Shun Ogawa– Author –

So, you’ve been invited to a nomikai. On the surface, it’s just drinks with your colleagues after work. Simple enough, right? But then your Japanese coworker leans over and whispers, with a look of both warning and encouragement, that th...

You asked where to find that specific, wonderfully retro 80s Sanrio vibe in Japan. It’s a great question because it gets at something much deeper than just shopping. You’re not just looking for cute stuff. You’re looking for a feeling—a ...

You push open a heavy wooden door, unmarked save for a small, faded sign, and step out of the frantic rhythm of a Tokyo street into a different decade. The air is thick with the scent of dark-roast coffee, old paper, and the faint, warm ...

Ask most people outside Japan about dating here, and you’ll likely get a portrait painted in shades of shyness. You'll hear about confessed feelings delivered with the gravity of a diplomatic summit, relationships that progress with glac...

You're standing in a Japanese garden, perhaps in Kyoto. The air is still, filled only with the sound of trickling water and the rustle of maple leaves. Before you lies a meticulously arranged world: moss-covered stones placed with intent...

You pour a glass of Japanese single malt. The liquid is a deep, burnished amber, clinging to the side of the glass with a slow, deliberate viscosity. You raise it to your nose, and before the scent of alcohol even registers, there are ot...

You've probably seen him. Maybe on a game cover or in an anime. He has impossibly spiky hair, armor that looks more like a high-fashion runway piece than something you'd wear into battle, and he's wielding a sword that’s on fire, or crac...

You see them tucked away, breathing a hazy, warm light into the sharp-edged cityscape of modern Japan. From the gleaming canyons of Shinjuku or the polished commercial hubs of Osaka, a turn down an unmarked path can feel like stepping th...

Someone once asked me to explain the shain ryoko, the traditional Japanese company trip. They’d heard stories—of mandatory weekend getaways with colleagues, of forced fun and late-night karaoke sessions with the CEO. “It sounds like a ni...

At first glance, Japan’s regional mascots seem like a national fever dream rendered in brightly colored felt. You see them everywhere: a goofy, red-cheeked bear from Kumamoto Prefecture; a waddling, pear-shaped fairy from Funabashi city;...

The first time you feel it, it’s deeply unsettling. Not the violent, movie-style lurch, but the subtle, liquid roll of a minor earthquake. You’re in a Tokyo high-rise, and for a few seconds, the solid world beneath you becomes a fluid, u...

If you could have teleported to the Shibuya Scramble Crossing in, say, 1996, you would have been met with a wall of sound and color. The jingles from pachinko parlors, the rumble of the Yamanote Line, the giant video screens blasting J-P...