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October 12, 2025
 

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SAM BETT

Osamu Dazai struggled with depression and addiction, themes that were also central to his writing.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 22, 2025
Why Japan’s most melancholic writer speaks to today’s youth
Osamu Dazai's works are enjoying a new boom of retranslations and readers 80 years after they were first published.
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.
June is Pride Month, which means it’s the perfect time to get acquainted with how sexual minorities have been represented in Japanese fiction if you’re not familiar with these narratives already.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 11, 2025
Pride and prose: Novels that illuminate queer lives in Japan
From Yukio Mishima and Haruki Murakami to Li Kotomi and Akira Otani, dive into Japanese fiction’s LGBTQ+ narratives in honor of Pride Month.
Akira Otani's "The Night of Baba Yaga” explores the boundaries of finding one's place in society as it questions ideas of violence, love, family and honor.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2024
‘The Night of Baba Yaga’ weaves a yakuza thriller into a meditation on queerness
Translator Sam Bett gravitated to the Akira Otani novel for its refusal to adhere to established genre conventions.
While non-Japanese readers have in recent years been spoiled for choice when it comes to Japanese literature in translation, there is still a wealth of notable works that translators would love to see rendered into English.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 20, 2023
A wish list of hidden gems for Japanese literature lovers
Eight translators reveal their top Japanese books that English readers have yet to enjoy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 7, 2023
'Hit Parade of Tears': Izumi Suzuki attacks genre and gender with twisted precision
The cult literary figure's new collection of 11 stories unveil the chaos, conflict and pain of women rebelling against the desires of men and seeking messy self-actualization.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 19, 2023
'The Flowers of Buffoonery': Osamu Dazai's unexpected portrait of camaraderie
The novel adds new texture to the author's classic 'No Longer Human,' while bringing levity to a somewhat dire thesis: The world is full of inauthenticity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 13, 2023
Osamu Dazai gets silly while facing fears in 'The Flowers of Buffoonery'
Translator Sam Bett brings out the fragile personalities in the author's early novella, a predecessor to his modern classic novel “No Longer Human.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 23, 2022
Fuminori Nakamura: ‘The darkness of fiction can be healing’
The author delves deep into the mind of a murderer and the monstrous depths of humanity in his complex thriller “My Annihilation,” his latest novel to be translated into English.
University of Tokyo lands its highest spot ever in global higher education ranking
The University of Tokyo in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward
‘Save the Ring’ calls intensify as Osaka Expo’s end nears
Visitors lounge on the grassy hill on the top of the Grand Ring during the 2025 Osaka Expo in the city of Osaka in May.
Takaichi's PM bid faces further headwinds with coalition split
LDP leader Sanae Takaichi and Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito attend a party leaders' meeting on Friday in Tokyo.
After ruling bloc breakup, CDP and Komeito eye unified PM candidate
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Yoshihiko Noda speaks to reporters at the Diet in Tokyo on Friday.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
‘Takaichi trade’ starts unwinding as political calculus upended by Komeito exit
Less than a week ago, Sanae Takaichi seemed set to become Japan's first female prime minister.
‘Save the Ring’ calls intensify as Osaka Expo’s end nears
Visitors lounge on the grassy hill on the top of the Grand Ring during the 2025 Osaka Expo in the city of Osaka in May.
A Japanese comedian walks into an Aussie bar … and stays there
Takashi “Waka” Wakasugi stopped by the Tokyo Comedy Bar in Shibuya Ward last month following his stint at Edinburgh Festival Fringe performing his show “Comedy Samurai.”
Chemistry Nobel winner Kitagawa says downtime helped him think up new material
Susumu Kitagawa speaks to reporters at Kyoto University on Wednesday after receiving the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry the same day.

Podcast

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

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?
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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