W ith his winning of the prestigious Alpha Blogger Awards 2010, Tokyo-based cartoonist Junichi Inoue is now recognized as one of the most influential Japanese bloggers.

His blog carries comic strips of amusing episodes about a new life with his young, Chinese wife, Yue, who is in her mid-20s and struggling with cultural and language difficulties in Tokyo.

Hits on the website have risen sharply, especially after last September, when Sino-Japanese ties became strained by a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea — a group of uninhabited islands claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing.