Despite being a fantastic go-to costume on Halloween, witches in the West have never had it easy. There were the Salem witch trials of the 1690s, and similar trials elsewhere in North America and Europe through the 17th century, which served as warnings to ...

Hot and humid Japanese summers call for kaidan, scary stories that send shivers down the spine. In the days before we had air conditioning, kids would gather around after dinner to tell and listen to those terrifying tales in an effort to chill out ...

You officially become an adult at the age of 20 in Japan, but you don't really start feeling it until your mid-20s. That's when the pressures of work and marriage start kicking in, making it as good a time as any to re-evaluate. The 26th ...

One of the best things to come out of the rise of streaming websites overseas has been an increase in productions that have featured great roles for women. This year alone we've seen some phenomenal acting from Elisabeth Moss on "The Handmaid's Tale" and ...

For fans of the ikemen (handsome dude), Wowow's new mini-series "Akira and Akira" is like manna from heaven. Kicking off July 9, it stars actors Osamu Mukai and Takumi Saito, and the hype at this point may as well be soundtracked by The Weather ...

Hiroyuki Ikeuchi has what we refer to in showbiz as "the look." Sure, the 40-year-old actor has been working as an actor since his teens, even stepping behind the camera in 2006 for "Thirteen Moons." But it's his distinctive look that people remember. He can ...

It's China in 1941 and the Imperial Japanese Army is on the move. A band of freedom fighters led by Ma Yuan (Jackie Chan) seek to hijack a train line that transports food supplies to the invaders, get away with the loot and feed ...

The word 'nama' is a favorite among the Japanese, referring to everything from phone calls to foods to legs.

Loie Fuller was the ultimate "it girl." A little-known dancer from Illinois, she wound up in turn-of-the-century Paris, smack-dab in the middle of La Belle Epoque. Her friends? They were artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and filmmakers the Lumiere Brothers, and her protegee was acclaimed ...

American culture in the mid-20th century begs a multitude of descriptions, but if I had to sum it up in one word, it would probably be "smoking." People chain-smoked through the Vietnam protests, Watergate scandal, Stonewall riots and innumerable other events, both historic and ...