Buraikan: Sex and Booze and Samisen
Imagine that the counter-culture of the late 1960s was transposed to the last decades of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
When will an Asian Country Win the World Cup?
By prioritizing football, China may have found a weakness in American soft power that it can exploit
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.