Aum & Japan: 23 Years On
Highly educated people often lack a grounding in reality and are suckers for the certainty of cult-like intellectual systems
From Beijing to Bicester: Surviving the Era of “Overtourism”
Nobody is going to complain about the tourists because there is nobody around but tourists.
Review: Ryoma!
A rebel, a pragmatist, a patriot, a red-blooded hombre who gulps down saké like tea, yet also embraces his feminine side; within him “radiates a being like the goddess Kannon”
Isle of Dodgy Stereotypes: Hollywood’s Japan Problem
We have met these dogs before and we like them. They are funny, brave and trustworthy. They are, effectively, Americans.
Stranger in a Strange Land: Ian Buruma’s Japan
The “Cool Japan” of Michelin-starred sushi shops and Pokemon Go lay far in the future. This Japan was warm, wet and chaotic.
Hail, King Kazu: an Iconic Footballer Ages with Passion and Style
He travelled alone to Brazil at the tender age of 15… finally becoming a first-team choice for Santos, home of the immortal Pele.
Video Letter: Terayama / Tanikawa
In the early 1980s, home video was in its infancy… the result is a punky, DIY aesthetic that manages to be both simple and moving
Game On: Japanese Cuisine Goes Wild
it specializes in gibier (game) meat, but presented in a Japanese rather than French format. You cook the meat on a charcoal-fired griddle.
“Ah, the Wasteland” : New Terayama Film
Yang gives a moving performance as the stuttering, socially inept ex-barber with the ring-name of “Barikan” (“Clipper”).
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Japanese Surreality: Yasutaka Tsutsui
Imagine a cross between J.G. Ballard and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, with elements of Kafka, Saki and magical realism