Authors beware, because an AI-written novel just made it past the first round of screening for a national literary prize in Japan.

The novel this program co-authored is titled, The Day A Computer Wri…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 7 months ago | 0 comments

Imagine a world where buildings don’t exist. A place with no rustic cottages nor gleaming skyscrapers, no classicism nor modernism, no preconceived idea of what a house or an office block should be. …

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 7 months ago | 0 comments

In Tokyo, KAWS presented 6 new works, with one large work taking up the entirety of the front gallery. At first, the work appears to be large swaths of abstraction, with beautiful color arrangements …

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 8 months ago | 0 comments

Japanese author Eiko Kadono has written picture books and novels. Her best-known book is Kiki’s Delivery Service, first published in 1985 in Japan. According to IBBY, she has published some 250 origi…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 8 months ago | 0 comments

Idol groups come and go in J-pop at a quick clip. A new one debuting isn’t particularly newsworthy unless they hail from one of the huge talent agencies in the country (think Johnny & Associates)…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 8 months ago | 0 comments

While this statue isn’t life-sized, this is a fitting tribute to a giant of Japanese cinema.

The Shin Godzilla statue went up in Tokyo’s Hibiya, where Toho Studios was born. The plaza was previously …

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 8 months ago | 0 comments

Machiya are a type of townhouse that were once common in Kyoto but are now becoming scarce, as owners often shy away from conducting expensive repairs, and instead choose to build contemporary replac…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 8 months ago | 0 comments

The iconic tower of the 1970 Osaka World Expo has reopened to the public for the first time in almost 50 years, following reinforcement work.

The 70-meter-tall "Tower of the Sun" was designed by the …

posted by  Yubi | 6 years, 8 months ago | 2 comments

Marie Kondo (or Konmari, if you prefer) and her decluttering empire has taken the West by storm. And it’s given Japan an image of ultra-minimalism where people live a simple lifestyle, free of all th…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 8 months ago | 0 comments

At the age of 24, Mai Inoue creates paintings that look like they could have been painted by her great grandparents. Her subject matter are bonsai: the Japanese art form of pruning and cultivating sm…

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years, 8 months ago | 0 comments