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April 28, 2025
 

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Mark Schilling
CULTURE / Film
May 28, 2014
'Gojira, Ebirah, Mothra: Nankai no Daiketto' (Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster)
Director: Jun Fukuda
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 22, 2014
Godzilla: the monster with multiple personalities
"Godzilla" was the first Japanese movie I saw. It was also the first for many other American baby boomers, though we did not view Ishiro Honda's 1954 original, but a version that had been heavily edited and dubbed for the U.S. market, with additional footage featuring Raymond Burr as an intrepid American...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 22, 2014
'Oh! Father'
Japanese mystery writers have long supplied fodder for TV shows and films, but mysteries of the puzzle-plot sort have reached a saturation point. Or maybe it's just me, fed up with stories that turn on such vital questions as — in the immortal words of Raymond Chandler — "who trampled the jolly old...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 22, 2014
'Yume to Kyoki no Ohkoku (The Kingdom of Dreams & Madness)'
Director: Mami Sunada
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2014
'Wood Job!'
Shinobu Yaguchi has become a consistent hit maker by following a simple formula: generate laughs from the stumbles and mistakes of heroes learning a new job, art or sport. This formula usually results in audience cheers and tears when triumph finally arrives after many ups and downs. Examples include...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
May 15, 2014
'Arcana'
Director: Yoshitaka YamaguchiLanguage: Japanese (subtitled in English)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 9, 2014
Asia's myriad film genres celebrated at Udine festival
Why go to a film festival that specializes in the sort of popular Asian genres — from Hong Kong actioners to South Korean comedies — that the other "better" sort of festivals have traditionally sniffed at?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2014
Young Japanese filmmaker's dystopian dream
Several years ago, a film project of mine was selected for J-Pitch, a government-backed initiative that introduces new filmmakers to veteran producers outside Japan, in the hope (in my case, a faint hope) that they will co-produce an original film. At a J-Pitch seminar where new filmmakers delivered...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2014
'Momose, Kocchi wo Muite (My Pretend Girlfriend)'
First love, or hatsukoi, is a big topic in Japanese teen films, as well as almost everywhere else in popular culture. It's attractive because of its innocence and purity, as well as the almost inevitable fleetingness of the relationship — if indeed, it is one; someone is often far more besotted than...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2014
'Gomennasai (Ring of Curse)'
Director: Mari Asato
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 1, 2014
'Live'
When I was 12 I thought the movie parodies in "Mad" magazine were hilarious. Now I suppose I'm harder to please — or just older — but parodies that self-consciously mock their source, while cutely paying homage to it, quickly put me in a trance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 1, 2014
'Soshite Chichi ni Naru (Like Father, Like Son)'
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2014
Painful love in decaying Hokkaido port town
My interview with Mipo Oh, the director of the turbulent new love drama 'Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku (The Light Shines Only There),' did not begin smoothly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2014
'Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku (The Light Shines Only There)'
Japan's image overseas might have a funhouse aspect, but even many outlanders who live here only get a selective view of the place, since their Japanese colleagues and friends mostly come from the educated, middle-class stratum of society and live more or less stable, law-abiding lives.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2014
'Yokomichi Yonosuke Monogatari (The Story Of Yonosuke)'
Director: Shuichi Okita
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 17, 2014
'Thermae Romae II'
Hideki Takeuchi's "Thermae Romae" — literally "Roman Bath" — was 2012's surprise box office smash in Japan, earning nearly ¥6 billion, the second-highest that year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 17, 2014
'Hidamari No Kanojo' (Girl in the Sunny Place)
Director: Takahiro Miki
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 10, 2014
'Crows Explode'
In Japanese films, high-school classrooms are often portrayed as rowdy environments where kids can talk, tease, flirt and fight, without any visible adult supervision. But when the teacher walks through the door the fun — if that's what it is — usually ends.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 10, 2014
'Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo' (The Kirishima Thing)
Director: Daihachi Yoshida
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 5, 2014
Cycling Sayama
A forested area bordering western Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture offers day-trippers a chance to experience the great outdoors on two wheels.
China seizes disputed reef near key Philippine military outpost
China Coast Guard officers unfurl a national flag on Sandy Cay reef, near the Philippine-held Thitu Island, in disputed waters of the South China Sea this month in this screen shot taken from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Japan to resist Trump efforts to form trade bloc against China
As Japan gears up for the trade talks, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is also seeking to cushion the blow that the U.S. tariffs may have on the domestic economy.
As many as nine dead after driver plows into Vancouver festival crowd
An ambulance is parked at the site of the Lapu Lapu day festival, where a vehicle drove into a crowd killing several people in Vancouver on Saturday.
Japan’s legal system struggles to deal with AI-made child sexual abuse images
AI-generated content — including those made using pictures of real people, which are known as “deepfakes” — is not explicitly covered under Japan's current legal framework, nor are human-drawn illustrations that depict child abuse.
How to bring up bad news in Japanese
As in other cultures, when someone shares bad news in Japanese it’s best to respond with supportive words.
Amid uncertain tariffs, is now the time to buy a new iPhone?
An Apple store in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward in September. Prices for the newest iPhone models start at around ¥100,000 ($700) in Japan.
Built in a flash, Osaka Expo pavilions wrestle with sustainability
Kengo Kuma & Associates oversaw the construction of the Malaysia pavilion, which is encased in interwoven rows of bamboo that appear to ripple.
Japan weighs using U.S. rice imports as tariff negotiation tool with Trump
A restaurant owner pours California-grown Calrose rice into a rice cooker at his restaurant in Tokyo
Is Japan’s parliament ready to welcome more youth to its ranks?
Lower House lawmaker Kai Odake in his Tokyo office on Wednesday
Crow meat, goat tartare: Mauvaise Herbe raises its game
Crow meat, shaped into a ball and attached to a foot of the bird, is one of the peculiar offerings of game at Mauvaise Herbe.

Podcast

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

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
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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