CULTURE
‘White Flowers and Fruits’: Inside the fragile, hauntin...
Strong performances from newcomer actors anchor Yukari Sakamoto’s J-horror cente...
‘Whoever Steals This Book’: A genre-hopping odyssey thr...
Sometimes visually dazzling, sometimes dense with exposition, Kagokan’s first fu...
Life lessons from bestselling kids' book about making m...
The top-selling book of 2025, “Dai Pinchi Zukan 3,” is a children’s book about a...
Butoh fit itself into odd spaces in 2025
Though it has no permanent “home,” butoh’s creativity saw it stretch out to unli...
Tradition, remixed: A year on Japan’s stages
From kabuki’s newfound fans to experimental theater’s widening scope, Japan’s pe...
‘The Stars and Moon Are Holes in the Sky’: 1960s nostal...
Haruhiko Arai’s drama blurs fantasy and reality in a story of sex, memory and ma...
The year’s most viral song was about more than ice cream
The hyper-cute J-pop track "Ai Scream!" became an unlikely global hit by invitin...
‘10 Dance’ teases passion but stays cautiously chaste
Ryoma Takeuchi brings the swagger as a bad-boy Latin dance champion, but Keishi ...
‘Badly in Love’: Netflix Japan’s most chaotic dating sh...
Netflix Japan’s “Badly in Love” turns delinquent bravado into surprisingly earne...
In 2025, Japanese literature took a turn for the weird
As expected, women writers raked in successes and cozy cat fiction kept its popu...
Japanese film director Masato Harada dies, aged 76
Masato Harada gained international attention with "Kamikaze Taxi," released in 1...
NHK envisions a multicultural Mars in its newest sci-fi...
The new sci-fi show was created with involvement of scientists and space experts...
‘Good Luck’: A gently absurd road movie about filmmaker...
Shin Adachi turns self-doubt and awkward encounters into a warm, feather-light c...
J-pop found new ways to diversify in 2025
Anime, social media and ad campaigns help, but can they take you global?
‘Peleliu: Guernica of Paradise’: Cute designs, harrowin...
As Japan marks 80 years since WWII’s end, “Peleliu” stands out among recent war ...
A movie buff in Jimbocho bets on independent cinema in ...
In the book-filled Tokyo neighborhood, a new mini-theater hopes to introduce you...
