CULTURE

A night at the museum when dinosaurs come to life

The Dino-A-Live show, made with lifelike animatronic dinosaurs, has partnered wi...

From trash to treasure: How anime became a museum staple

Anime- and manga-related art exhibitions are now one of the pillars propping up ...

In 2025, anime tightened its grip abroad — and played i...

As anime conquered overseas markets, the industry doubled down on known IP and l...

Can a pop song carry a movie? Japan thinks so.

Hollywood rarely tries it, but Japan keeps going back for more. Isao Yukisada’s ...

‘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...