With the call of "Standby!" the butterflies in my stomach start to dance. Effortlessly, my instructor, Kazuki Suzuki, steps out. As I follow him, letting go of the doorway, the sheer force of the wind takes my breath away. All I can do is gulp ...
The group that would soon be known as Dangen Entertainment sat around Ben Judd's house this past April, making plans and bouncing ideas off each other over pizza and drinks. Judd had an idea to start an independent game-publishing company in Japan and had ...
Consider today's column my personal testimony that the sport of sumo can be a very useful aid for learning the Japanese language.
Cut off by the Ou Mountains to the south and far removed from any center of power, Aomori Prefecture's remote Tsugaru Peninsula was largely left to its own devices until the Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1573-1603). In the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), different factions of the Tsugaru ...
Sing on key with Yamaha This December Yamaha is finally releasing to the public something that vocaloid fans have been waiting for: the Vocaloid Keyboard. Designed as a keytar, the Vocaloid Keyboard allows musicians to play singing voices, including that of the turquoise-haired character Hatsune ...
Biochemist Yuki Hanyu's vision for the future includes a supermarket that has plenty of meat, none of which has come from a farm. Instead, it has all been grown in a laboratory. Hanyu is the founder of Tokyo-based startup Shojinmeat Project, a team of volunteers ...
I recently went out to my friend John Harris' country home in the Isumi district of Chiba Prefecture, about 100 kilometers southeast of Tokyo. His house is midway down the Pacific coast of the Boso Peninsula, close to the small town of Onjuku, which ...
Meet Lulu Hashimoto, Japan's first "living doll" fashion model. Lulu — a full-body doll suit consisting of a wig, a mask and stockings patterned with doll-like joints — was born from one woman's desire to become cute. "I have always really liked dolls and for me, ...
Sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu became the first Japanese to break the 10-second barrier in the 100 meters.
Penniless and subsisting on only water for three weeks, Tokyo street-dweller Tokuchika Nishi thought he had come to the end of his life. "My money ran out and I thought it would be fine to just die a dog's death," says Nishi, 38, who had ...
For a long time Megumi Sasaki felt that something did not quite fit. The feeling settled like a shawl around her shoulders — she tried to shake it off but couldn't. "It wasn't that I disliked Tokyo or college," says Sasaki, recalling her days as a ...
