West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) will debut a luxury sleeper train in June 2017. First announced in 2014, the Twilight Express Mizukaze is billed as "a hotel rolling through the beautiful Japanese ...

The word of the year is "kamitteru". Every year, the publisher Jiyu Kokumin Sha organizes a prize for the buzzword or phrase that seemed to capture the zeitgeist or spread like wildfire around ...

The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line will start offering subway passengers free wi-fi on trains from December 1st, aimed particularly at visitors from overseas. Tokyo Metro partners with NTT Broadband ...

Recently Tokyoites were shocked by the first November snow in over 50 years, but spare a thought for those shivering folk who live on the northern island of Hokkaido. Need that slice of pizza in a ...

Book and Bed, the bookstore where you can stay overnight, welcomes guests to its new branch in Gion, Kyoto, on December 2nd. Somewhat confusingly called Book and Bed Tokyo Kyoto Branch, it is the ...

Tokyo has a major new museum in the form of the Sumida Hokusai Museum, which opened on November 22nd in east Tokyo's Sumida ward. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winner Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA) with bold ...

We have noted before the trend for regional cities in Japan to produce promotional videos in the hope that they will go viral and ultimately rake in tourist yen. Some are successful, such as the ...

Sanrio's Pompompurin character may not be as famous and popular as Hello Kitty but the loveable yellow pooch continues his attempts to conquer Japan. After tempting commuters to hug columns in ...

Parco will open Gallery X By Parco, a new art space in Shibuya on December 9th. The temporary venue will host art, music and performance events in the heart of the commercial district. Gallery X ...

Triumph's latest "zeitgeist bra" is the "First Woman Bra", which is inspired by freestyle wrestler Kaori Icho and politician Yuriko Koike, who this year became, respectively, the first female athlete ...

Masamichi Katayama's Wonderwall has helped reopen the designer bar The Bank in the city of Kamakura, west of Tokyo. With interior design by Wonderwall, it has been restored to the way it was when it ...

Another teaser trailer has been released for the Hollywood live-action film adaptation of Ghost in the Shell. Before you get too excited, it's still just a teaser at this point but offers a ...

Before Netflix. Before even HBO. Take a step back in time to the early days of television with this Vintage Taste 20-inch LCD Japanese Retro Television Screen by Doshisha. It might look like one ...

World Nomads recently paid a visit to Tokyo, creating a video with a decided focus on the "weird" side to Japan's capital. In a whirlwind seven minutes, the video takes us from a hidden vibrator ...

The northern Japanese prefecture of Akita, which is famous for its eponymous canine breed, has produced a promotional music video with a song constructed entirely from the barking of Akita ...