TRISTIN CLINT WRITES – The prowess of Japanese baseball players is recognized internationally, and a couple of talents have personified athletic greatness just this century. Seiya Suzuki could very well join Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani as an unforgettable Japanese ballplayer. Shohei Ohtani famously took over Major League Baseball in…
BADER ZAINAL WRITES — Like many countries around the world, Japan has suffered significant negative impacts to its tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, but signs of travel restrictions easing bring hope for recovery. The beauty and mystique of Japan have long enticed visitors from international locales, with tourism soaring…
AHMAD ALSADHAN WRITES — The World Expo, held every five years for a duration of six months, is an event that gathers nations into one venue as a way of presenting solutions to current global challenges. Expo 2020, which was postponed by the pandemic, is currently being hosted by Dubai,…
BRIEYA MOORBERG WRITES —The deer in Japan’s famed tourist destination, Nara Park, located in Nara Prefecture, have been dying. This year alone, 1,000 deer died after consuming plastic bags left behind by tourists. Now, to the rescue: A local Japanese entrepreneur, Hidetoshi Matsukawa, a souvenir wholesale agent who has invented…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – “We can’t know what happens behind closed doors” is a frustrating and insidious phrase that is too often weaponized to reduce instances of sexual assault to minor misunderstandings. In Japan, if a sexual assault occurs in a space without any witnesses, the case becomes a “black…
LAUREN CRAVEN WRITES — In the US, we have Halloween. Then there is the Day of the Dead, which originated in Mexico. In Japan every year, the Obon festival is celebrated in most regions from the 13th to the 15th day of August. It’s an incredibly popular event in Japan,…
MILES WHITTINGHAM WRITES — Prior to the 2021 MLB season, Angels fans just wanted to see their star Shohei Ohtani stay healthy and produce what he could. But no one expected him to do what hadn’t been done in centuries. The Angels’ highly regarded two-way player has been the subject…
CLAIRE GUTE WRITES — Almost anyone who has seen the 2009 documentary The Cove has been struck by the graphic footage of dolphins being captured or killed in Taiji, Japan. Taiji is a small town on the east coast of the Kii Peninsula with a population of 3,500 people, as…
LAUREN CRAVEN WRITES — Kawaii, a term meaning “cute” in Japanese, has morphed into an entire culture that can be seen in the everyday experiences of Japanese natives, tourists, and even in the lives of those outside of Japan. In the 1970s and 80s, the Kawaii aesthetic started as a…
ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Forget about Naomi Osaka, for a moment. For all the whining-and-dining out by the press on the tennis superstar’s mental health struggles, and her difficulty facing their not-so-friendly post-game fire, she is, after all, just one international superstar. One. Forget, too, about Britney Spears, if you…
AIDAN SMITH-FAGAN WRITES — Japan’s Defense and Deputy Prime Ministers have both recently affirmed their government’s willingness to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion from the Chinese mainland. Those statements also coincided with a recent report from the Financial Times detailing joint US-Japanese military exercises in the hotly…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – How does a global war affect regular people caught in its wake of devastation? How long do those effects linger on and how should a society react to them? Shaw Kuzki’s heart-wrenching tale, Soul Lanterns (2021), aims…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – This imaginative and captivatingly ambiguous recent release by Murakami reads like a game of two truths and a lie (in this case, seven truths and a lie). First Person Singular (2021) presents its audience with eight entrancing…
JONAR COWAN WRITES — In Japan, with the pandemic at hand, many businesses are slowing down and closing down. And as more family-owned businesses and restaurants are closing down, one form of entertainment is doubly impacted: Arcade centers like Sega, which has to sell around 85 percent of their arcade business…
JAMES HANSON WRITES — How important is your surname to you? Mari Inoue and Kotaro Usui, a Tokyo couple, were denied a marriage certificate during the pandemic because Mari Inoue wanted to keep her legal surname. Article 750 of Japan’s Civil Code requires that married couples adopt the same surname. In…
MANAGING EDITOR ZHI JIAO DANIELLE GOH WRITES — Dumping radioactive water into the ocean. Is this the making of a sequel to “Godzilla vs. Kong,” the surprise success film of the pandemic era? No. To everyone’s disappointment, this plot will be executed in reality. After 10 years of the Fukushima…
