Patrick St. Michel is a Tokyo-based writer with a focus on Japanese music. He runs the blog Make Believe Melodies, which has focused on Japanese independent music since 2009. Besides The Japan Times, he also contributes to MTV 81 and The Atlantic.
For Patrick St. Michel's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Two anime films — ”Demon Slayer” and “Violet Evergarden” — offer a dash of optimism to end 2020, as Japanese pop culture moves towards the beginning of a new era.
Pop group NiziU’s “Make You Happy” became the song of this very strange summer and the government changed its tone from stay home to Go To.
When COVID-19 brought about a stay-at-home spring, Animal Crossing provided us with a digital island escape. In Episode 2 of Recultured, we look at what happened when the world was made to stay at home, and how one game from Nintendo provided us an escape ...
On March 29, Ken Shimura, one of Japan's most celebrated comedians, passed away after testing positive for COVID-19. JT entertainment writer Patrick St. Michel discusses Shimura's life and death with host Oscar Boyd.
With a lockdown looming, it has never been a better time to update your emergency earthquake kit.
This year’s edition of the Japan Nite event at the South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was going to be special. It would have marked the event’s 25th anniversary of showcasing Japanese artists to fans in Austin, Texas, with a North American ...
While people on social media have largely been preoccupied with the pandemic, the most buzzed-about happening online in Japan involves a crocodile — don’t roll your eyes just yet — which, at some point, transformed into a commentary on the follies of capitalism and ...
This year's hanami season is shaping up to be a weird one. The beginning of spring rarely forces people to choose between having a good time under the cherry blossoms and grappling with a pandemic, but that's where we’re at in 2020. For those proactively ...
Choirs full of Swedish children typically don’t break into song at Narita Airport. That’s precisely what happened last Monday night, however, when a youth group called Nova Cantica found itself stranded at the transport hub and decided to pass the time by singing in ...
On this week’s episode we discuss the life and recent death of Johnny Kitagawa, the secretive mega mogul behind some of Japan's biggest music acts.
