Shun Ogawa– Author –

Ask someone outside Japan what they know about shinrin-yoku, and you’ll likely hear the translation: “forest bathing.” It sounds pleasant, a bit poetic, maybe something you’d find on the menu at a high-end spa in California. The term con...

Push open a heavy wooden door, and a small brass bell chimes, announcing your arrival. The air inside is thick with the ghosts of a million cigarettes and the rich, dark aroma of siphon-brewed coffee. Your eyes adjust to the gloom, revea...

Every morning in Japan, just before the daily rush swallows the silence, a quiet ritual unfolds. At precisely 6:30 AM, a familiar piano melody drifts from radios across the archipelago. In parks, elderly neighbors gather on gravel square...

So, you’ve landed a job in Japan. You’re navigating the complex honorifics, mastering the art of the business card exchange, and generally feeling like you’re getting the hang of things. Then the email arrives. It’s an invitation, but it...

Walk down almost any busy street in a Japanese city, past the serene temples and meticulously organized convenience stores, and you will inevitably hear it. First, it’s a faint, distant rattle, a strange electronic shimmering. As you get...

Ask most people to picture Japan, and their mind probably jumps to one of two extremes. On one end, you have the Blade Runner-esque cityscape: Tokyo or Osaka, a dense vertical forest of concrete and glass, pulsating with neon and crisscr...

There’s a particular kind of silence you find only in a place that was once deafeningly loud. Stand in the middle of a colossal, abandoned factory in provincial Japan, and you’ll feel it. It’s a silence thick with the ghosts of sound—the...

To the uninitiated, the concepts of tabehoudai (all-you-can-eat) and its thirsty cousin, nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink), seem like a straightforward proposition. A fixed price for limitless consumption. A glutton's paradise. A simple eco...

Come to any major Japanese city in the early spring, and you will see them. A silent army flooding the train stations and sidewalks, moving with a synchronized, nervous energy. They are unmistakable: thousands of young men and women, alm...

You probably have a picture of Japanese food in your head. Maybe it’s a master sushi chef, silent and focused, placing a glistening piece of tuna on a perfectly formed pillow of rice. Perhaps it’s an elaborate, multi-course kaiseki meal,...

You asked what it is about sitting in a steaming hot spring while it snows that makes it the definitive “Japow” experience. It’s a great question, because the image itself has become a kind of cultural shorthand for winter in Japan. You ...

You see it everywhere. The massive, synchronized armies of AKB48, the digital perfection of a virtual YouTuber like Hatsune Miku, the entire global phenomenon of K-Pop trainees polished to an impossible sheen. It’s a world of hyper-produ...