Three people have moved back to Futaba, which aims to attract about 2,000 over the next five years
Late last month, Yoichi Yatsuda slept in his own home for the first time in more than a decade.
As a resident of Futaba, a town in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, there was a time when simply spending the night in his family home had seemed an impossible dream.
Continue reading...Joint statement from US, Japan and South Korea urges Pyongyang to return to negotiations and stop its recent spate of ‘destabilising’ missile launches
The top diplomats of Japan, South Korea and the United States declared their unity against North Korea on Saturday after a series of ballistic missile launches by Pyongyang.
After a day of meetings in Honolulu, US secretary of state Antony Blinken, South Korean foreign minister Chung Eui-yong, and Japanese foreign minister Hayashi Yoshimasa condemned the series of seven launches as “destabilising” in a joint statement.
Continue reading...Ryusuke Hamaguchi brings a gentle warmth to this ingenious collection of three stories united by themes of fate and mystery
Ryusuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese film-maker whose work I first encountered in 2018 with his doppelgänger romance Asako I & II and indirectly via last year’s experimental chamber-piece Domains, whose screenwriter Tomoyuki Takahashi has worked with Hamaguchi. Now he has unveiled this ingenious, playful, sparklingly acted and thoroughly entertaining portmanteau collection of three movie tales.
Their themes and ideas are emerging as keynotes for this director: fate and coincidence, identity and role-play, and the mysteries of erotic pleasure and desire. There is a rather European flavour in the mix – one of its characters is a specialist in French literature – and I found myself thinking of Emmanuel Carrère and Milan Kundera. And although there is no formal connection between the stories (other than the thematic echoes) the simple act of juxtaposition creates something pleasingly cohesive.
Continue reading...Automatic addition of ex-husband as father on document within 300 days of divorce to be scrapped
Japan is set to reform a 19th century law that automatically registers a woman’s ex-husband as the father of a child born within 300 days of their divorce.
A government panel this week recommended amending the rule, along with another clause in the law that prevents women from remarrying for 100 days after a divorce on the grounds that the paternity of a child born soon after would be unclear.
Continue reading...City that had 8 million overseas visitors in 2019 – including free-spending parties of Chinese people – is getting used to the peace and quiet
Until a couple of years ago, negotiating the hill leading to one of Kyoto’s most popular temples would have tested the patience of a Buddhist saint. The arrival of yet another coachload of sightseers would send pedestrians fleeing to narrow paths already clogged with meandering visitors on their way to Kiyomizu-dera.
That was before Covid-19. Today, the cacophony of English and Chinese, and a smattering of other European and Asian languages, has been replaced by the chatter of Japanese children on school excursions. Shops selling souvenirs and wagashi sweets are almost empty, their unoccupied staff perhaps reminiscing about more lucrative times.
Continue reading...This weird postmodern drama sees a lonely teenager join a virtual world where she becomes a hugely successful singer
There’s some amazing big-screen spectacle in this weird postmodern emo photo-love drama from Japanese anime director Mamoru Hosoda, whose previous film Mirai elevated him to auteur status. Suzu, voiced by Kaho Nakamura, is a deeply unhappy and lonely teenager at high school, who lives with her dad. Her mum died some years ago, attempting (successfully) to save a child from drowning and Suzu can’t come to terms with the zero-sum pointlessness of this calamity: a total stranger was saved but her mother died. Or not zero in fact: while her loss increased the sum-total of unhappiness, the most popular boy in school – a friend since they were little – is tender and protective towards Suzu.
Her life is complicated further when she is persuaded to join a virtual reality meta-universe called U, a glittering unearthly city like a next-level Manhattan or Shibuya. (Presumably entry into this fantasy world needs a VR headset, although oddly this is not made plain.) Participants have their biometrics read and get an enhanced avatar of themselves and Suzu finds that she is now “Belle”, an ethereally beautiful young woman with quirky freckles and a wonderful singing voice. To her astonishment, Suzu finds that Belle is becoming a colossally famous singer – but at the very high point of this meta-success she comes across the Beast, who disrupts one of her concerts: a brutish, aggressive outcast figure loathed by the self-appointed vigilante guardians of U.
Continue reading...The US on Sunday made a direct appeal to North Korea to join direct talks with no preconditions about its nuclear and missile programs, after Pyongyang sent a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into space.
“We believe it is completely appropriate and completely correct to start having some serious discussions,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters.
Continue reading...Sales of the drink soar as distillers target a whole new market
The setting is unmistakably Japanese: a mountainous backdrop and, out of view but menacingly close, an active volcano. And nestling amid barren rice paddies seeing out the winter, a distillery producing a spirit whose roots lie far from rural Kagoshima.
The administrative district on Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu is famed for shochu, a spirit, often made with sweet potatoes or barley, that has sustained family-run businesses here for centuries.
Continue reading...Doctor’s condition grave after attack in Fujimino near Tokyo as police confirm man aged 50 to 70 in custody
A Japanese man has been arrested for the attempted murder of a doctor he allegedly took hostage overnight, reports said on Friday.
The suspect is also alleged to have shot a nurse, who is severely injured, as he confined the doctor, who is feared dead after the attack, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Continue reading...Umaibo, a crunchy corn snack that means ‘delicious stick’, increases in price from ¥10 to ¥12 – the first rise in the face of higher import costs
One of Japan’s best-loved snacks is to go up in price – by a whopping 20% – for the first time since its launch more than four decades ago,
But Umaibo – literally “delicious stick” – will still be a steal for schoolchildren at just ¥12 apiece (US10c, not including sales tax), up from the current ¥10, when the change goes into effect in April.
Continue reading...Concerns about new Omicron offshoot in England; France to bring in strict restrictions for unvaccinated people
Germany’s seven-day incidence rate has risen to a high of 772.7 infections per 100,000 people, up from 706.3.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 135,461 new infections on Saturday, an increase of 57,439 on the same day a week ago, when 78,022 positive tests were reported.
Travel restrictions have stranded almost 150,000 students, workers and others hoping to join relatives
Late last year, Pablo Ortez quit his job, sold his belongings and prepared to join his wife in Japan, where she is studying for a doctorate.
But 72 hours before he was due to leave Argentina, he checked the Japanese foreign ministry website to find that the government had imposed a near-blanket travel ban to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.
Continue reading...A large underwater volcano in Tonga has sent huge swells around the world affecting countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and large swells were seen in California and Japan but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Two people have drowned off a beach in northern Peru, local authorities say, after unusually high waves were recorded in several coastal areas
While wealthiest got richer, 140m people fell into poverty as jobs were lost, wiping out years of gains for poorest, report finds
Twenty new “pandemic billionaires” have been created in Asia thanks to the international response to Covid-19, while 140 million people across the continent were plunged into poverty as jobs were lost during the pandemic, according to Oxfam.
A report by the aid organisation says that by March 2021, profits from the pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and services needed for the Covid response had made 20 people new billionaires as lockdowns and economic stagnation destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of others.
Continue reading...Postwar Japan embraced the music of its former enemy – and, powered by anti-establishment feeling, remade it. As they find a new global audience, the country’s jazz innovators explain what drove them
The story of Japanese jazz is about music and a movement, but also a nation’s state of mind – a daring vision of a better future after the second world war, sounded out on piano, drums and brass. Jazz is a distinctly American art form – the US’s greatest cultural achievement, in fact, along with hip-hop – and a healthy scene had formed in the 1920s and 30s as American players toured the clubs of Tokyo, Kobe and Osaka. But Japan had historically been an insular nation – its policy of sakoku, which for more than two centuries severely limited contact with the outside world, had only ended in the 1850s – and an increasingly nationalist government, feeling jazz diluted Japanese culture, began to crack down. By the second world war, “the music of the enemy” was outlawed.
After the country’s surrender, occupying forces oversaw sweeping reforms. American troops brought jazz records with them; Japanese musicians picked up work entertaining the troops. There was a proliferation of jazz kissa (cafes), a distinctly Japanese phenomenon where locals could sit and listen to records for as long as they wanted. For some, jazz was the sound of modernity.
Continue reading...Coming of age day is a Japanese holiday held every January to celebrate those who have reached 20, the official age of adulthood in Japan. Many ceremonies around the country have been scaled back as authorities continue to implement measures to tackle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic
Continue reading...20-year-olds contemplate an uncertain future shaped by the coronavirus pandemic and Japan’s skewed demographics
On the second Monday in January every year, Japan’s 20-year-olds put on their best kimono and suits, brave the winter chill and congregate at event halls across the country to celebrate their official passage into adulthood.
In happier times, Coming of Age Day is a time to reunite with old school friends from the same neighbourhood and take endless commemorative photos, knowing that a party invariably involving the legal consumption of alcohol will be just reward for sitting through dreary speeches by local dignitaries.
Continue reading...When George Devine’s family discovered a Japanese battle flag among his belongings, it led to a three-year quest for answers
“I am not a man for soldiering, although I do tolerably well at it in a very minor role. But there is nothing about it that pleases me, and much that offends … It is a corrupter of morals in the widest sense and a gross waste of man’s time and effort.”
These words were written by George Devine, the actor and founding artistic director of the Royal Court theatre, in a letter to his wife from Burma, where he served in the second world war. The views he expressed reflected what his family – and many in the arts world – regarded as his essential humanity and compassion.
Continue reading...Limits on restaurant opening times imposed in Okinawa and parts of Hiroshima and Yamaguchi
Japan is to introduce limits on bar and restaurant opening times in three areas in an attempt to stem a surge in coronavirus cases that has been linked to US military bases.
The measures – officially described as a quasi-state of emergency – will go into effect from Sunday until the end of the month in Okinawa, home to more than half of the US service personnel based in Japan, and parts of the western prefectures of Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, which also host American troops.
Continue reading...Housed in a custom space made from cast-offs, the Japanese artist’s cartoon girls blend fairytale lore with 60s-inspired protest, and have become more introspective though no less impressively wrought in cardboard and wood
“Stop the bombs” reads the angry red writing in the storm cloud thought bubble above the little girl in a pale blue dress. Like all the children in the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s paintings, she has puppydog eyes and a toddler’s outsized head, yet her posture is pure bruiser. There are tiny animal fangs at the corners of her mouth. Of the paintings, drawings and sculptures in Nara’s latest exhibition, she is the closest to the pint-sized characters with big dark feelings that he began making in the 1990s, some of contemporary art’s most recognisable creations.
Those early works, where tots sweetly clutched knives or took fag breaks, blended Japanese kawaii – cuteness – with mischief and menace. Partly thanks to Nara’s alignment with the pop art titan Takashi Murakami’s Superflat movement, he reached a global art audience and a wider public. Both artists mined the Japanese weakness for baby-faced adorableness, an infantilising that Murakami linked to the trauma of Hiroshima. Yet where Murakami’s trademark smiley acid-faced flowers and phallic mushrooms channel the surface sheen of a depthless mass-produced world of cartoons and commerce, Nara’s appeal has always been universal human emotion. “My works’ roots are my childhood, not pop culture,” he explains. “Around me there were orchards, sheep and horses; I read fairytales rather than comics.”
Continue reading...