October 29, 2025

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LIFE

Lifestyle

The team at Ryokukou Garden consists primarily of a single family, including Toshiki Tanisaki (second from right), who led the company's efforts at the Osaka Expo, Chikako Tanisaki (fifth from right), who performs daily maintanence at the expo, and Takeshi Tanisaki (fourth from right), who added a nursery to the family farm more than 50 years ago.

LIFE / Lifestyle

Oct 4, 2025

How a family-run landscaper turned the Osaka Expo green

By Edward Hewes

Run by three generations of the same family, Ryokukou Garden is behind the greenery for five major pavilions at the Osaka event.

Redevelopment plans for Kawayu Onsen have hit some snags — an example of how bringing tourists back to declining rural communities is far from easy work.

LIFE / Lifestyle

Sep 6, 2025

In rural Hokkaido, the stops and starts of tourism revival on full display

By Justin Randall

A new luxury resort might halt the decline of Kawayu, but only if locals and businesses can agree on how to move forward.

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.

LIFE / Lifestyle

Aug 23, 2025

Character-crazed Japan has little appetite for Labubu

By Yuko Tamura

The monster dolls may be driving fans wild elsewhere, but Japan has long had plenty of its own domestically produced characters that know exactly what consumers want.

A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.

LIFE / Lifestyle

Aug 22, 2025

Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’

By Mai Yoshikawa

One doctor says the symptoms of smartphone-induced tendonitis and arthritis are on the rise for those in the 20s, 30s and 40s.

Now part of the city of Kitakyushu, the former castle town of Kokura, its collection of retro architecture and many of its inhabitants were once targeted for atomic catastrophe that eventually befell the population of Nagasaki to the south.

LIFE / Lifestyle

Aug 9, 2025

A walk through Kokura, the city spared nuclear destruction

By Edward J. Taylor

Now part of the industrial sprawl of Kitakyushu, the city was originally meant to suffer the destruction that would eventually befall Nagasaki to the south.

Mika Horii (left) and Jane Su record an episode of “Over the Sun” at TBS Broadcasting Center in Tokyo’s Akasaka area. The show draws 1.5 million monthly plays.

LIFE / Lifestyle

Jul 31, 2025

'Over the Sun': A podcast for Japanese women who’ve lived a little

By Yuko Tamura

In their hit podcast “Over the Sun,” hosts Jane Su and Mika Horii turn everyday chats into a cultural phenomenon.

This year marked the ninth annual championship put on by the Hogyokukai school of traditional Japanese swordsmanship.

LIFE / Lifestyle

Jul 26, 2025

Traditional Japanese swordsmanship — with modern matches

By Johan Brooks

Held on July 12, the Hogyokukai’s ninth annual championship once again blended classic techniques with contemporary competition.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.

Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

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