“If you use beautiful things every day, you will naturally cultivate an eye for beautiful things without giving it a second thought. In the end, you will be repelled when you encounter the ugly and the fake. If only all Japan would come to see this, how much more joyous ...
Chikao Muratani is a veterinarian and owner of Anima Animal Hospital in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward. Having worked in the United ...
Ever wondered what it feels like to stand on top of the world? Eighty-one-year-old alpinist Yuichiro Miura should know: He’s ...
The Downtown comedy duo — comprising Hitoshi Matsumoto and Masatoshi Hamada — are sitting on a train speeding towards Narita Airport outside Tokyo. It’s not like they’re going anywhere, or doing anything, even — they’re just sitting there and waiting for something to happen. ...
Masaaki Katabami is a content producer working in Tokyo. Besides producing manga and mascot design for clients, Katabami publishes Burgeon, a biannual free manga magazine aimed at a female otaku (geek) readership. Available at Tokyo’s Comiket (Comic Market fair), the magazine is in its ...
Sixteen-year old ballerina Miko Fogarty may be an American teen prodigy, but despite hailing from that land steeped in stardom culture, she seems to have none of the usual celebrity trappings — or to be particularly interested in them. When we met recently on ...
Unlike the stereotype of your average American teen, Miko Fogarty (16) is not talkative or exuberant. In this way she seems somewhat shy and reserved, almost as if she leans toward the Japanese part of her lineage despite being brought up in the United ...
Naoto Kan took his first steps in the world of politics around 40 years ago as a pugnacious citizen-activist, admonishing those with power as only those without it can. Though he likes to say he’s the same man now, of course there’s an irony ...
In December 1990, journalist Toyohiro Akiyama made headlines the world over when he blasted off aboard a Soviet rocket to become the very first “space correspondent” in history. The Soyuz capsule with the 47-year-old Tokyo Broadcasting System reporter strapped inside later docked with the ...
Masayuki Kazama, 51, is the owner of StockPlus, a mailbox-rental and parcel-forwarding service located in Tokyo’s Ginza district, just opposite the Kabukiza theater. Printing business cards, pamphlets, posters and seasonal greeting cards for nearby mom-and-pop shops, restaurants and hostess clubs, Kazama and his staff ...
From “Empire of the Sun” to “The Last Samurai,” and from “Memoirs of a Geisha” to “Babel” — when Hollywood film directors have turned their cameras to the Land of the Rising Sun, there is one person they have insisted on having by their ...
Takashi Yamamoto, 42, president of Peace Boat Disaster Relief Volunteer Center, is Japan’s leading expert on volunteer disaster-relief activities. In 1995, when he was a staffer of the educational cruise ship Peace Boat, Yamamoto began working on disaster relief for Kobe after the Great ...
With a long rousing cry of “Goooooooood Mooooorning Tooookyoooooooooooo!” Jon Kabira launches into his weekly radio show “JK Radio — Tokyo United” every Friday at 6 a.m. on J-Wave.
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
Though word-class track athlete Dai Tamesue may have hung up his spikes, he has plenty of insights to share on how sports can play a bigger role in society.
