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August 28, 2025
 

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CULTURE

TV & Streaming

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Virtual singer Kaf got her start in 2018 by posting songs and covers to YouTube. Now, after having performed live shows at major venues including Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan, she is turning to voice acting and starring in the new anime series “Kamitsubaki City Under Construction.”
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Virtual singer Kaf's music becomes magic in 'Kamitsubaki City Under Construction'
After evolving from an online presence into a live performer, Kaf has now stepped into voice acting as part of a multimedia project built around a supergroup of virtual artists.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / Wide Angle
From foil to fan favorite, Kuromi embodies Sanrio’s darker side of cute
Once My Melody’s mischievous antagonist, Kuromi is now outshining her pastel-pink counterpart, with a rebellious personality that resonates with today’s audiences.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Samansa bets on commuter cinema
As attention spans get shorter, a Japanese startup is banking on short films as easily digestible entertainment.
A musical genius (Takeru Satoh, second from right) recruits an unknown rookie drummer to play with Japan’s hottest band in “Glass Heart.”
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Aug 7, 2025
'Glass Heart’: A flashy rock fairytale scrubbed of grit
By James Hadfield
Netflix’s drama series about a musical genius forming Japan’s hottest new band is glossy, shallow and strangely sanitized.
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Apr 3, 2025
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
By Mike Fu
NHK's new four-episode miniseries, “After the Quake,” probes the ripple effects of past major disasters across Japanese society.
“The Wakey Show” is NHK’s first new daily children’s program in three years, and it carries on the station’s storied past in youth-centric educational entertainment.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 27, 2025
Rise and shine with ‘The Wakey Show’
By Patrick St. Michel
Broadcaster NHK's first new daily children’s show in years puts puppets and positivity up front.
Netflix reality show “K-foodie meets J-foodie” follows South Korean YouTuber Sung Si-kyung and Japanese actor Yutaka Matsushige as they share meals in their respective countries.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 6, 2025
Can a meal make you besties? ‘K-foodie meets J-foodie’ says yes.
By Patrick St. Michel
The new Netflix show pairs a Korean crooner and a Japanese food icon for a cross-cultural food rally.
Netflix reality series “Offline Love” follows five men and five women as they spend 10 days in Nice, France, finding romance.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Feb 18, 2025
‘Offline Love’ ditches digital dating and puts old-school romance to the test
By Patrick St. Michel
Netflix Japan's new reality series whisks its participants to a picturesque seaside city in France and leans into nostalgia for a simpler time.
Netflix series “Asura,” directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, is a remake of a classic TV drama (known as “Like Asura” in English), created by Kuniko Mukoda and broadcast by NHK between 1979 and 1980.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Feb 12, 2025
The different faces of ‘Asura’ through the generations
By James Hadfield
While Hirokazu Kore-eda’s new series meticulously remakes a classic NHK drama, this reinterpretation tweaks the story to give its female characters more agency.
The new Nippon TV series “The Hot Spot” follows an alien superhero navigating rural Japanese life but focuses more on dialogue than splashy, action-packed plot points.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / Wide Angle
Feb 10, 2025
‘The Hot Spot’: Close encounters of the mundane kind
By Patrick St. Michel
Japanese dramas have been taking bolder risks recently, and Bakarhythm’s new sci-fi series surprises by centering its high-concept ideas on trivial occurrences.

Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan Post to stop accepting some parcels for shipment to the U.S.
Japan Post's UGX will still be available for many rejected packages.
Japan aims to tighten rules for business manager visas from October
The number of foreign residents with business management residency status had reached a record 41,615 as of the end of 2024.
Tokyo releases AI-generated video of Mount Fuji erupting
A screenshot from an AI-generated video showing what could happen to Tokyo if Mount Fuji erupted
Character-crazed Japan has little appetite for Labubu
A pop-up advertisement for the newly opened Chiikawa Park in Tokyo's Ikebukuro neighborhood demonstrates how the country is chockful of cute characters — to the detriment of trends like Labubu.
Koshien’s dark summer forces reckoning for high school baseball
Koryo High School players greet their cheering section after beating Hokkaido’s Asahikawa Shiho in the first round of Summer Koshien on Aug. 7. The school withdrew three days later as a bullying scandal enveloped the team.
Is Kishida plotting a return of the king? Or would he rather stay a kingmaker?
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chairs a plenary session at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama on Aug. 21.
Japanese prefectures break with labor ministry on minimum wage
The ministry of labor has suggested a 6% minimum wage increase, but most prefectures reporting so far are opting to go slightly higher.
Philippines quietly deepening ‘unofficial’ defense ties with Taiwan
Filipino soldiers take part in a flag-raising ceremony on Mavulis Island during a visit by the Philippines' Armed Forces chief of staff, in Batanes, the Philippines, in June 2023. Batanes, a group of idyllic islands at the country’s northernmost tip, sits about 160 kilometers from Taiwan.
Are 'coolcations' the answer for Japan's heat-weary tourists?
Hikers on a trail in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture. As extreme heat continues to grip Japan, a tectonic shift may be underway in the nation’s summer tourism scene as more people gravitate toward cooler destinations.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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