If you haven’t heard of “virtual YouTubers” or VTubers, you’re not alone: the recent Japanese trend turns human actors into cartoony virtual characters for YouTube videos. Now Japanese gaming and med…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

A man attacked a police box in the central Japan city of Toyama on Tuesday, stabbing a police officer to death and fatally shooting a man nearby with the police officer's gun that he took, authoritie…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 1 comment

As an assistant language teacher (ALT) there are some situations where, no matter what you say (or do), it’s difficult to see anything other than a negative response from your peers. However, whether…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

The "Space Invaders" arcade video game, celebrating its 40th anniversary, is an iconic piece of software, credited as one of the earliest digital shooting games. Like many early games, it and its sur…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

Today, rather than diving deep into a specific aspect of startups in Japan, we are going to take a hard look at both what is and what is not working within the Japanese startup ecosystem as a whole.

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

For anyone who’s ever marveled at Nintendo’s vivid, phantasmagoric, zoologically ornate video games, visiting the company’s understated home in Kyoto, Japan, can be disorienting at first. That such a…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

Shoko Nakagawa is a Japanese pop star, actress, illustrator and TV personality. She’s found mainstream success in Japan. She is also a proud otaku.

“I knew I was an otaku from a very early age,” Naka…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

If Plus’s efforts to retool a perfectly fine apparatus seems frivolous, consider its effect on the billions of binder clips used each day. Air Karu’s designers estimate that a worker conserves as muc…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

The hottest beer, coffee, and tea products this summer in Japan have one thing in common—they’re colorless.

This week, drinks giant Suntory started selling a non-alcoholic beer called “All-Free All-T…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

The observatory of Tokyo Tower is lit up during the "Milky Way Illumination" event in Tokyo's Minato Ward on June 7, 2018.

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 11 months ago | 0 comments