New year, new opportunities: What to expect in the Year of the Rat
The smallest of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, the rat had only an outside chance in the Jade Emperor's race to determine the zodiac's order. Yet its intelligence, agility and quick-thinking enabled it to win the contest and become the first year ...
'Love At Least': There's a shadow looming over this tale of romance
Mental illness takes many forms, but depression is among the most baffling to family and friends, since the afflicted may be physically healthy and verbally coherent but barely stir from bed for weeks or months at a time. But as Kosai Sekine shows with compassion ...
Japanese film has its own 'Crazy Rich Asians' if you know where to look
"Crazy Rich Asians" made headlines this summer for being the first Hollywood film in a quarter of a century to feature a main cast entirely comprised of actors of Asian heritage. The movie hits Japanese cinemas this weekend, but audiences here are obviously used ...
'Cafe Funiculi Funicula': Extra spoonfuls of sentimentality make this flick hard to swallow
An old-fashioned coffee house serves up a dash of mystery and a great dollop of sentiment in Ayuko Tsukahara's "Cafe Funiculi Funicula." Based on a pair of best-selling novels by playwright-turned-author Toshikazu Kawaguchi, this aggressively tear-jerky paean to life, death and past regrets plays ...
'Asako I & II': Things are vague in this girl-meets-boy-meets-boy's doppleganger tale
"There will never be another you" goes the old song. Then again, some people believe in doppelgangers, doubles to living humans who are ghostly in form and malign in intent. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "Asako I & II," which screened in competition at this year's Cannes Film ...
'Love × Doc': A rom-com on doctor's orders
When successful Japanese scriptwriters direct films, they tend to try too hard, cramming in characters, gags, plot twists and a blizzard of cuts. Sometimes, the busyness works, as in Koki Mitani's "Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald," a 1997 screwball comedy about a chaotic radio broadcast ...
More couples saying, 'I do ... but not yet'
"Just the other day I had a date with a woman. We were planning on seeing a movie but it was such a beautiful day that I said, 'We can see a movie anytime, let's watch the sunset instead.' She was furious: 'Why didn't ...
Half of new adults strangers to romance: survey
Nearly half of Japan's 20-year-olds have never been in a romantic relationship and 1 in 5 has never fallen in love, a survey by a marriage counseling firm says. The annual survey, conducted by O-net for the past 20 years, covered 600 fledgling adults slated ...
Japan gets in the mood for love this Valentine's Day
Love is all around at this time of year, but on Valentine's Day in Japan it isn't so evenly distributed. The festival of romance has long suffered from a gender imbalance here: Feb. 14 is traditionally a day for women to give presents to ...
Japan's elderly reach for the joys of romance
On her first date with her stoop-shouldered "prince," Tae, a 77-year-old widow, felt her heart flutter in her chest as she gazed with him toward brightly lit Tokyo Tower. While this may just be a scene from a recent Japanese movie about a gray-haired couple's ...
Perfect match: Miyakon help singles connect
Despite being located almost a stone's throw from the historic town of Nikko in Tochigi Prefecture and establishing itself as the gyōza capital of Japan, Utsunomiya was languishing in the economic doldrums for the much of the early 2000s. Nearly a decade later, the situation ...
Meeting more people improves your chances of finding true love
A boy and a girl meet at a bar or a party, experiencing that special spark that will forever linger in their minds. If they successfully manage to ride out the usual bumps that arise in a typical relationship along the way, they end ...
