I'm fine with playing the German to humor my Japanese acquaintances — just not one German in particular.

Chapter 5 When Franz woke up, not much had changed. He was still in the big new house by the cemetery, which he had just moved into with his wife, Hina, and her parents. It was still Day One. Probably. "How long have I been ...

Chapter 4 It turned out Hina's parents did not hold on to old superstitions as firmly as their daughter had believed. They didn't mind that the big house their son-in-law, Franz, had found for them all to co-inhabit was right next to a cemetery. "Well, it ...

Chapter 3 Whenever the railroad crossing gate hit his head, Franz felt right at home. Like a true local. The crossing gates came down often at the entrance to Happy Road Oyamadai. At first, Franz had found it amusing, how the locals started running once they ...

Chapter 2 The meta-evil Doktor Fluxus had opened an Intrastellar Portal into the Double-negative Zone, causing a worldwide communications breakdown. With humanity on the brink of war and insanity, it was up to Nooncreeper and Lady Opaque to save the day. Due to secrets buried ...

Chapter 1 Franz's sausage roll breakfast at the local Vent de Ludo on Happy Road Oyamadai reminded him of Sundays. Not Japanese Sundays, filled with frantic quests for overcrowded quality time, but German Sundays. It wasn't the sausage. It wasn't even that today actually was ...

Riding the full length of Tokyo's central Yamanote railway line takes about an hour, but walking it has its own rewards.

Just as new blooms mark the arrival of spring, we know it's hay fever season in Japan thanks to an uptick in face masks. Like anyone who comes to Japan, I've flirted with the mask myself on occasion, but never really made a commitment. For ...

Whenever friends of mine return home for a visit, they've all told me they're confronted by one nagging question when they're there: Should I just stay, or should I go back? I like it here in Tokyo, yet I'm sometimes surprised that other non-Japanese people ...

Everybody knows that it is hard to make a good living from writing alone. However, every aspiring writer I've met has thought they might end up as that one-in-a-million exception to the rule. Most learn the hard truth in their 20s, but some have ...