On a recent trip to Hakone we got off the bus at the graves of the Soga brothers, Juro and Goro. Their father was killed by one Ito Sukechika over an inheritance dispute. Eighteen years later the brothers avenged their father by killing Sukechika during a hunt near Mt. Fuji in 1193...

Ever since the first ringtone sites began appearing on NTT DoCoMo's i-mode menu back in 1999, most mobile music content providers in Japan have pushed to have their services appear on the 'main menu' of the wireless carriers. This approach has become known as the 'official service' model, and works something like this...

Yubari City, on Hokkaido, northernmost of the main Japanese islands, is known for its orange-fleshed melon. Film buffs will recognize it as the partial setting for the 1977 film 'Shiawase no kiiro hankachi' (The Yellow Handkerchief), which won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Picture. Now it is notorious as a symbol of...

Sunlight pours into the room as I tap out this newsletter. I'm hot and slide open the picture window to let in air. A tiny fly wheels in lazy circles above my desk. It is January 30, midwinter in Tokyo.
Fuyu Shogun, the Winter Shogun, is a Japanese phrase for the rigors of the coldest season. This year...