author

 
Menu
Search
 
May 02, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Mark Schilling
For Mark Schilling's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
A nursing student (Kotone Furukawa, right) is terrified by the bizarre goings-on in her hometown in “Best Wishes to All.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2024
‘Best Wishes to All’: Home is where the horror is
Yuta Shimotsu’s first feature about a small town gone mad delivers shocking frights but its message fails to surprise.
A yakuza member (Go Ayano, right) enlists a teenage choir leader (Jun Saito) to teach him how to sing in "Let's Go Karaoke!"
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2024
‘Let's Go Karaoke!’: Unlikely duo's friendship hits a comic sweet spot
The chemistry between Go Ayano as a gangster and newcomer Jun Saito as a young choir leader makes their characters’ relationship shine.
A Tokyo toilet cleaner (Koji Yakusho, left) bonds with his teenage niece (Arisa Nakano) in “Perfect Days.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2024
Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’ finds beauty in small pleasures
Koji Yakusho gives an evocative, multilayered performance as a Tokyo toilet cleaner with a passion for simple joys in this poetic drama.
A young woman (Hana Sugisaki) slips through the cracks of Japan’s family register system in “Ichiko.”
CULTURE / Film
Dec 24, 2023
‘Ichiko’: Hana Sugisaki transfixes with career-high performance
Akihiro Toda’s impressive drama shows different sides of its slippery protagonist without passing judgment.
A 24-year-old convenience store worker (Erika Karata) is drawn out of her shell thanks to a renewed friendship in “When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty.”
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2023
‘When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty’: Hidden strengths emerge despite daily grind
With an unhurried pace, Yuho Ishibashi’s drama quietly portrays the pressures of modern work culture and the importance of friendships.
While Hayao Miyazaki’s return to filmmaking, “The Boy and the Heron,” did not attain the ¥10 billion milestone that the beloved animator’s movies had once routinely surpassed, it debuted at the top of the North American box office and became the first original anime film to lead the box office in the United States and Canada.
CULTURE / Film / 2023 in Review
Dec 15, 2023
Japan’s auteurs and anime triumphed in 2023
From Hayao Miyazaki's “The Boy and the Heron” to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster,” the box-office hits kept coming.
Cinema at Sea film festival entry “God Is a Woman,” directed by Andres Peyrot, examines the complex feelings the Kuna, indigenous people living on Panama’s San Blas Islands, have about an unreleased documentary made about them in 1975.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 9, 2023
Cinema at Sea festival highlights diversity and unheard voices
The inaugural event for the film festival in Naha, Okinawa, boasted a strong lineup of features from places and peoples underrepresented in world cinema.
Filmmaker Kah Wai Lim (left) interviews the owners of 22 independent cinemas across Japan about the difficulties and joys of running a “mini-theater” in “This Magic Moment.”
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2023
‘This Magic Moment’: Mini-theaters keep indie cinema love alive
Kah Wai Lim highlights the resilient determination of small theater owners across the country who keep their businesses afloat against the odds.
A young boy (Tsukao Oga) struggles to survive in a war-ravaged city in “Shadow of Fire.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 30, 2023
The human costs of war linger in ‘Shadow of Fire’
While the film’s message about the lasting traumas of war is at times overt, newcomer Tsukao Oga centers the drama with an unsentimental performance.
After losing her eyesight in a car accident, a woman goes to the home of an eye doctor and his son to receive a miracle device to restore her sight in “My Mother’s Eyes.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 23, 2023
‘My Mother’s Eyes’: Psychodrama pushes to mad extremes
Takeshi Kushida’s atmospheric horror film about toxic parent-child relationships unfolds in a fantasy world that strains credulity.
The Saitama leader of a rebellion (Gackt, center) decides to unite the citizens of his home prefecture by creating a sea and beach for the area in “Fly Me to the Saitama II.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2023
‘Fly Me to the Saitama II’: Silliness abounds but the laughs do not
Hideki Takeuchi’s sequel to his award-winning hit comedy treads familiar and ridiculous ground, but it’s just not as funny as the first film.
Director Wim Wenders served as president of the competition jury at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival. Wenders' "Perfect Days," which opened the festival and features Koji Yakusho as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, is Japan’s nominee for the Academy Awards’ best international feature film category.
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2023
'Perfect Days' and '(Ab)normal Desire' turn heads at Tokyo International Film Festival
Wim Wenders' film opened the event, while Yoshiyuki Kishi’s multilayered drama made a splash, taking both the Audience Award and the best director prize.
Director Hideo Jojo made the switch from soft-core adult films to more mainstream entertainment with “On the Edge of Their Seats,” a drama about four teenagers watching their high school baseball team lose an important tournament game.
CULTURE / Film
Nov 10, 2023
'Pink film' director Hideo Jojo gets the red carpet treatment
Tokyo's annual film festival named Jojo — who has made over 100 titles, from soft-core adult films to theatrical features — this year's Director in Focus.
In a world where human speech is nonexistent, a woman (Misa Wada) survives on her own in an abandoned building in “Motion Picture: Choke.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 9, 2023
‘Motion Picture: Choke’: A silent 'tour de force' performance
Misa Wada offers a full range of emotions in Gen Nagao’s thought-provoking and imaginative film set in a reality where humans don’t speak.
A former pop idol (Mai Fukagawa) finds herself in a slump with little money, no partner and precarious mental health as she nears her 30s in “Tsundol.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2023
‘Tsundol’: Pop idol on the brink gets mental health uplift
While it is a predictable drama about a former singer getting her life together, the film addresses her mental well-being in a refreshing manner.
A fledgling film director (Mayu Matsuoka, center) returns home to make a film about her dysfunctional family in “Masked Hearts.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2023
‘Masked Hearts’: Catharsis comes out of familial discord
Yuya Ishii returns to his indie roots with a comedy-drama that comes from a personal and painfully real place.
A young man (Yuki Kura, left) who isn’t well-versed in wooing attempts to strike up a relationship with a convenience store clerk (Haruka Imou) he has a crush on in “How to Find a Lover.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 19, 2023
‘How to Find a Lover’: Quirky rom-com is deeper than it seems
Koji Maeda keeps the film’s tone fun and offbeat while not shying away from the emotional wounds of its lead characters.
“The Burden of the Past” is based on the real-life experiences of ex-cons and the editorial team of a magazine that supports former prisoners in finding jobs and reentering society.
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2023
'The Burden of the Past' addresses bleak reality of ex-cons with some hope
Atsushi Funahashi’s film is grounded in the director’s own research about the hurdles former prisoners face when attempting to rejoin society.
Singer-songwriter Aina The End (center) plays a young woman who strives to overcome her hardscrabble life and become an indie musician in “Kyrie.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2023
'Kyrie': Musical melodrama celebrates youth
Shunji Iwai's film about indie musicians and female friendships may have an overstuffed plot, but it also has a visual energy unique to the director.
A woman (Yoko Maki) haunted by the trauma of her husband’s unexplained disappearance hires a detective to find answers in Rikiya Imaizumi’s “Undercurrent.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2023
‘Undercurrent’: All is not lost in cathartic drama
Yoko Maki and Arata Iura deliver committed performances in Rikiya Imaizumi’s introspective film about people who vanish for inexplicable reasons.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Did Japan intervene to prop up the yen? Analysts think it did.
A man walks past an electronic board displaying the exchange rate for the yen against the U.S. dollar (right) in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.

Podcast

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

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass
Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER