Daniel Robson - The Japan Times

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Daniel Robson

Daniel Robson, a British journalist based in Tokyo since 2006, is a features editor and writer at The Japan Times. He also writes freelance about music, videogames and Japanese pop culture for other publications around the world.

For Daniel Robson's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

LIFE / Digital

Apr 25, 2007

'Manga' meets 'keitai': a match made in Japanese technology heaven

We've all been there: squashed onto a rush-hour commuter train with barely enough room to breathe, let alone open up a book to while away the journey; trying desperately to crush a book into an overstuffed backpack before a long trip; or cursing our own lack of foresight while bored at school or work with no handy distraction to relieve the tedium. But Japan's enduring love for "manga" and its knack for innovation have led to a convergence so simple as to be self-kickingly obvious: cell phone manga.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 30, 2007

The monster behind the mask

With their explosive metal sound and monstrous good looks, Lordi have become Finland's prime music export over the last year. Following a decade of grueling efforts, Lordi broke through internationally with their fourth album "The Arockalypse" after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, marking Finland's first-ever victory at the pan-European competition. Viewers, used to enduring ear-battering bad pop and folk music entries, voted in droves for Lordi after witnessing their pyrotechnic stage show and hearing their anthemic tune, "Hard Rock Hallelujah," which netted a record 292 points.

Japan Times

LIFE / Digital

Mar 28, 2007

'Splume' -- Japan gets its own world of avatars

Judging by Newton's Third Law of Motion the great English scientist really must have gazed into a crystal ball and seen the Japan of today. His famous law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every anonymous concrete apartment block and crisp white shirt locked in a navy blue suit in Japan, there is its creative opposite -- the burgeoning ranks of anime, manga and the like.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 23, 2007

'Maybe they can smell something on us!" says Halca, 18, one half of hip-hop- meets-J-pop duo HalCali.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 22, 2007

Beck: Too much information for an hombre to handle

Beck talks about his upcoming tour of Japan, a stockpile of songs that grows faster than he is able to record them and a trans-Pacific collaboration that will just have to wait

Japan Times

Events / Events Outside Tokyo

Mar 16, 2007

Full-color business and pleasure

If there's one thing that's drawing the eyes of the world toward Japan, it'sanime. From "Akira" to "Spirited Away," through years of moving, high-concept beauties and "video nasties," and right down to the plethora of sprawling half-hour cartoon series, animation is widely regarded as Japan's key artistic export. Influencing Hollywood movies such as "The Matrix," earning Oscars and attracting tourists, its role in international understanding of Japanese culture is undeniable.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 16, 2007

Superstars don't come much bigger than Beyonce Knowles. With 10 Grammys under her tiny belt, she has been pelted with adulation throughout her career, be it as part of 50-million-selling R&B trio Destiny's Child or as a solo artist.

CULTURE / Music

Feb 23, 2007

Shiina Ringo "Heisei Fuzoku"

You could never call Yumiko Shiina predictable. Finding success as a solo artist and then forming a band, her nine-year career has been as topsy-turvy as her music. And on "Heisei Fuzoku," her first solo album in four years and the soundtrack to the Edo Period movie "Sakuran," she and composer/ violinist Neko Saito turn in a set of jazz, Latin, tango, Broadway and classical songs that fuse perfectly with Shiina's alt-pop songwriting and scratchy, throaty, sexy voice.

CULTURE / Music

Jan 19, 2007

Great Adventure "OK Screamer"

"OK Screamer" is a deceptive record. At first, the third album from the Anglophile groove-rockers Great Adventure sounds like unfettered Britpop-worship, with po-faced baggy beats and Stone Roses sensibilities straight out of the early-1990s.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 11, 2007

Big mouth strikes again ... and again

Is Lily Allen an outspoken genius or an unwarranted meanie? To help you decide, here are 10 of her top tongue-lashings.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 11, 2007

Lily in bloom as the opinionated princess of pop

'I've never really looked up to people in music," says Lily Allen, London's rising pop star. In fact, "rising" may be too subtle a word -- "soaring" would be more accurate. Right now in Britain she adorns several magazine covers, blasts from radio stations across all demographics, and even played just after midnight on Jools Holland's prestigious "Hootenanny" television show on New Year's Eve, ushering in a year that for her will likely be a prosperous one.

CULTURE / Music

Dec 15, 2006

Oasis "Stop The Clocks"

Oasis do not abound in originality, as this "best-of" compilation released in time for Christmas proves. Songs from each of their six albums and B-sides rub shoulders happily, sounding as fresh (or as stale, depending on your viewpoint) as the next. But somehow, 12 years down the line, the brothers Gallagher and their occasionally shifting backing band find themselves revered as much as ever; the illiterate spokesmen for flag-waving, everyman Britain. If it wasn't for their hilarious in-band altercations and their amusing soundbites -- Liam labeling Coldplay's Chris Martin a "plant pot," for example -- people might have grown tired of Oasis by now. But their sink is still full of fishes; they still know a girl called Elsa who's into Alka-Seltzer; and they're still gonna live forever.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 1, 2006

While scores of Western bands have recently rediscovered the jarring joys of late-1970s punk-funk, creating an explosion of apoplectic guitar dance-'em-ups, few are as odd as Klaxons. Fusing this sound with an electro edge, the band have found themselves touted as glowstick-bearers of the so-called "nu-rave" scene coming out of London this year. But aside from a cover of Kicks Like A Mule's classic E-fueled floor-filler "The Bouncer" (famed for the line "If your name's not down, you're not coming in"), the band are closer to disco and post-punk than '90s rave music, creating a gutsy, danceable sound that offers tight rhythms and filthy basslines.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 24, 2006

Watch this MySpace

W ith sites already running in Europe and Australia, U.S. social networking site MySpace finally landed in Japan last week, squaring up against the all-conquering homegrown service Mixi.

CULTURE / Music

Nov 17, 2006

HiGE "Peanuts Forever"

It's funny how the Japanese are nowadays often better at U.S. indie than Americans. While most of the world's worshippers at the Nirvana/Pixies/Pavement shrine forget those bands' skewed wit and take themselves far too seriously, in Japan the weirdness thrives.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 3, 2006

When multi-generational British band Mystery Jets walked on stage at Fuji Rock Festival this year for their first Japanese show, it was to a packed Red Marquee chanting "Zootime," the title of the band's 2005 debut single. When they followed the festival with a soldout performance at Tokyo's Liquid Room -- complete with fans offering immaculate, handmade Mystery Jets patches as gifts -- promoter Smash was naturally keen to book the band for a full tour pronto.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 27, 2006

Dub pioneer Lee Perry talks God, ganja and Japanese gadgets

Musical resumes don't get much more impressive than Lee "Scratch" Perry's, the Jamaican maverick credited with inventing both dub and reggae.

CULTURE / Music

Oct 20, 2006

GO!GO!7188 "Parade"

Like many of the best things in life -- love, drunkenness, ice cream, fireworks -- GO!GO!7188 are tricky to explain but a joy to experience. Formed in 1998, the band blend rockabilly rhythms, surf guitar and J-pop hooks, and the end result is enough to elicit giddiness, goose bumps and gasps from just about anybody.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 19, 2006

Cornelius pops back with touching sounds

Keigo Oyamada, better known as Cornelius, is one of Japan's most recognized musical exports. His innovative approach to electronic music on his 1997 breakthrough album "Fantasma," which has sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide, and then on 2001's "Point" have won him fans in Europe, America, Australia and beyond, leading to endorsements and remixes from such foreign luminaries as Beck and Damon Albarn, who seem to regard the multi-instrumentalist as something of a wunderkind.

CULTURE / Music

Oct 13, 2006

Scritti Politti "White Bread Black Beer"

With his punk roots, 1980s pop hits and hip-hop beatmaking, you could never accuse Scritti Politti's Green Gartside of being musically limited. Yet with just five Scritti Politti albums over 25 years, this 51-year-old Welsh recluse is hardly pop's most prolific son either. On "White Bread Black Beer," though, Gartside's sound takes a fresh twist to deliver something truly scrumptious.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.

The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability

Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability

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