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October 30, 2025
 

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Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Oct 27, 2025
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell
A sealed 1930s subway platform beneath Shimbashi Station still holds traces of what the capital looked like before the war.
Shunsuke Takahashi, owner of the cafe Hood by Vargas, says the Osaka neighborhood of Nakatsu feels brighter and calmer with the influx of new businesses.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 21, 2025
Nakatsu keeps its cool as gentrification looms
Named one of Time Out’ magazine's “world’s coolest neighborhoods,” the residents of Osaka’s Nakatsu hope the area can retain its balance of old and new that makes it special.
Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Oct 13, 2025
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building
A surge of new arenas from Chiba to Yokohama reveals how Japan’s cities are betting big on live entertainment.
Tokyo was ranked the world's best large city for the second year in a row in the Conde Nast Traveler's 2025 Readers' Choice Awards.
JAPAN
Oct 9, 2025
Tokyo named world’s best big city for second straight year
Recognition from readers of luxury travel and lifestyle magazine Conde Nast Traveler comes after Japan welcomed a record 36.8 million foreign visitors in 2024.
Nippon Ishin leader Hirofumi Yoshimura speaks to reporters at party headquarters in Osaka on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 30, 2025
Nippon Ishin draws up outline for secondary capital plan
The team defined the secondary capital as an economic center comparable to the Tokyo area that can function as the capital in the event that Tokyo becomes unable to do so.
Bipinkumar Padaya (center) sits with his wife and son at home in Dharavi, a slum settlement in Mumbai.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 27, 2025
In India's Mumbai, the largest slum in Asia is for sale
The plan to redevelop Dharavi, led by Mumbai authorities and billionaire tycoon Gautam Adani, reflects modern India — excessive, ambitious, and brutal.
One of Singapore Design’s Week’s lighter exhibitions is the “Unnatural History Museum of Singapore,” where levity and engineering combat anxieties over ecological crises.
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 20, 2025
‘Pluriversal’ Singapore Design Week brings solution-oriented works
Running through Sept. 21, the design fair in the island city-state grapples with issues especially common in Japan.
Juan Ansotegui walks on his property in Villalibado, a hamlet in the Odra-Pisuerga comarca of Burgos, Castile, Spain.
WORLD / Society
Sep 12, 2025
Spain wants to save rural areas — and it's finding creative ways to do it
Public and private actors are experimenting with ways to reverse demographic decline and save the centuries-old histories, traditions and cultures of Spain's rural communities.
Osaka stayed in first place thanks to high scores in the economy and for tourist attractions.
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2025
Osaka rated most powerful Japanese city outside Tokyo for fifth year
Osaka stayed in first thanks to high scores in the economy and for tourist attractions, with the city hosting the World Expo.
Suyun Ham, an engineering professor at UTA, reviews data from a recent inspection with two other researchers. Ham likens his technology to a “portable MRI,” which can detect cracks and other hidden dangers in a bridge.
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 26, 2025
Are bridges near you safe? This MRI-like scan may prevent disaster
An engineering professor from the University of Texas at Arlington is experimenting with a novel approach to inspecting bridges for heat damage.
The area around Shibuya Station in Tokyo. After the end of World War II, population concentration in the capital accelerated while other parts of Japan continue to see population declines.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 18, 2025
80 years on: Tokyo prospers while local revitalization still insufficient
Experts stress the importance of setting up a system in which industrial resources are circulated locally in order to create a sustainable society.
One of Swiss startup Enerdrape’s energy-harvesting panels is seen in this screenshot taken from video posted to the firm's YouTube account.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Aug 17, 2025
A startup is tapping underground parking garages for clean energy
Globally, heating accounts for nearly half of all energy consumption. That could make decarbonizing it a half-trillion-dollar market.
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, promises a rent freeze that’s easy to deliver but it remains to be seen if it will solve the city’s deeper housing problems.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2025
Freezing rent is easy. Making NYC housing affordable isn’t.
Zohran Mamdani’s campaign pledge would be simple to put into effect but wouldn’t do much to solve the underlying problem.
London’s worsening disorder — from soaring petty crime to reckless delivery riders and rising drug use — reflects a decades-old pattern of authorities and citizens normalizing lawlessness.
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2025
What turning a blind eye to deviant behavior is doing to London
The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, needs to take growing disorder on the streets more seriously.
The classic red brick arches of Tokyo’s first “gādo-shita,” built in 1910, are what most Japanese people think of when they think about commercial spaces under elevated railways.
LIFE / Style & Design / Longform
Jun 16, 2025
Revitalizing the space under Tokyo’s train tracks
Rail underpasses in big cities are being transformed into vibrant spaces for artisans, foodies and travelers — without erasing their past.
Mateusz Urbanowicz’s recent book “Imaginary Storefronts” collects his illustrations of the mundane Japanese street scenes that have given him immense inspiration.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
May 31, 2025
Mateusz Urbanowicz: ‘Miyazaki inspired me to put the audience first’
The Polish artist and animator talks about how he came to Japan and the inspiration he draws from ordinary streets and storefronts.
Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / Longform
May 26, 2025
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?
Trees have long occupied a sacred place in Japanese culture. In the fast pace of the 21st century, however, they're increasingly losing out to progress.
A person walks with a dog through the "micro-forest" park created by the Athens City Council near Alepotrypa Park in downtown Athens, Greece, on March 31.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Apr 22, 2025
Tentative tree planting 'decades overdue' in sweltering Athens
Planting vegetation is crucial to help cities beat the heat, scientists say, as climate change stokes hotter and more intense heatwaves.
A vandalized sign indicating an ultralow emission zone in west London.
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 10, 2025
Clean streets versus business woes: Pollution charge divides Londoners
The plan in London requires motorists to switch to low-emission vehicles or face a daily charge.
Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Mar 3, 2025
As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows
Women and young people are leading a migratory wave that the government is struggling to halt.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell
Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
At first summit with Trump, Takaichi pledges 'new golden age' for alliance
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi raises her fist as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech in front of U.S. Navy personnel on board the U.S. Navy's USS George Washington aircraft carrier at the American naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Tuesday.
Abe shooting suspect Yamagami pleads guilty to murder
Members of the media gather outside the Nara District Court in the city of Nara on Tuesday hours before the start of the trial of Tetsuya Yamagami, the man accused of fatally shooting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022.
Takaichi buys time and builds trust with ‘near-perfect’ Trump summit
U.S. President Donald Trump walks with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier during a visit to the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Tuesday.
JPYC, world’s first yen stablecoin, is issued
Noritaka Okabe, head of Japanese startup JPYC, at a news conference for the first yen stablecoin in Tokyo on Monday
Oasis returns to Tokyo: Rain, rapture and rock
Fans wait to get into the Oasis show at Tokyo Dome on Saturday. While lining up in the rain, some broke into impromptu versions of the British rock group's hits.
Kyushu banzuke sets the stage to cement 2025’s sumo narratives
Onosato ahead of his bout against Aonishiki at The Grand Sumo Tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Oct. 18
Tokyo Film Festival opens with global stars and a spotlight on Asian storytelling
Director Junji Sakamoto (left) walked the Tokyo International Film Festival red carpet with Sayuri Yoshinaga (center) and Non (right), who both play mountaineer Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Mount Everest, in the biopic "Climbing for Life."
Spanish artist and Japanese writer duos diversify the manga talent pool in Japan
"Menheim” is a dark fantasy manga with a story that centers on a girl’s quest to find a cure for her ill brother.
Japan’s youth are apathetic toward the climate crisis. Could anime change that?
“Future Kid Takara,” a series of anime shorts to be aired on NHK Educational TV in November, attempts to educate children about climate change.

Podcast

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

Longform

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

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Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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