Film
For the most complex heroines in animation, look to Japan
by Charles Solomon
The girls and women of anime tend to experience the conflicting emotions of real life. That’s because the auteurs try to create “an everyday, real person.”
Film
Thailand bets on dramatic 'boys' love' tourism boom
by Genki Ito
Thailand has begun a campaign to attract international tourists, and especially Japanese travelers, using the popularity of homegrown productions of "boys' love," or BL dramas.
Music
'Softly': Tatsuro Yamashita looks to the future with timeless optimism
by Patrick St. Michel
Two Tatsuro Yamashitas exist in 2022. There’s Tatsuro Yamashita, the patron saint of city pop and a musical symbol for all things bubble-era Japan. As a younger generation in Japan and abroad long for the perceived ease and excess of the 1970s and ’80s, ...
