As the platitude says, the Japanese Islands are like the Galapagos Islands: an ecosystem unlike anything else you will see anywhere else in the world. And even those of us who are tired of all the ...

My wife says I’m a “tamatama Girishajin” -- a “Greek by accident” -- and, generally speaking, I don’t have a problem with this rendering but I often find myself identifying with another ...

It’s been exactly three months since we presented a roundup of merchandise based on the manga and anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and in the meantime, the franchise became even bigger ...

Like many things in Japan, Hina Matsuri (or Hinamatsuri), the Dolls' Festival or Dolls' Day (also known as Girls Day) celebrated on March 3, must be seen wearing Japanese cultural glasses. If not, ...

Now, the relationship between the Japanese and cats is long and well known. From the cat illustrations in the ukiyo-e woodblock prints of the Edo Period (1600-1868) to Maneki-neko, the beckoning cat ...

Many people think it’s a recent thing but the truth is Barbie, arguably the world’s most famous doll, has been controversial ever since it first appeared in toy stores, way back in 1959. The ...

There are many things you could say about teamLab. Their work is so broad and brings together so many different fields that “installation art” doesn’t do the group justice. Perhaps one of the ...

Biting cold isn’t exactly what most people would think when they hear the word “Japan,” but a look at a world map will soon make clear that the country is perfectly positioned for some really ...

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba only came up less than five years ago - on February 2016, to be exact - and its premise doesn’t seem that different from dozens of other manga/anime: a brother and a ...

Contrary to what many people outside believe, Japan isn’t a science-fiction utopia where everything is done by robots and artificial intelligence. Especially when it comes to internet penetration, ...

Together with rice, tea is probably the drink that most people associate with Japan, even if they have never been to the Land of the Rising Sun. Green tea, and especially the powdered matcha, has ...

The way the Japanese treat their pets, and especially their dogs – the tiny dogs that can fit into the tiny apartments of megacities like Tokyo or Osaka - is sometimes puzzling: it’s often ...

Though renowned as one of the world's top makers of calculators, Casio was also among the first companies to create quartz watches, both electronic and digital: watches that could display the time ...

You wouldn’t think so considering they spend half of their life barefoot, but the Japanese are very serious when it comes to shoes. Long gone are the days of the zori and geta split-toe sandals of ...

It’s a fact: mosquitoes are one of the prices we have to pay for summer. On the other hand, considering how bad the Japanese summer is, mosquitoes fall under the “insult to injury” category. ...