At public readings, either in Japanese or English, the novelist Hideo Furukawa performs like a banshee. He voices his characters’ personae, tenor shifting from stentorian to hushed, growling, trillin…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

After yesterday’s Japan vs. Colombia World Cup game, it wasn’t only Japanese soccer fans who were cleaning up after themselves. Colombian fans were, too.

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

Pessimists obsess about Japan’s debt, deflation and demographics. The last on the list, they argue, acts as a drag on growth. Labor scarcity, aggravated by rapid technological change, makes it diffic…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

Katakana is a part of the written Japanese language used for foreign terms and names. Learn this script to recognize many familiar words from other languages.

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

Japan wore down a Colombian team reduced to 10 men and won, 2-1, on Tuesday in Saransk.

The game started terribly for Colombia, which had lined up without its star, James Rodriguez, who is nursing a …

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

There’s no shortage of wonders to photograph in Japan. But while most snap images of vibrant urban street life and colorful fashion, or cherry blossoms and snow-capped mountains, Tokyo-based photogra…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp. said Tuesday it has sued Xerox Corp. for canceling a merger contract between the two companies, with damages expected to top $1 billion, in a move further complicating…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

The differences between the Instructor and the Specialist in Humanities/International Services visas aren’t readily apparent. After all, it is possible for two friends with almost identical jobs to b…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

Cosplayer Meiji will be the first one to say she used to look very different. It’s not something she wants to hide.

“If you make a [side-by-side] comparison like this, I became a totally different pe…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments

The Japanese population is shrinking faster than any other country. The United Nations estimates that it will go from 127 million people today down to 85 million people by the year 2100, while the Ja…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 7 years, 1 month ago | 0 comments