Most recent stories
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Akita City “Kanto Matsuri” performance – 2024 Honolulu Festival
19 April 2025 7:57 AM | No CommentsThe Akita City Kanto Festival Executive Committee performed at the 2024 Honolulu Festival, showcasing music and pole-balancing stunts from its annual Kanto Matsuri.
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Petit Bateau Fall 2025 – Tokyo Fashion Week
19 April 2025 5:39 AM | No CommentsWhy did a 132-year-old French casualwear brand, mostly focusing on children's fashion, decide to show at the Tokyo Fall/Winter 2025 collections?
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tiit tokyo Fall 2025 – Tokyo Fashion Week
18 April 2025 9:30 PM | No CommentsAccording to the Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO show notes, for the Fall/Winter 2025 season, the designers were "inspired by the Danish film "When Animals Dream.""
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Sumo: 73rd yokozuna Terunofuji retires, leaves lasting legacy
10 April 2025 11:57 AM | No CommentsThe Mongolian's calm, regal presence in the dohyo will certainly be missed, but there is no rest for the weary.
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Photos: Yousuke Haga – New York Fashion Week Fall 2025
24 March 2025 3:05 AM | No CommentsPhotos from the Yousuke Haga - Asia Fashion Collection runway show in New York.
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Japan Archive
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“Potechi (Chips)” – 2012 NYAFF & Japan Cuts Review
Yuan-Kwan ChanPosted on July 15, 2012 | No CommentsWith topics as diverse as house burglary, suicide, mother-son relationships, baseball fandom and, of course, potato chips peppered across a brisk 68-minute work, director Yoshihiro Nakamura somehow connects the dots to deliver a knockout revelation. -
“Scabbard Samurai” – 2012 NYAFF & Japan Cuts Review
Yuan-Kwan ChanPosted on July 14, 2012 | No CommentsA disgraced samurai can avoid seppuku if he can make his captor’s little prince smile, something that he has not done since the death of his mother. The catch? He has 30 days to do it. -
Masayuki Suo’s “Shall We Dance?” – 2012 Japan Cuts Review
Yuan-Kwan ChanPosted on July 9, 2012 | No Comments“Shall We Dance?” (Shall we ダンス?), the 1996 film that won 14 Japan Academy Prizes, was famously remade into a flick eight years later starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. -
Review: Nobuhiro Yamashita’s “Matsugane Potshot Affair”
Christopher BournePosted on June 29, 2012 | No Comments"Matsugane Potshot Affair" is a dark comedy following the decidedly odd events and inhabitants of a small town and the happenings of a particular winter. -
Review: Kazuo Kuroki’s “The Blossoming of Etsuko Kamiya”
Christopher BournePosted on June 23, 2012 | No Comments"The Blossoming of Etsuko Kamiya" is a quiet, gently humorous, and poignant World War II-set story that evokes the home dramas that were a specialty of Ozu. -
Film Review: Takashi Miike’s “Dead or Alive”
Christopher BournePosted on June 15, 2012 | No CommentsThis yakuza thriller by Japanese cult director Takashi Miike is a letter-perfect illustration of the saying, "Nothing succeeds like excess." -
Review: Naomi Kawase’s “The Mourning Forest”
Christopher BournePosted on June 8, 2012 | No Comments"The Mourning Forest" expresses a very animist sensibility, in that the natural world, and associated sounds and space, are given great priority. -
Review: Yoshihiro Nishimura’s “Tokyo Gore Police”
Christopher BournePosted on May 25, 2012 | No CommentsAs the title promises, in "Tokyo Gore Police" there is no chance that you will instead be confronted with, say, a sensitive Merchant Ivory-type romance. -
Review: Jessica Oreck’s “Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo”
Christopher BournePosted on May 4, 2012 | No Comments"Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo" is not a cult science-fiction film, but an impressionistic, non-linear documentary exploring Japan’s obsession with insects. -
![One of my favorite recent Japanese films is the complex crime drama/lovers-on-the-run story Villain, screening as part of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Below is what I […]](https://www.meniscuszine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/AC_Villain_악인_ST4-115x115.jpg "“Love Will Tear Us Apart” Review: Lee Sang-il’s “Villain”")
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” Review: Lee Sang-il’s “Villain”
Christopher BournePosted on March 8, 2012 | No CommentsOne of my favorite recent Japanese films is the complex crime drama/lovers-on-the-run story Villain, screening as part of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Below is what I […]