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September 19, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 5, 2023

‘Angry Son’: A sensitive portrayal of modern youth

Kazuki Horike gives a standout performance as a gay biracial teen in Kasho Iizuka's flawed but heartfelt coming-of-age tale.
The Leica museum in Wetzlar, western Germany, on March 18. The Leica camera turns 100 this year.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 7, 2025

Snappy birthday: Germany's Leica camera turns 100

The Leica 1 camera made its debut at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925.
While Unzen Onsen's "hells" can be visually striking, locals describe them and their effects as "a source of emotional healing."
LIFE / Travel
Apr 12, 2025

Heaven from hells: The sulfuric pleasure of Unzen Onsen

Located deep within Kyushu’s Shimabara Peninsula, this hot spring town offers dramatic scenery worth the effort it takes to get there.
When a bomber holds a high-speed train to ransom, it’s left to conductor Kazuya Takaichi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) and his colleagues to save the day in “Bullet Train Explosion.”
CULTURE / Film
Apr 17, 2025

'Bullet Train Explosion’: High-speed disaster movie doesn’t get the pulse racing

Netflix’s most lavish Japanese movie to date whizzes by without doing much damage to the image of the high-speed rail it’s promoting.
People walk down a street in the red-light entertainment area of Kabukicho in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo on March 31.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 20, 2025

Social media helps fuel growing 'sex tourism' in Japan

Only certain sexual services are prohibited in Japan, and it is the sex workers — not their clients — who face fines or prison, if caught.
The Hollywood sign is framed by palm trees as Donald Trump unveils a 100% tariff on films made outside of the U.S., in Los Angeles, California, on Monday.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 6, 2025

Trump tariff order on movies leaves film industry flummoxed

Tariffs on movies might prove more difficult to implement than even the highly integrated North American automobile industry.
Though the protagonist of “Jinsei” (voiced by rapper Ace Cool) is an emotional blank slate, his journey throughout the film takes wild turns.
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2025

‘Jinsei’: Ryuya Suzuki’s solo animation is a singular debut

The 30-year-old wrote, directed, animated, edited and soundtracked in isolation — creating one of the most striking films of 2025 so far.
Laurent Patouillet, the CEO and president of Agnes b. Japan, says the focus of its business is to remain independent, and evolve and adapt.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 18, 2025

Agnes b. Japan CEO hopes to evolve the brand with focus on sustainability

Laurent Patouillet, who has headed the brand's Japanese operations since 2018, believes there is more that it can do to be environmentally sustainable.
“Marion” provides a glimpse into the lives of bull dodgers, who perform a nonlethal version of bullfighting.
CULTURE / Film
May 23, 2025

Six short films that capture our world in mere minutes

The Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia proves that less time doesn't have to mean a lack of substance.
Mixue, a Chinese bubble tea chain, has become the world’s largest food and beverage chain, with tens of thousands of stores all over Asia. The company is just one example of the increasing reach and popularity of Chinese cultural exports across the globe.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 23, 2025

How China’s soft power is rewriting Asian culture

Chinese cultural exports are becoming increasingly popular across the world and especially Asia. Do they promote cross-border understanding or are they tools for propaganda?
American actor and Cannes jury member Jeremy Strong has been turning heads on the red carpet at this year's film festival in southern France.
LIFE / Style & Design
May 25, 2025

Jeremy Strong brings male power-dressing to Cannes

A member of the film festival's jury, the "Succession" star believes at a moment when truth is under assault, film matters more than ever.
Artists offer their own interpretations of Japan's most famous monster at "Godzilla The Art Exhibition."
CULTURE / Art
May 31, 2025

'Godzilla The Art Exhibition' reimagines film icon as monstrous muse for modern art

The Mori Arts Center Gallery exhibition takes Japan's most famous monster beyond the world of filmmaking and asks nine artists to interpret the beast from their own point of view.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Oval Office on Feb. 27. U.S. conservatives may be unlikely defenders of free speech but their criticism of censorship in the U.K. and Europe raises real concerns about vague hate laws and curbs on liberty in the name of harmony. 
COMMENTARY
Jun 2, 2025

European kindness is threatening the foundations of free speech

Right-wing U.S. critics of U.K. and European censorship have a point.
Harvey Weinstein, accused of three sex crimes, appears for his retrial at the State Supreme Court in Manhattan on May 9.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 5, 2025

'No means no,' prosecutor tells jurors as Harvey Weinstein trial wraps

The cinema magnate's retrial follows the overturning of his 2020 convictions on rape and sexual assault charges by an appeals court.
Lee Sang-il’s “Kokuho,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year, follows the life of an "onnagata," a male kabuki actor who plays female roles, from his childhood as the son of a yakuza boss in 1960s Nagasaki to his official designation as a living national treasure.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2025

'Kokuho' illuminates the high price of becoming a national treasure

Director Lee Sang-il turns a long-held vision into reality with his sumptuously shot film that reveals the dedication, sacrifice — and loneliness — behind kabuki greatness.
Kenji Yanobe’s spacesuited cats are the main characters of “Ship’s Cat Island,” the inaugural exhibition at Hyper Museum Hanno in Saitama Prefecture.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 7, 2025

What can Kenji Yanobe’s cosmic cats teach us about humanity?

The spacesuited felines will be familiar to those who have visited the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka or Tokyo’s Ginza Six shopping complex last year.
Politics find a way into the bedroom as a stay-at-home wife (Ami Chong, left) clandestinely tends to a series of johns (including Kenji Iwaya, right) in “A Unique Country in Asia.”
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2025

‘A Unique Country in Asia’: Sex and politics make for strange bedfellows

With sex work and small talk, Kenji Yamauchi’s politically sharp film paints a complex portrait of modern Japan.
Tokyo Rainbow Pride is wrapping up for the year, but a slew of events in cities all over the country, from Hokkaido to Kyushu, lies in store in the second half of 2025.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 12, 2025

The persistence of Pride: LGBTQ+ events in Tokyo and beyond

Pride isn’t just a one-off weekend — a slate of activities and programs in support of the queer community continues in full force, from Hokkaido to Kyushu.
Akira Otani's genre-bending novel "The Night of Baba Yaga" takes place in Japan’s 1970s yakuza underworld and centers on the daughter of a mob boss and a ruthless martial arts fighter who serves as her bodyguard.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jul 4, 2025

Queer-coded yakuza story wins prestigious U.K. crime writing award

With “The Night of Baba Yaga,” Akira Otani is the first Japanese writer to win the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Award for crime fiction in translation.
Yukio Iokibe’s “Noto Democracy" centers on Motoyuki Takii, a former junior high school teacher who publishes a handwritten newspaper every month to encourage the residents of Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture, to engage in local politics.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2025

‘Noto Democracy’ and the slow work of civic change

As rural towns in Japan decline, Yukio Iokibe’s documentary offers a hopeful reminder that democracy endures through advocacy, persistence and human connection.
“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” is the first installment in a trilogy that's set to wrap the anime adaptation of Koyoharu Gotoke's manga about sword-wielding heroes fighting man-eating demons.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2025

‘Demon Slayer’ movie slashes its own box office records

“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” kicks off a new trilogy that is set to bring the anime adaptation of Koyoharu Gotoke's manga to a close.
In “Stigmatized Properties: Possession,” Yahiro Kuwata (Shota Watanabe, left) is a steel worker from Fukuoka who moves to Tokyo to become a TV personality and ends up renting a haunted apartment.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2025

'Stigmatized Properties: Possession': Layered lead faces ghosts and show business

In the sequel to his 2020 haunted apartments horror, Hideo Nakata creates goose-pimply moments of terror with common paranormal phenomena.
Actor Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan and David Corenswet attend the Los Angeles premiere of “Superman” at the TCL Chinese Theater on July 7.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2025

Hollywood has lost the plot on telling stories

Western culture seems to have reached an impasse — wistful for our youth and unable to come up with any new ideas.
Filmmakers interview the general manager of a Bald Men's club for an upcoming Flix Oven documentary that will be available via the streaming platform Samansa.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Aug 14, 2025

Samansa bets on commuter cinema

As attention spans get shorter, a Japanese startup is banking on short films as easily digestible entertainment.
Currently, operators of theaters and music halls can get a one-third reduction in the fixed property and city planning taxes if they carry out barrier-free renovations that meet government standards.
JAPAN
Aug 14, 2025

Japan eyes tax relief for barrier-free movie theaters

The initiative aims to help people enjoy cultural and artistic activities regardless of their disability.
The inverted cone, one of Atsushi Kitagawara’s six signature elements in architecture, is a key feature of the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection museum building.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 16, 2025

Atsushi Kitagawara’s exhibition finds poetry in architecture

Award-winning architect Kitagawara's work is displayed at the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection museum he designed, making it both a venue and a centerpiece of the exhibition.
A middle school student (Chiyuri Nishiguchi) tries to keep her family afloat following the sudden death of her mother in Yoshihiko Taniguchi’s “Happy Life.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2025

‘Happy Life’ brings dignity to family’s struggle with grief and poverty

Yoshihiko Taniguchi’s film balances realism and compassion in its depiction of a family adrift after a sudden death.
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.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 22, 2025

From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past

One man’s experience traces the capital's arc from wartime devastation to modern megacity in a story of resilience and reinvention.
The first installment of "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba The Movie: Infinity Castle" trilogy released in July, had earned ¥31.42 billion as of Sunday.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 9, 2025

Latest 'Demon Slayer' film slays at box office, earning over ¥30 billion

The latest film topped ¥10 billion in box-office revenue in the first eight days of its release and ¥22 billion in the first 25 days before hitting ¥31.42 billion as of Sunday.
A statue of young swordsman Tanjiro Kamado, the main character in the "Demon Slayer" anime franchise, is on display at a cinema in Tokyo's Ikebukuro neighborhood.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 17, 2025

Japan’s box office belongs to 'Demon Slayer' as latest film ranks second all time

“Infinity Castle” entry has overtaken “Spirited Away,” making the franchise the undisputed king of Japan’s all-time box office.
Wealthy foreign nationals picking up ultimate souvenir — a condo in Tokyo
A high-end property in the fashionable Daikanyama district in Tokyo
Japan dispatches five language education 'partners' to India
Five members of the Japan Foundation's Nihongo Partners program (front) gather at the Japanese Embassy in New Delhi on Monday.
End of U.S. de minimis exemption causes headaches for some businesses in Japan
Proxy-shopping services — companies that ship Japanese products ranging from cosmetics and snacks to limited-edition stationery on behalf of customers abroad — are already feeling the impact of the U.S. suspending de minimis exemptions.
Over 90% of low-income families in Japan struggling to feed children
Save the Children Japan domestic program chief Sonoko Kawakami speaks at a news conference in Tokyo in July. A survey conducted by the group in June has found that over 90% of low-income households with children face food insecurity.
Struggling train firm in Chiba Prefecture turns to self-deprecating humor
"Laughter is important when you're in a difficult situation," said Katsunori Takemoto, president of Choshi Electric Railway, on Aug. 5 in Choshi, Chiba Prefecture.
Japan’s front-line researchers see bright path ahead for dementia treatment
A scientist looks at scans of grains at the Memory Centre at the Department of Readaptation and Geriatrics of the University Hospital (HUG) in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 6, 2023.
Still plenty to fight for, says Japan’s team leader at worlds
Race walker Hayato Katsuki earned bronze for Japan on the opening day of the World Athletics Championships on Saturday.
Wealthy foreign nationals picking up ultimate souvenir — a condo in Tokyo
A high-end property in the fashionable Daikanyama district in Tokyo
Japanese athletes inspired by raucous home fans at World Athletics Championships
Fans cheer on the home favorites during the women's marathon at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Sunday.
Japan's major art events converge this fall
Shinji Ohmaki’s “Tokinokage” exhibited at Fuji Textile Week 2021 shows the use of fabric as art.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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