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December 07, 2025
 

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Kris Kosaka

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Kris Kosaka
Kris Kosaka, a resident of Japan since 1996, contributes regularly to The Japan Times. She is a lecturer at Meiji Gakuin University in the Faculty of International Studies.
In a rare meeting of ballet and butoh dance ¡ª a first for K-Ballet Opto ¡ª butoh company Dairakudakan and its founder, Akaji Maro, will dance alongside ballet dancers.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 29, 2025
A rare dance trinity: Ballet, butoh and kabuki share the stage
In the uncertain realm between life and death dwell mystical creatures ¡ª tengu demons, y¨­kai folklore monsters and spirits of the dead. It¡¯s these shadows that choreographer and director Kaiji Moriyama explores in K-Ballet Opto¡¯s ¡°A Dance Remembered in Tohno,¡± premiering Dec. 26 at Tatemono...
Aya Ogawa, Japanese American playwright and performer based in New York, is bringing her award-winning ¡°The Nosebleed¡± to Japan for the first time.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 20, 2025
Theater beyond borders: Eriko Ogawa's tenure at the NNTT has a global vision
Over the last decade, Eriko Ogawa has worked to expand the international connections of the New National Theatre, Tokyo.
¡°Sweet Mambo¡± is still performed by seven of the nine dancers who originally danced at the 2008 premiere.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 16, 2025
Pina Bausch¡¯s 2008 masterpiece to be performed in Japan by the original cast
Tanztheater Wuppertal returns to Japan with "Sweet Mambo" long-awaited performances in Kyoto and Saitama.
Kabuki has been trying for years to attract a new generation of fans. One way to do this has been to adapt manga and anime franchises, such as ¡°Naruto,¡± for the stage.?
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 3, 2025
The summer kabuki came roaring back
A hit film and shifting demographics are drawing new audiences to kabuki, sparking hopes for a revitalized future.
Osamu Dazai struggled with depression and addiction, themes that were also central to his writing.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 22, 2025
Why Japan¡¯s most melancholic writer speaks to today¡¯s youth
Osamu Dazai's works are enjoying a new boom of retranslations and readers 80 years after they were first published.
¡°Swallows¡± examines the intersections of class and reproductive issues with a focus on its protagonist who is talked into becoming a surrogate for a wealthy couple.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 5, 2025
¡®Swallows' untangles the murky ethics of selling motherhood
¡°Swallows¡± examines the intersections of class and reproductive issues with a focus on its protagonist who is talked into becoming a surrogate for a wealthy couple.
Jesse Kirkwood is part of a vibrant field of translators who have nurtured what might be called a ¡°post-Murakami era of Japanese literature and translation,¡± one book at a time.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 29, 2025
Jesse Kirkwood: ¡®Languages are entire cultural universes with all sorts of baggage¡¯
The Japanese-English literary translator reflects on catching the recent wave of ¡°post-Murakami¡± fiction and how he balances reading for work versus pleasure.
In what is billed as the first major production in English of Hisashi Inoue's "The Face of Jizo,¡± the Japanese play will have performances at the Seymour Centre in Sydney both in English and in Japanese.
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 22, 2025
'The Face of Jizo': Hisashi Inoue's play staged in Sydney commemorates WWII victims
Billed as the first major English-language production of the play, "The Face of Jizo" also increases the variety of roles for Japanese actors in Australia.
Sung in Japanese, German and Ukrainian, ¡°Natasha¡± is a multilingual opera with a multinational cast. Belgian soprano Ilse Eerens will originate the titular role, with Japanese mezzo-soprano Hiroka Yamashita as Arato and German baritone Christian Miedl as their trickster guide.
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 9, 2025
¡®Natasha¡¯ distills global zeitgeist on the opera stage
An original work commissioned by the New National Theatre, Tokyo, ¡°Natasha¡± is a multilingual opera with a multinational cast from Japan, Germany and Belgium.
Seicho Matsumoto¡¯s ¡°Suspicion¡± is based on a true story known as ¡°the Beppu 300 million yen insurance murder,¡± swapping the real-life husband with a former Tokyo hostess.
CULTURE / Books
May 25, 2025
Truth is slippery in ¡®Suspicion,¡¯ a detective story based on a true crime
Seicho Matsumoto¡¯s mystery novella is based on 1974¡¯s ¡°Beppu 300 million yen insurance murder.¡±
On the surface, "Wildcat Dome" tells a personal story of damaged children ¡ª now adults ¡ª bound together by tragedy. Underneath, there¡¯s a constant undercurrent of political consequence, invisible and pervasive like radioactive particles.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 26, 2025
¡®Wildcat Dome¡¯ challenges 91²Ö¿â historical narratives
Prolific writer Yuko Tsushima explores themes of militarization, colonialism and occupation through the identities of mixed-race orphans in postwar Japan.
"Giselle¡± is a ballet telling the story of a peasant girl that dies from a broken heart and the supernatural revenge and haunting that follow.
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 11, 2025
National Ballet of Japan takes its 'Giselle' to Royal Opera House in London
First staged in 2022 to celebrate the NBJ¡¯s 25th anniversary season, Miyako Yoshida's production is revived for the first time with several Tokyo shows in April.
Yuki Tejima, who runs the Instagram account booknerdtokyo, hesitated to try her hand at literary translation until she won an award at the International Translation Contest.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 29, 2025
Yuki Tejima's metamorphosis from bookworm to literary translator
An Instagram ¡°bookfluencer¡± and professional translator for over 10 years, Tejima¡¯s love of books was, strangely enough, a hurdle to working in literary translation.
Novelist Genki Kawamura wrote in the dedication to his ¡°One Hundred Flowers¡± novel that his grandmother¡¯s memories ¡°bloomed like a hundred flowers¡± at the close of her life.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 22, 2025
'One Hundred Flowers': A moving exploration of loss, love and living with dementia
Author Genki Kawamura drew inspiration from his grandmother's experiences to thoughtfully portray a woman suffering from dementia in his novel.
K-Ballet Tokyo celebrates its 25th anniversary with an extended lineup including a revival of the vibrant pirate-story ballet "Le Corsaire."
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 15, 2025
K-Ballet Tokyo marks 25 years of passion and perseverance
The dance company celebrates a milestone anniversary with an extended lineup including a revival of the vibrant pirate-story ballet "Le Corsaire."
Yamanote Jijosha has a long history of staging Shakespeare plays, and in celebration of its 40th anniversary, the company will present ¡°Othello¡± and ¡°Macbeth.¡± Previously, it toured productions like ¡°Titus Andronicus,¡± which premiered in Tokyo in 1999, saw multiple revivals and had a homecoming in 2015.
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 21, 2025
Directing is never a monologue at the experimental Yamanote Jijosha theater company
To mark its four decades of existence, the company stages two Shakespearean tragedies for a triumph.
Jay Rubin¡¯s new translation of Haruki Murakami¡¯s ¡°End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland,¡± in part set in a walled city where inhabitants¡¯ shadows are forcibly removed, speaks to the author¡¯s quirky, exhaustive attention to detail when rendering his imaginative world on the page.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 16, 2024
Jay Rubin takes us back to Haruki Murakami's world
A new translation of ¡°End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland¡± brings the fan favorite closer to the original Japanese text.
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2024
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
Ko Shinjo¡¯s novel, a bold exploration of the twisted psyches of criminals, is best appreciated as a companion work to the recent Netflix series of the same title.
Suzumi Suzuki¡¯s ¡°Gifted,¡± translated by Allison Markin Powell, centers on a hostess working in Kabukicho. Rather than focusing on the protagonist¡¯s occupation, the story plunges the reader into her strained relationship with her dying mother. ?
CULTURE / Books
Nov 3, 2024
A nuanced glimpse into the cloistered world of Kabukicho
Drawing on her own experience working in adult entertainment, Suzumi Suzuki crafts a fresh, visceral work for her debut novel, "Gifted"
¡°The Secret Lives of Numbers¡± co-author Kate Kitagawa discovered the power of storytelling as a research assistant for a professor in Japanese history. Since then, Kitagawa has been dedicated to using storytelling to show that humans are able to unlock the greater secrets of the universe through collaboration, not competition.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 21, 2024
'The Secret Lives of Numbers' reveals the unsung figures of mathematics
The book¡¯s core message of creative collaboration leading to great discoveries is the brainchild of co-author Kate Kitagawa, a leading expert on the history of math.
Trump security strategy demands more from Japan while unveiling ¡®burden-sharing network¡¯
U.S. President Donald Trump makes a speech aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier during his visit to the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Oct. 28.
Spotlight shines on humanoid robots at Tokyo show
A representative from Noitom Robotics demonstraties remote robot operation at the iREX International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo on Friday.
Japan¡¯s bear-related casualties hit record on escalating attacks
Bear bells are displayed for sale at a souvenir shop at Shirakawa-go, a popular tourist spot and one of Japan's UNESCO World Heritage sites, in the village of Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, on Nov. 15.
Suspected ³Ù´Ç°ì³Ü°ù²â¨± masterminds in Tokyo-area robberies arrested
Takuya Saito, 26, is one of four men arrested by Japanese police on Friday on suspicion of masterminding a series of robberies in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Average price of rice in Japan hits new record high
In the week ended last Sunday, the average price of rice sold at about 1,000 supermarkets across Japan rose by ?23 from the previous week to ?4,335 per 5 kilograms.
Will Takaichi bank on her high approval ratings to call a snap election?
While media polls show a high support rate for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi¡¯s Cabinet, the support for the LDP is not as great, meaning there¡¯s no guarantee of a coattail effect if a snap poll is called.
¡®Black Box Diaries¡¯ is Shiori Ito¡¯s unflinching case for the truth
¡°Black Box Diaries¡± documents Shiori Ito¡¯s legal case, while also showing her thoughts and feelings through journal style videos she recorded herself.
Kashima or Kashiwa: J. League title chase goes down to the wire
Kashima's Yuma Suzuki (center) takes a shot during a game against Kashiwa in March.
2025 was the year Japan¡¯s box office returned
In 2025, ¡°Demon Slayer¡± and ¡°Kokuho¡± broke box-office records, while films such as ¡°Renoir,¡± A Pale View of the Hills¡± and ¡°Two Strangers, Two Seasons¡± garnered acclaim on the international film festival circuit. The year¡¯s biggest loss was the death of Tatsuya Nakadai, an highly regarded actor who had worked with nearly all of the top directors of Japanese cinema¡¯s postwar golden age.
The key points under discussion on policies affecting foreign nationals
Visitors head to Shirakawago, a popular tourist spot, in Gifu Prefecture in November.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo¡¯s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo¡¯s ¡®stadium of desire¡¯

Longform

Yumi Matsutoya began her decades-long career under her maiden name, Yumi Arai, but Japanese fans might know her better as ¡°Yuming.¡±
Yumi Matsutoya¡¯s human touch in an AI age
By Patrick St. Michel

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