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August 30, 2025
 

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James Hadfield
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 26, 2017
Ryuichi Sakamoto resists the prettier path on 'async' and comes out stronger
In the liner notes for "async," his first solo album in eight years, Ryuichi Sakamoto lists some of the strategies he employed during the recording process: capturing elusive melodies at early-morning synthesizer sessions, compiling field recordings of rain and ruins, rearranging Bach chorales until...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2017
Hollywood's 'Ghost in the Shell' remake misses the mark
After the online petitions, the countless think pieces and Twitter tirades, Hollywood's "Ghost in the Shell" was never going to have an easy passage. Rupert Sanders' film — a $110 million live-action movie based on a beloved manga and anime property — was ill-fated from the start, tarnished by the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KNOWING KISSATEN
Mar 24, 2017
Tokyo's classical music cafes are time capsules for audiophiles
In this age of musical abundance, it's hard to fathom that an LP once cost the equivalent of a few days' wages in Japan. In the 1950s, audiophiles who couldn't afford to buy their own music did their listening at coffee shops known as meikyoku kissaten ("musical masterpiece cafes"), which boasted high-end...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 15, 2017
'Kong: Skull Island': King Kong swats away the story line
From the bizarrely "localized" titles to the media events featuring random TV personalities who aren't even in the film, Japanese distributors use some peculiar strategies to promote Hollywood movies to an increasingly indifferent public.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 8, 2017
'The Wailing': Spine-chilling in every possible way
When village cop Jong-gu (Kwak Do-won) gets woken before dawn and summoned to the scene of a suspected murder, his wife persuades him to stay at home and have a proper breakfast first. This paunchy put-upon sergeant clearly isn't cut out for serious police work, which may prove to be his undoing. As...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 1, 2017
'The Handmaiden': A sinfully silly gothic psychodrama
Korean genre stylist Park Chan-wook is best known to Western audiences for his "Vengeance" trilogy: a trio of malevolent, blackly comic thrillers that included his 2003 breakout hit, "Oldboy." But his recent films have coalesced into an informal trilogy of their own, linked by a shared enthusiasm for...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KNOWING KISSATEN
Feb 24, 2017
Tokyo's retro coffee palaces are in a class entirely their own
The archetypical kissaten (traditional coffee shop) would probably be a cozy neighborhood joint with faded '60s decor, one of those vintage pink pay phones that only take ¥10 coins and a couple of elderly customers smoking furiously as they squint over their newspapers.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 15, 2017
It'll get released in Japan — come 'Hell or High Water'
Among the snubs and surprise inclusions in this year's Oscar nominations, one might have stood out for Japanese movie fans — and I'm not talking about "Your Name." In what's surely a first, a Best Picture nominee has bypassed cinemas here and gone straight to Netflix.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 5, 2017
Koshiro Hino pushes the limits of control as YPY
A couple of years ago, I started to get a sense of deja-vu while loitering on the weirdo fringes of Japan's club scene. Whenever I asked DJs or producers what homegrown music they were most excited about at the moment, the same name kept coming up: Goat.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2017
'It's Only the End of the World': Dolan's fraught, flawed family affair
The word gets bandied around a lot, but genuine cinematic "auteurs" are a rare breed. It's easy to understand the excitement that Xavier Dolan inspires, even before you've watched any of his gloriously overheated films. The Quebecois director — who also writes, edits and sometimes stars in his movies,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KNOWING KISSATEN
Jan 27, 2017
Chatei Hatou: A pilgrimage site for traditional coffee
When Starbucks arrived in Japan in 1996, it should have spelled trouble for Doutor, the dowdy coffee chain that had dominated the market since the 1980s. In fact, the opposite happened: by cultivating demand for gourmet coffee, Starbucks actually revived the fortunes of its hot dog-vending homegrown...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2017
'Silence': A test of faith — and of patience
After spending nearly 30 years shepherding his adaptation of Shusaku Endo's "Silence" to the screen, Martin Scorsese may be starting to feel as forsaken as the book's Jesuit protagonist, abandoned by an uncommunicative and apparently uncaring God. The movie has been roundly ignored by Hollywood awards...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 28, 2016
'Rogue One': On the Dark Side of reanimation
How much do you want a new "Star Wars"? When J.J. Abrams' "The Force Awakens" opened to enormous fanfare last December, it felt like watching a beloved rock band making its comeback tour after a long hiatus. Sure, the original members couldn't quite muster the same energy and half of them seemed to have...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 28, 2016
'Ruined Heart': a belated release
When you're covering a film fest, sometimes you crave a quick jolt. I'm still not sure how Khavn's "Ruined Heart" (Japan title: "Kowareta Kokoro") snuck into the main competition section of Tokyo International Film Festival in 2014, but watching it at the time felt like necking a triple vodka and Red...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2016
'Knight of Cups': Is Malick's cup half-full or half-empty?
Halfway through "Knight of Cups," the latest treatise from philosopher-filmmaker Terrence Malick, the movie's chorus of internal monologues yields a line that could be read as a memo to the director himself: "Don't get your head too far up your own ass."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 10, 2016
Last splash: How long will the immodest Japanese tradition of mixed bathing continue?
The main reason that mixed baths have endured for so long is that communities have still supported them. When an onsen stops being a gathering place for locals, there's less to stop it slipping into disrepute.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 7, 2016
'Crazy Thunder Road' is still a mad, but great film
Sogo Ishii — or Gakuryu Ishii, as he now prefers to be known — was just 23 when he released "Crazy Thunder Road," perhaps one of the greatest films to emerge from Japan's punk era (an honor it shares with the director's 1982 follow-up, "Burst City"). A nihilistic tale of warring biker gangs and ultra-nationalist...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2016
'Hitchcock/Truffaut': An auteur meets his (movie) maker
The French got Alfred Hitchcock well before the Americans did. In the 1950s, when the tubby director's Hollywood overlords still regarded him as a producer of light entertainment — the Robert Zemeckis of his day, perhaps — the writers at France's Cahiers du Cinema magazine recognized his deeper genius....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2016
'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' delivers giddy escapism
When the Harry Potter saga reached the end of its eight-movie run in 2011, only a Muggle would have predicted that we'd heard the last from J.K. Rowling's world of wizardry. Never mind the obsessive fandom that the novels and films inspired, they were also seriously big business. As cinematic franchises...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 6, 2016
Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke to join event paying tribute to 'disruptive' artist Tony Conrad
Of the many words used by friends and collaborators to describe Tony Conrad, who died last April at the age of 76, one of the most frequently heard is "disruptive." In a career that straddled experimental music, film, visual art and education, Conrad vigorously resisted the complacency that befell many...
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.
Akazawa's trip to Washington for tariff talks abruptly canceled
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator, had been set to fly to Washington on Thursday.
Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
Virtual singer Kaf's music becomes magic in 'Kamitsubaki City Under Construction'
Virtual singer Kaf got her start in 2018 by posting songs and covers to YouTube. Now, after having performed live shows at major venues including Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan, she is turning to voice acting and starring in the new anime series “Kamitsubaki City Under Construction.”
In pictures: Koenji Awa Odori 2025
Japan Times
Koshien’s dark summer forces reckoning for high school baseball
Koryo High School players greet their cheering section after beating Hokkaido’s Asahikawa Shiho in the first round of Summer Koshien on Aug. 7. The school withdrew three days later as a bullying scandal enveloped the team.
Is Kishida plotting a return of the king? Or would he rather stay a kingmaker?
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chairs a plenary session at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama on Aug. 21.

Podcast

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

Longform

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.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality
Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

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