Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

| Jun 3, 2012

Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

by Nobuko Tanaka

Koki Mitani is far and away the nation’s best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn’t name ...

Richard Collasse: Sold on brand Japan

| May 6, 2012

Richard Collasse: Sold on brand Japan

by Eriko Arita

In Tokyo’s high-end Ginza district, the Chanel Building stands out among the luxury fashion boutiques and global brands’ emporiums thanks to its shining black-glass exterior. To go inside Chanel’s flagship shop in Japan is, for the normal hom sap, however, to be overwhelmed by ...

Mickey Curtis: from rocker to 'Robo-G'

| Feb 5, 2012

Mickey Curtis: from rocker to 'Robo-G'

by Mark Schilling

The pioneers of the rock ‘n’ roll era on both sides of the Atlantic have now largely faded from the show-business scene — which is hardly surprising, given that those still strutting their stuff are in their 70s and 80s, and even “The King” ...

| Dec 4, 2011

Tenten Hosokawa: Drawing the blues away

by Tomoko Otake

In the last few decades, clinical depression in Japan has emerged from its longstanding obscurity shrouded in shame and guilt to becoming far more openly recognized as a national disease. A 2010 report by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry put the number of ...

| Oct 2, 2011

Satoshi Kamata: Rebel spirit writ large

by Eriko Arita

Monday, Sept. 19, was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. But on that sweltering national holiday, it wasn’t the heat that that drew tens of thousands of people to Meiji Park in central Tokyo, but their concerns for all the nation’s citizens, and ...