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February 13, 2026
 

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Thu-Huong Ha
Thu-Huong Ha is the culture critic at The Japan Times, focusing on contemporary art and fiction. Previously she was a reporter for Quartz, an editor for and an executive producer of TEDxNewYork. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, The Believer, and ArtReview, among others. Her debut novel, "Hail Caesar," was published by Scholastic/PUSH in 2007. Get in touch: [email protected] or
At the new Tenshoku Sodan Bar, owner Shota Umemoto (right) and recruiting staff from Yokohama-based LIA Group serve up cocktails and career advice in equal measure.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 11, 2026
Inside Yokohama¡¯s ¡®quit your job¡¯ bar, where drinks and advice are free
Owner Shota Umemoto says he was surprised by the viral response to his new bar aimed at making discussions around changing jobs more casual.
¡°Alfredo Jaar: You and Me and the Others,¡± features works by the Chilean artist over the span of his 50-year career. ¡°Tomorrow is another day¡± is a new commission about U.S.-Japan relations.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 25, 2026
Artist Alfredo Jaar turns his critical eye toward Japan¡¯s relationship to ¡®America¡¯
¡°You and Me and the Others¡± is a new exhibition at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery devoted to the works of the New York-based Chilean artist and architect.
From left: Naoki Prize winner Teru Shimazu and Akutagawa Prize winners Ushio Hatakeyama and Makoto Toriyama pose for a photo at a press conference in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Jan. 14.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 14, 2026
Time and history win big at most prestigious Japanese book awards
The Akutagawa Prize and the Naoki Prize in January 2026 were awarded to Makoto Toriyama, Ushio Hatakeyama and Teru Shimazu.
The 2025 Aichi Triennale took place in several locations, including a former bathhouse where Rui Sasaki's ¡°Unforgettable Residues¡± was exhibited.
CULTURE / Art / 2025 IN REVIEW
Dec 29, 2025
A year of plenty: Endless art shows, subtle curation of themes
Japan¡¯s art scene was bursting with public enthusiasm, overflowing exhibition halls and more art festivals vying for attention.
¡°Dai Pinchi Zukan 3¡± is part of a series of illustrated kids' books; all three books have been immensely popular, selling a cumulative 2.7 million copies in four years.
CULTURE / Books / 2025 IN REVIEW
Dec 21, 2025
Life lessons from bestselling kids' book about making mistakes
The top-selling book of 2025, ¡°Dai Pinchi Zukan 3,¡± is a children¡¯s book about a cloddish kid forever falling into mishaps or ¡°big pinches.¡±
Like clockwork, the Year of the Fire Horse has depressed birth rates in Japan due to a stigma associated with girls born in the year.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 20, 2025
Will 91²Ö¿â 'fire horse' curse strike again in 2026?
In 1966, the stigma related to the Chinese sexagenary cycle caused birth rates to plummet.
Crowded with links, icons and graphics, Japan¡¯s major web portals deliver information at full volume, echoing an online culture that favors abundance over empty space.
LIFE / Style & Design / Longform
Dec 15, 2025
Why Japan¡¯s internet looks weird ¡ª unless you live here
A closer look at Japan¡¯s maximalist web design shows how cultural values and practical needs create an online world richer than it appears.
¡°Rental Family,¡± directed and co-written by the single-named Hikari, follows out-of-work actor Phillip (Brendan Fraser), who is hired as the ¡°token white guy¡± at a Tokyo agency called Rental Family.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 19, 2025
Why we can¡¯t get enough of the sham of the rental family
The new ¡°Rental Family¡± film starring Brendan Fraser revisits an irresistible controversy and suggests that while rental family members are fake, they address a real loneliness.
The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver¡¯s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina ¡ª unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
COMMUNITY / Issues / Longform
Oct 22, 2025
Driving in Japan isn¡¯t hard. Getting the license is.
From the desperate and defeated to the blissful and breezy, readers share their experiences of getting a driver¡¯s license in Japan.
Ari Bayuaji's artwork of the benevolent Bali god Barong is on display in a glass case on the ground floor of Hollywood Beauty Plaza.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2025
Artist Ari Bayuaji materializes monsters from ocean plastic
From his series ¡°Weaving the Ocean,¡± the demon Rangda is on display at Go for Kogei 2025, while the more benevolent Barong sits in a glass case in Roppongi.
¡°Archipelago of the Sun¡± by Yoko Tawada is part of a trilogy billed as a dystopian future under threat of climate crisis.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 24, 2025
Yoko Tawada¡¯s wandering trilogy concludes search for the 'land of sushi'
In ¡°Archipelago of the Sun,¡± the merry band of polyglot friends board a boat crossing the Baltic Sea, still vaguely in search of a disappeared Japan.
¡°Between Currents and Bloom,¡± an eye-popping crocheted seascape by Indonesian artist Mulyana, dazzles with Instagram-ready cuteness while recalling a vibrant ocean now threatened by warming seas.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 22, 2025
Aichi Triennale¡¯s message to the art world: Free Palestine
At Aichi Triennale 2025, Hoor Al Qasimi, the festival¡¯s first foreign artistic director, takes a stand in support of Palestine.
Otherwise common sights in Japan's supermarkets, the country's fruit and veggie boxes can hide surprising symbols of local pride.
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 19, 2025
Behold the glory of Japan¡¯s fruit boxes
Watermelon mountains and onion parades: The everyday cardboard containers for fruits and veggies are a designer¡¯s delight.
Shuji Nakagawa created a teahouse using the same technique for making traditional wooden buckets.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 19, 2025
A bucket becomes a house in the hands of craftsman Shuji Nakagawa
At Go for Kogei 2025, a third-generation woodworker envisions new forms for a humble vessel.
Shinji Ohmaki¡¯s ¡°Tokinokage¡± exhibited at Fuji Textile Week 2021 shows the use of fabric as art.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 13, 2025
91²Ö¿â major art events converge this fall
Dozens of biennials, triennials, art festivals and fairs are taking place between September and December.
¡°Sympathy Tower Tokyo¡± is centered around Sara Machina, a star architect designing a new experimental prison in central Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2025
ChatGPT controversy is the least interesting part of 'Sympathy Tower Tokyo'
In Rie Qudan¡¯s futuristic Tokyo, AI and architects take on the prison system.
¡°Memory of Lines¡± is Chiharu Shiota¡¯s second art installation on Teshima as part of the Setouchi Triennale.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 30, 2025
Artist Chiharu Shiota weaves a hidden marvel on Teshima
The artist cherished for her red-thread installations creates a new work in one of Japan¡¯s famed art islands.
Akira Otani's genre-bending novel "The Night of Baba Yaga" takes place in Japan¡¯s 1970s yakuza underworld and centers on the daughter of a mob boss and a ruthless martial arts fighter who serves as her bodyguard.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jul 4, 2025
Queer-coded yakuza story wins prestigious U.K. crime writing award
With ¡°The Night of Baba Yaga,¡± Akira Otani is the first Japanese writer to win the Crime Writers¡¯ Association Dagger Award for crime fiction in translation.
¡°The man who planted Japanese animation¡± exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2025
Ghibli¡¯s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
A new show at Tokyo¡¯s Azabudai Hills Gallery explores the painstaking process of the late ¡°Grave of the Fireflies¡± and ¡°Pom Poko¡± director.
Japan has a deep rogues' gallery of age-old "y¨­kai" (spirits), but a museum on the island of Shodoshima has released a new book collecting y¨­kai that reflect the uncertainties of the modern world.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 14, 2025
'Rice swindler,' 'Face thief': Worried citizens invent new monsters
A decade-old contest for original "y¨­kai" art reflects what keeps people up at night in Japan.
Germany considers joining GCAP fighter project with Japan, U.K. and Italy
A concept model of the Global Air Combat Program fighter jet on display at the Defense and Security Equipment International Japan conference in Chiba last May
Struggling Nissan forecasts $4.2 billion full-year net loss
Nissan intends to reduce the number of its vehicle production plants from 17 to 10 by March 2028, and is targeting 20,000 job cuts worldwide by that date.
Why Asia can¡¯t undo decades of falling fertility rates
Singapore¡¯s stalled birthrate reflects a broader pattern across wealthy Asian economies where higher living standards, shifting values and gender imbalances have made low fertility persistent and resistant to quick policy fixes.
Why we¡¯ll never see a yokozuna in the Super Bowl
Wrestlers from Onoe stable with Fujitsu Frontiers cornerback Al-Rilwan Adeyemi (front) at the Rice Bowl at Tokyo Dome on Jan. 3, 2017
Yen strengthens decisively after strong showing by LDP boosts confidence
The yen has strengthened decisively since the Liberal Democratic Party gained a supermajority in the Lower House.
Landslide election victory lets Takaichi confront China on her terms
The resounding victory by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday's general election has sent a strong signal that Takaichi is likely to be around for some time, giving her the bandwidth to adhere to her strategy of putting the onus on Chinese President Xi Jinping to reengage with Japan.
Is Takaichi on course for a long-term reign?
Sanae Takaichi, prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, at the party¡¯s headquarters in Tokyo on Sunday
Against the grain: Japanese wine aged in local barrels
At Buryu Winery, owner Keiji Yamaguchi (left) and assistant winemaker Kaede Narita created a cedar-infused red wine by fermenting it in a 1,000 liter "kioke" cedar tub.
Foreign residents breathe new life into bubble-era resort town
A craft beer brewery run by California native Brian Shevlin and his wife Mariko Furuta, Joynt Brewing Co. regularly hosts events that highlight different cultural communities.
Japan¡¯s SkyDrive hopes to have flying cars in service by 2028
SkyDrive¡¯s flying car unit at its flight test base in the city of Yamaguchi

Podcast

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

Longform

Experts say emotional bonds with AI are often shaped by prior experiences ¡ª or disappointments ¡ª in human relationships.
Love, engineered in the age of AI
By Elizabeth Beattie

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