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July 04, 2025
 

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James Hadfield
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...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2016
'Embrace of the Serpent': Amid the poisons of colonization
While Leonardo DiCaprio's masochistic lead performance garnered greater acclaim, perhaps the most striking aspect of "The Revenant" was the diligence it showed in telling the Native American side of the story. Yet for all the scenes of authentic Arikara dialogue, the indigenous characters in Alejandro...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 19, 2016
TIFF takes viewers beyond the comfort zone
While sifting through the movies submitted for this year's Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), competition programming director Yoshihiko Yatabe says he noticed a recurring theme.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2016
Shugo Tokumaru gets his friends involved on new album 'Toss'
A couple of months ago, Shugo Tokumaru released a video on YouTube that showed him preparing an elaborate meal from an unlikely set of ingredients. In it, he took a selection of toy instruments — a ukulele, a recorder, some castanets, a party horn — and chopped them up, dusted a few pieces with flour,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2016
'Jason Bourne': The invincible franchise
It's the Bourne revival: Matt Damon is Bourne again. After an unsuccessful attempt to transfer the franchise to Jeremy Renner in 2012's "The Bourne Legacy," Damon has returned to his most iconic role as the brainwashed CIA super-soldier. He's the real deal, the Sean Connery to Renner's George Lazenby,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 9, 2016
A hive of sonic activity stirs on Kafka's Ibiki release
There's something curious happening on "Nemutte," the sophomore album by Tokyo-based instrumental trio Kafka's Ibiki. When it performs live, the group specializes in long, patiently evolving improvisations that occupy a liminal zone between jazz, ambient, minimalism and experimental rock.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2016
'Star Trek' lives on and prospers
In principle, it's hard to dislike "Star Trek." Each time the crew of the USS Enterprise venture into the great beyond, broadcasting their mantra of peace and intergalactic harmony, it's a riposte to the iffy politics advocated by other movie franchises: they're the United Nations to Marvel and DC's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 30, 2016
Sushi crimes: How Japan polices its culinary traditions
"This is the best sushi you'll find in LA," says a suavely dressed man to his date, as they swoon over a table laden with ersatz creations like "caterpillar roll" and "spider roll." But just as they're about to consummate their passion, the meal is interrupted by a trio of armed Japanese officials: the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 21, 2016
Hany Abu-Assad: Making strong voices heard
Ever since the first series of "Pop Idol" screened on British TV in 2001, the televised music competition has become practically inescapable, with franchises springing up everywhere from Macedonia to the Maldives. Given how cannily stage-managed these "reality" shows really are, though, it almost comes...
Magnitude 5.5 earthquake jars Tokara Islands amid flurry of seismic activity
A strong quake struck off the Tokara Islands on Thursday afternoon, with the island chain having recorded around 1,000 earthquakes since a burst of seismic activity first began on June 21.
Onosato's yokozuna promotion causes rare quirk in new sumo rankings
Newly promoted yokozuna Onosato holds a copy of the latest banzuke ranking in Anjo, Aichi Prefecture, on Monday.
A prophesied disaster (likely) won’t strike Japan this weekend
A viral manga prediction of a July 5 disaster has gripped Japan with anxiety and triggered an economic impact, but experts warn that while such dates are unreliable, the threat of a massive earthquake remains real. 
Over 900 earthquakes strike Tokara islands in space of two weeks
A screenshot shows many quakes occurring in the Tokara islands over the past 30 days, in this image taken from the U.S. Geological Survey website.
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Flag football facing challenges and opportunities ahead
Japan’s women’s flag football team at the 2025 International Bowl in Los Angeles in June. The sport is enjoying continued growth in the country.
From Hokusai’s Great Wave, shinkansen to One Piece: a cultural treasure box for Lego Japan
Michael Ebbesen, general manager of Lego Japan, says Lego bricks based on Japanese culture have a rich global appeal and are sellable around the world.
With farmed fish, RelationFish swims against the tide in fine dining
Chef Hideaki Matsuo (middle) and the staff of Oseto Suisan Fisheries prepare to check on their sustainably farmed fish.
As Southeast Asia heats up, a Japanese cooling giant sees a major opportunity
An employee of Daikin Cambodia explains the use of different tools during an air conditioner installation training session in Phnom Penh. Daikin is one of Japan’s oldest air conditioning companies, but as Japan’s population falls, the firm is keying in on overseas growth.

Podcast

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

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji
By Alex K.T. Martin

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