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October 22, 2025
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014
'Ieji (Homeland)'
Many documentaries have been made about the nuclear-plant disaster in Fukushima and its aftermath, but relatively few feature films. One reason could be seen in the rough handling local critics gave "Kibo no Kuni (The Land of Hope)," Sion Sono's 2012 film set in a near-future Japan that has again experienced...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014
'Ai no Uzu (Love's Whirlpool)'
Sex and love — can the twain ever meet? In the world of fūzoku, a euphemism for Japan's enormous sex industry, that question is usually answered in the negative.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014
'Futaba Kara Toku Hanarete (Nuclear Nation)'
Director: Atsushi Funahashi
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014
Debate still rages over Abe-endorsed WWII drama
Takashi Yamazaki's World War II drama "Eien no Zero (The Eternal Zero)," whose pilot hero joins the tokkōtai (kamikaze) suicide squadron in the closing days of the war, has soared to the box office heights since its Dec. 21 release. After ranking No. 1 in the charts for eight weeks in a row, the film...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014
'Tokyo Nanmin (Refugee in Tokyo)'
It can be easy to fall through the cracks of many societies, even one like Japan's that seems to have a wide safety net, beginning with Mom and Dad.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014
'Manatsu no Houteishiki (Midsummer's Equation)'
Director: Keigo Higashino
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2014
'Iya Monogatari: Oku no Hito (The Tale of Iya)'
Cycling in the mountains near Tokyo, I often have two thoughts: First, I feel sorry for big-city denizens missing all the natural beauty so near. Second, I wonder how the locals can wrest a living from their tiny fields and orchards, perched precariously on the slopes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2014
'Color 4 Ozu: Eien Naru Ozu Color (Color 4 Ozu: Forever Ozu Color)'
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2014
'Mogura no Uta: Sennyu Sosakan Reiji (The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji)'
Directors in a profitable rut often feel the urge to try something new, even though the box office tells them to keep making the same old. Sometimes a change of genre can work wonders. After grinding out 48 episodes of the "Tora-san" dramedy series, Yoji Yamada ventured into the feudal past for the first...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2014
'R100'
Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2014
'Dakishimetai: Shinjitsu no Monogatari (I Just Wanna Hug You)'
Of Japanese medical melodramas there is no end. Targeted largely at the female audience, they appear on the lineups of Toho and other major distributors with the regularity of cherry blossoms in April.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2014
'Kuroyuri Danchi' (The Complex)
Director: Hideo Nakata
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014
Actress Nikaido sets her own agenda
Many young Japanese film actors start as models or pop stars and then, as they accumulate magazine covers or CD sales, move into TV and films. Many also play versions of themselves again and again on screen, which may suit their fans just fine, but makes for repetitive viewing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014
'Chiisai Ouchi (The Little House)'
Several veterans of Japan's old studio system are still working, but Yoji Yamada is the only one still directing for the studio he started out with, back in 1954. He has directed 81 films for Shochiku; his extraordinary box-office success with the "Tora-san" series, 48 films from 1969 to 1995 about the...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014
Joze to Tora to Sakana-tachi (Josee, the Tiger and the Fish)
Director: Isshin Inudo
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2014
'Bilocation'
"There will never be another you" goes the jazz standard, but is it true? Have you ever thought that your spitting image might be wandering the world somewhere? What if you encountered you on the street? I would make fast tracks in the opposite direction.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2014
'Fune wo Amu (The Great Passage)'
Director: Yuya Ishii
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 11, 2014
An inside look at the anime industry
Many books about anime and its makers have been published abroad in English and other languages, but few are by Japanese critics and scholars. In Japan, it's the reverse, with non-Japanese anime writers excluded from publishers' lists.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2014
Fukada's young castaways on adulthood's shores
Born in Tokyo in 1980, Koji Fukada released his first film in 2004, but his breakthrough was 2010's "Kantai (Hospitalité)," a witty black comedy about a mysterious stranger who talks his way into a job at a small Tokyo printing shop and is soon insinuating himself into the lives of the shop's proprietor...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2014
'Hotori no Sakuko (Au Revoir l'Eté)'
Compared to his avant-garde French new-wave peers, Eric Rohmer seemed to direct in a lighter, more conventional key: All those casually chic young heroines photographed in the more attractive parts of France, all those stories about their various love troubles. Also, from a Hollywood perspective, his...
Takaichi makes history as Japan’s first female prime minister
Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi reacts to applauding lawmakers after being elected prime minister at the Lower House on Tuesday.
Path clears for Takaichi to become PM as LDP and JIP agree to form coalition
Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi (right) reaches out to shake hands with Japan Innovation Party leader Hirofumi Yoshimura after signing a coalition deal Monday evening in Tokyo.
Rare female yakuza walks path to redemption in Japan
Retired yakuza Mako Nishimura sorts fallen leaves during a clean-up activity at the Gifu Gokoku shrine in Gifu Prefecture on Sept. 28.
Japanese man sentenced to eight years after rare public accusation of rape
Riho Fukuyama (center) and her husband Yoshiki Fukuyama (left) speak to the media with their lawyer (right) outside the Toyama District Court in Toyama on Tuesday.
Takaichi government will likely spend less than expected
Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi at the National Diet Building in Tokyo on Monday
Nakatsu keeps its cool as gentrification looms
Shunsuke Takahashi, owner of the cafe Hood by Vargas, says the Osaka neighborhood of Nakatsu feels brighter and calmer with the influx of new businesses.
How Japan’s greatest psychological horror game came home
Series composer Akira Yamaoka and writer Ryukishi07 were integral figures in helping one of Japan's greatest horror gaming franchises land a Japanese setting.
Japan leads in in-depth AI awareness, new global study finds
In Japan, 55% were “equally concerned and excited” about the rise of AI in daily life, while 28% were “more concerned than excited.”
What does Jimbocho think of its unexpected ‘cool’ status?
Tokyo's Jimbocho neighborhood is a haven for book lovers, its rows of secondhand bookstores spilling over with printed materials.
What you need to see at this year's Tokyo film festival
Chloe Zhao’s "Hamnet"

Podcast

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

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.
By Thu-Huong Ha and Mike Fu

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