Being the season of the rice harvest, at this time of year there are lots of traditional festivals around Japan. Just this weekend (a long three-day holiday weekend) we saw several portable shrines ...

It was supposed to be Sony's big advert for the Project Morpheus HMD system at the Tokyo Game Show (public days on September 20th-21st). Instead, Sony Computer Entertainment just canceled the ...

Sega have created an interactive sandpit for kids. The Eederu Sunaba (translating literally as "Wow, appears! Sandbox") uses projectors and special non-sticky sand so that kids can have fun playing ...

In a possibly unprecedented move, the management of a Japanese idol group is suing two former members, their parental guardians, and the fans they had relationships with for ...

Japan is a nation obsessed with food and also, so people say, childishness. And so it is only natural that the two things would be combined at some point. The result is cooking toys, which Takara ...

teamLab has got together with Gucci to create "Infinity of Flowers", an interactive digital installation at the Gucci Shinjuku store from September 13th. Visitors will be able to "touch" the ...

Was this inevitable? The fashion doll series Blythe and otaku idol character Hatsune Miku have got together. While Blythe is now licensed by Hasbro and originally American, the dolls with ...

"Toy Tokyo" is a new photography book by Manami Okazaki, a collection of 26 interviews and images. New from Kingyo Books, "Toy Tokyo" features "the work of several photographers who are either ...

This article by Frances Maeda first appeared on Tokyo Cheapo. Early autumn is a great time to be in Tokyo. Except for the odd typhoon, the weather is just right, and there are heaps of free events ...

Some of the best household items in Japan come courtesy of the brand Plus D, which works with a range of individual designers to come up with fun, original and practical objects. Past successes ...

It generated enough headlines when it opened and now it will surely get some more. The Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku Kabukicho launched in late 2012 on a wave of publicity, not least for its ...

People from Britain, like myself, often forget that many other countries don't have roundabouts. The idea of a circular junction with no traffic lights, where the unspoken rules of the road define ...

The fashion accessory brand Q-pot, known for its chocolate-themed products, has got together with Sharp to create a special limited edition Q-pot. Melty Chocolate TV, which it is selling exclusively ...

Japan's prison facilities have come under international criticism in recent years. Inmates often do not have heating or air-conditioning, and prisoners on death row live in near total isolation, ...

Biwako Biennale 2014 kicks off on September 13th, running until November 9th in a small city along the edge of Japan's largest lake in Shiga Prefecture. This sixth edition of the festival ...