki Yamada, right) stay up a tree rather than standing down after the end of World War II in “Army on the Tree.”
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2025
'Army on the Tree': World War II film leans into absurdist theater
By James Hadfield
Among the films that commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II this year, Kazuhiro Taira’s film adapted from a play stands out for its lack of iffy politics.
“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” is the first installment in a trilogy that's set to wrap the anime adaptation of Koyoharu Gotoke's manga about sword-wielding heroes fighting man-eating demons.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2025
‘Demon Slayer’ movie slashes its own box office records
By Matt Schley
“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” kicks off a new trilogy that is set to bring the anime adaptation of Koyoharu Gotoke's manga to a close.
Asuna Yanagi (right, with Misa Tsugawa) plays a high-school student who gets hooked on classic cinema in “Rainy Blue,” a coming-of-age tale that she also wrote, edited and directed.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2025
‘Rainy Blue’: Behind-the-scenes drama tarnishes an intriguing debut
By James Hadfield
Made while she was still a teen, Asuna Yanagi’s coming-of-age tale blurs the lines between life, fiction and cinephile obsession.
Before multiplexes entered the Japanese theatrical market in the early 1990s, moviegoers frequented “roadside theaters” — cinemas located in central urban areas near train lines. The Marunouchi Toei, which will close July 27, is the last of such theaters in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2025
Marunouchi Toei closes as Japan’s cinema landscape evolves
By Mark Schilling
As audiences gravitate toward the luxury, tech and varied lineups of multiplexes, Tokyo’s last "roadside theater" closes after 65 years, marking the end of an era in moviegoing.
Yukio Iokibe’s “Noto Democracy" centers on Motoyuki Takii, a former junior high school teacher who publishes a handwritten newspaper every month to encourage the residents of Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture, to engage in local politics.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2025
‘Noto Democracy’ and the slow work of civic change
By Moe Shimizu
As rural towns in Japan decline, Yukio Iokibe’s documentary offers a hopeful reminder that democracy endures through advocacy, persistence and human connection.

The indelible memory of being a part of Unit 731
Hideo Shimizu, 95, says he cannot forget seeing the prisoners' bloody wills scribbled on the walls of prison cells at Unit 731 in 1945.
Japanese star convicted of indecent assault in Hong Kong
J-pop idol Kenshin Kamimura leaves the West Kowloon Law Courts on bail in Hong Kong on Wednesday, after he was found guilty of indecent assault of a woman who worked as his interpreter at a restaurant in Mong Kok district in March this year.
Tens of thousands left stranded at Osaka Expo by train service interruption
Visitors rest inside the Osaka Expo venue early Thursday morning
Welcoming foreign residents benefits Japan, three quarters of economists say
The streets of Tokyo's Ginza district in April. The number of foreign residents in Japan hit a record high at 3.76 million as of the end of last year, comprising just over 3% of the population.
Hiker missing in Hokkaido after bear attack found dead
The Rausu mountain range at Hokkaido's Shiretoko National Park. A man in his 20s who went missing after being attacked by a bear while hiking on Mount Rausu has been found dead.
The indelible memory of being a part of Unit 731
Hideo Shimizu, 95, says he cannot forget seeing the prisoners' bloody wills scribbled on the walls of prison cells at Unit 731 in 1945.
Will Ishiba's critics be able to garner enough support for a leadership race?
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's political survival likely hinges on whether a leadership race will take place within the Liberal Democratic Party following its decision to have its election committee canvass the opinions of party members and prefectural chapters on the subject.
Hidden rosters and the legacy of Japan’s germ warfare
Katsutoshi Takegami, 77, in his storehouse attic where he discovered his father's Unit 1644 documents
Osaka Expo highlights the challenge of holding events in Japan's scorching summer
People huddle near a large fan blowing icy-cold mist at the Osaka Expo on July 12. Amid Japan's relentless summer heat, organizes have put myriad measures in place in order to keep guests safe.
At Himawari Shokudo 2, Italian food with a Japanese soul
At Himawari Shokudo 2, chef Hozumi Tanaka serves Italian-inspired fare with a focus on Toyama produce, such as this appetizer of lightly blanched "hotaru ika" (firefly squid) served atop mixed wild plants and a crepe prepared from "yamato-imo" yam.

Podcast

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

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027
Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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