Japan's capsule hotels are famous for their small size, and seem be evolving to serve tourists.

With Japan's tourist numbers and hotel prices on the rise thanks to a weaker yen, developers are getti…

posted by  Yubi | 8 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

With hundreds of thousands of books published every year, the choice of what to stock can prove bewildering for booksellers. The owner of one small bookshop in Tokyo has taken an unusual approach to …

posted by  banzaitokyo | 8 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

The stone tablet has stood on this forested hillside since before they were born, but the villagers have faithfully obeyed the stark warning carved on its weathered face: "Do not build your home…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 8 years, 10 months ago | 2 comments

If its feature-length movies like those of Studio Ghibli or internationally successful shows like Sailor Moon or Dragonball Z, most people have a pretty good impression of what "anime" is.

posted by  banzaitokyo | 8 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

A customer ponders his choices in Animate Akihabara Electric Town is all too well known for the sale of its namesake on nearly every street corner. Yet while buying cheaper electronics and their indi…

posted by  Yubi | 8 years, 10 months ago | 1 comment

There are a staggering number of unusual shops in Akihabara, the center of otaku culture. In fact, at Akihabara Gachapon Kaikan, a lot of gachapon (capsule-vending machines) are set up. (In some plac…

posted by  Yubi | 8 years, 10 months ago | 2 comments

Since last year the folk from online magazine Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun (Hobonichi) have been building tree houses around Tohoku in areas like Kesennuma that were devastated by the 2011 disaster. Ping…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 8 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

On Jan. 23, the Chiba prefectural police announced that in 2013 there 724 reported cases of telephone swindling targeting older people, a phenomenon that is still referred to as ore-ore sagi (literal…

posted by  Yubi | 8 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments

Despite its steep slopes, Mt. Fuji can be climbed up quite easily even by beginners, for it has signboards and mountain huts. Having said so, however, you will of course be confronted by the harsh co…

posted by  Yubi | 8 years, 10 months ago | 2 comments

A series of tweets by a Japanese artist depicting the various female uniforms of different high schools in Aichi Prefecture has taken the internet by storm. Her charming illustrations are positively …

posted by  banzaitokyo | 8 years, 10 months ago | 0 comments