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August 24, 2025
 

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FILM

A scene from "Kokuho"
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Aug 19, 2025
'Kokuho' rakes in over ¥10 billion at the box office
"Kokuho" is now the third-highest-grossing Japanese live-action movie ever after the 2003 film "Bayside Shakedown 2" and the 1983 movie "Antarctica."
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.
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.
A scene from the Taiwanese television drama "Zero Day Attack," which will stream in Japan from Friday.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 12, 2025
Taiwanese drama 'Zero Day Attack' on Chinese invasion to stream in Japan
The cast includes Japanese actors Issei Takahashi, who appears in the third episode, and Asami Mizukawa, who makes an appearance in the fifth episode.
Residential buildings in Cairo. The Japan Foundation will begin distributing Japanese movies online for free in all 54 countries in Africa on Tuesday, with many users in north African countries such as Egypt.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2025
Japan Foundation to distribute Japanese movies in Africa
The move comes ahead of the ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD 9, to be held in the city of Yokohama Aug. 20-22.
Vast improvements in AI-generated video is shaking the foundations of the creative industry.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 8, 2025
AI video becomes more convincing, rattling creative industry
To measure the progress of AI video, you need only look at Will Smith eating spaghetti.
Mika Sasaki (center) checks a scene of her film "Bougainvillea no Yume" ("Bougainvillea Dream") while shooting it in Kolkata, India, in February.
JAPAN
May 27, 2025
Japanese student in India reflects on her grandfather while filming World War II movie
The filmmaker's late grandfather is believed to have survived one of the fiercest battles during the war in India, though he never spoke of it.
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?
Lewis Hamilton waves to fans before the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola, Italy, on May 18.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
May 23, 2025
Lewis Hamilton has more movies in mind after working with Brad Pitt
Hamilton is also planning to do documentaries and possibly a television series with his Dawn Apollo production company.
Thai film "A Useful Ghost" won top prize in the Critics' Week sidebar section of the Cannes film festival.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
May 22, 2025
LGBTQ Thai ghost story wins prize in Cannes
Film director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke says he hoped his LGBTQ story could touch more on politics.
''A Minecraft Movie'' star Jack Black attends the films world premiere in London on March 30. Video-game adaptations like the movie are overtaking superhero films at the box office.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2025
Success of ‘Minecraft’ shows the future of movies is games
The big-screen feature from Warner Bros. Discovery, "A Minecraft Movie," has outearned every other U.S. movie so far in 2025.
Yi Liu (right), one of 10 directors involved in Taiwanese television series "Zero Day," works on post-production with colorist Liang Yu Fang in Taipei on March 5.
CULTURE / Film
May 13, 2025
Taiwanese war drama 'wake-up call' to Chinese invasion threat
The on-screen chaos of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is the basis of a new Taiwanese television series called "Zero Day."
Two teenagers stand in front of a poster for "Jumbo" at a cinema in Bekasi, West Java.
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2025
'Jumbo': the animated Indonesian film smashing records
A hit at home, Indonesian cinema watchers are hoping the family-friendly movie will appeal to neighboring countries and markets farther abroad.
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.
The Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles in 2024. U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. movie industry is dying a "very fast death" due to the incentives that other countries are offering to draw American filmmakers.
BUSINESS
May 5, 2025
Saying Hollywood is dying, Trump orders 100% tariff on non-U.S. movies to save it
No details were provided on how the tariffs would be implemented.
An actor portrays a "pocong," a ghost widely known in Indonesia, at a horror entertainment venue at a mall in Jakarta. The pocong is just one of the monsters that features in massively popular Indonesian horror movies.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 15, 2025
Indonesia's horror movie industry rises from the grave
Five of the top 10 films from 2024 were categorized as horror movies, a statistic that underscores just how popular the genre is.
A figurine of the character Link from the Nintendo video game series The Legend of Zelda is displayed inside the Nintendo Tokyo store in the Japanese capital in November 2019.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 29, 2025
Nintendo announces Legend of Zelda film for 2027
Nintendo made the announcement on "Nintendo Today!", a new app for fans that was launched on Thursday.
Singer and actor Ayumi Ishida was well known for her hit song "Blue Light Yokohama."
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Mar 18, 2025
Japanese singer and actor Ayumi Ishida dies at 76
"Blue Light Yokohama," released in 1968, sold over 1 million copies.
Globally, women are severely underrepresented among leading roles in cinema, with female directors accounting for just over 10% of the industry in Japan. Achieving gender equality on-set would have far-reaching consequences for the whole of society.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 7, 2025
Without women behind the camera, equality stays out of the frame
Cinema isn't only about what stories are told, but who tells them. Overcoming severe underrepresentation, women are reshaping the film industry and cultural narratives.
Shiori Ito is the first Japanese director to have been nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature film. "Black Box Diaries," which tells the story of her quest for justice following her rape in 2015, hasn't been released in Japan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 4, 2025
Can Shiori Ito’s documentary open Japan’s black box?
Concerns about footage in "Black Box Diaries" have stopped its release in Japan. But Shiori Ito's story needs to be brought to people’s attention — in all its harrowing details.
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
Women-only communities flourish in China
Chen Yani (right), nicknamed "Keke," eats lunch with friends and guests in a female co-living space she founded called "Keke's Imaginative Space" in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on July 14.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Man arrested over deadly stabbing of woman in Kobe
Masashi Tanimoto, 35, the suspect in the deadly stabbing a 24-year-old woman, is taken into custody in Kobe on Friday night.
Japanese city proposes two-hour daily limit for smartphone use
The Toyoake Municipal Government in Aichi Prefecture is planning to enact an ordinance to urge all smartphone users in the city to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school.
Germany's first sakemaker offers a bold brew of ideas
Reigen, Germany's first sake brewery, makes a diverse, nontraditional range of sake that includes fruit-flavored sips and wine barrel-aged renditions.
Alicia Keys closed Summer Sonic, but J-pop owned it
Summer Sonic’s 2025 lineup demonstrated its strength, showcasing the latest in J-pop, including “new kawaii” act Fruits Zipper.
Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.

Podcast

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

Longform

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.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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