Yasuhiko Ito speaks of his experience as an internee under the Soviet Union after World War II, in the city of Fukuoka in April, prior to his death in May at the age of 100.
JAPAN / History
Sep 17, 2025
Former Japanese internee in Ukraine pained by Russian invasion
After World War II, Yasuhiko Ito was taken as a disarmed soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army by the former Soviet Union to Ukraine for forced labor.
Prime Minister Yoshio Mori declared in September 2000 that Japan must “grab the historic opportunity of the IT revolution."
Japan Times 2000: Prime minister pitches ‘e-Japan’ as way of life
Japan must “grab the historic opportunity of the IT revolution,” Prime Minister Yoshio Mori declared as the final Diet session of the century opened in September 2000.
U.S. military personnel stand guard in front of the New Grand Hotel where Gen. Douglas MacArthur stayed circa September 1945 in Yokohama.
JAPAN / History / Perspectives
Sep 1, 2025
How the Allied Occupation changed Japan: A love story
A wartime GI and a Japanese civilian fell in love during the Occupation, embodying the peace built after Japan’s surrender.
Japan's World War II surrender documents went on display at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in Washington on Thursday.
JAPAN / History
Aug 29, 2025
Instrument of Japan's World War II surrender on display in U.S.
It will be on display until Oct. 1 as part of a special exhibition to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.
Police round up war orphans in an underpass in Ueno, Tokyo, in a file photo taken in February 1948.
JAPAN / History
Aug 28, 2025
Never again, says woman orphaned by Tokyo air raid during World War II
Yoriko Suzuki, who died at the age of 87 in June, lamented about how her life and those of many others were turned upside down by the war.
Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 22, 2025
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
One man’s experience traces the capital's arc from wartime devastation to modern megacity in a story of resilience and reinvention.
Noe Ito (third from right) was editor-in-chief of feminist magazine Seito and her partner Sakae Osugi (second from right) was a prominent anarchist of the Taisho Era. Both were murdered by military police in 1923.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Aug 16, 2025
Taisho Democracy: A turbulent, tenuous era of conflicting ideals
The resilience of Japanese politics, culture and society were tested during the 14 years of the Taisho Era (1912-26).

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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?