Mokume Gane: Reviving a Rare Form of Samurai Sword Guard Design The round sword guard of a samurai sword worked as a counter balance to the…
Tokyo Photographer Takes Us Inside the Hidden World of Geisha Lonny Chick came to Japan over 20 years ago with an intense interest in Japanese…
Photo Essay: Inside the Eerie Exclusion Zones in Fukushima and Chernobyl This month marks the eighth anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, a disaster…
BBC’s Gabby Logan: “Japan Was Like Nowhere I’d Ever Been” One of the most respected and recognizable faces of British sportscasting, Gabby Logan has been…
Photographer Adam Isfendiyar Lived with an Ainu Family in Hokkaido to Create His New Series There’s a difference between the kind of photographer who simply captures pretty images and the…
Japanese Didgeridoo Artist Goma on Facing Death and Becoming a Sudden Savant Just under a decade ago Hiroki Morimoto was involved in a near-fatal traffic accident that…
A Photographer’s Journey: Escaping the American South and Finding a Niche in Tokyo Legendary war photographer Robert Capa once said, “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not…
How Rumiko Takahashi Contributed to the Popularity of Manga Overseas Often associated with otaku culture, Japanese manga has slipped into the mainstream in South America across Europe…
How One Photographer Is Putting Kyoto’s Small Buildings on the Map Kyoto is an iconic location, synonymous with photogenic imagery of autumn leaves, glimpses of geisha…
5 Reasons to Visit the “Hokusai Updated” Exhibition at Mori Arts Center Gallery Images of “The Great Wave” by Katsushika Hokusai are so ubiquitous that nearly 200 years…
Authors’ Notes: How Do You Go About Writing Crime Fiction Set in Japan? British author Nicolás Obregón has written three novels featuring half-Japanese inspector Kosuke Iwata: Blue Light…
A Day in the Life of a Japanese Calligraphy Artist Japanese calligraphy, or shodo, is the ancient art of writing beautifully. It uses all three…
Akita Art Village: Experience the Wonders Of Warabi-Za Dance and Theater Troupe Based in Akita’s Semboku City, the Warabi-za dance and theater troupe has put on 250…
Explore Noshiro, Akita’s “Wood Capital” and Home to an Enthralling Summer Festival Though Noshiro’s primary claims to fame are its wood industry and its basketball team, the…
Signing In with Tokyo Filmmaker Darryl Wharton-Rigby The first time film director Darryl Wharton-Rigby came to Japan was in 2003 to write…
