Category Archives: Japan

Kyoto Animation’s stories celebrated warmth and belonging. The fire is a tragic loss of life and legacy | Patrick Lum

Posted on by

The studio that nurtured creativity and treasured its staff made anime that found magic in the everyday

Like many fans, I wasn’t really aware of specific animation houses or companies when I first got into Japanese animation as a kid. Anime, as far as I was concerned, came from Japan: end of story. But over time, it became apparent that some of my favourite series and movies were all done by the same studio – a powerhouse named Kyoto Animation.

Related: Kyoto Animation studio fire suspect named by police

Continue reading...

Listen, bend and stretch: how Japan fell in love with exercise on the radio

Posted on by
Millions join in a mass rajio taisō workout broadcast daily for nearly 70 years

“One, two, three, four … five, six, seven, eight …” That is the cue for half a dozen people braving a humid morning at Kamezuka park in Tokyo to bend, stretch, jump, and run on the spot. The group’s personal trainer is a portable radio perched on the top of a children’s slide. A male voice’s simple instructions, issued to a jaunty piano accompaniment, has become a staple of daily life in Japan since the broadcasts, known as rajio taisō (radio calisthenics), first hit the airwaves almost a century ago.

The three-minute routine is the perfect way to start the day, says Yukihide Maruyama, a 79-year-old retired businessman who has performed the routine nearly every day for a decade. “The exercises aren’t that difficult and afterwards you feel like your body has properly woken up.”

Continue reading...

Mourners pay tribute to victims of Kyoto Animation studio fire – video

Posted on by

Mourners gathered in Japan on Friday to lay flowers outside Kyoto Animation after an arson attack that killed at least 33 people. Many of the victims were employees of the studio, which works on movies and TV productions but is best known for its mega-hit stories featuring high-school girls

Continue reading...

Kyoto Animation fire: police search for clues as donations pass $1m mark

Posted on by

Fire officials say most victims were found on top floor as tens of thousands donate to crowdfunding appeal

Japan has been plunged into a state of shock after an arson attack on a popular anime studio killed at least 33 people as investigators searched for a motive and clues as to why the fire proved so deadly.

Thirty-six others were injured, some of them critically, in Thursday’s blaze at Kyoto Animation, which is Japan’s deadliest fire in nearly two decades.

Continue reading...

Kyoto Animation studio fire: at least 25 dead after arson attack in Japan

Posted on by

Dozens more injured after ‘man threw liquid and set fire’ to building, police say

Japan has been plunged into a state of shock after an arson attack on an anime studio left at least 33 people dead and dozens injured in the country’s worst mass murder in nearly two decades.

The perpetrator, who was also injured and has been taken into police custody, walked into the 1st Studio building of Kyoto Animation in Fujimi ward, Kyoto, at about 10.30am. He poured what is suspected to be petrol in multiple areas of the building before igniting it.

Continue reading...

KyoAni fire: arson attack at Kyoto Animation studio – video report

Posted on by

Fire swept through an animation studio in Japan on Thursday, killing at least 33 people and injuring scores more, with the cause suspected to have been arson after a man was seen shouting 'die' as he doused the building with petrol. Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, tweeted that the fire in Kyoto was 'too appalling for words' and offered condolences to the victims. Police have taken a 41-year-old man into custody

Continue reading...

$32m stolen from Tokyo cryptocurrency exchange in latest hack

Posted on by

Bitpoint suspends services after apparent theft of virtual monies including bitcoin

A cryptocurrency exchange in Tokyo has halted services after it lost $32m (£25m) in the latest apparent hack on volatile virtual monies.

Remixpoint, which runs the Bitpoint Japan exchange, discovered that about ¥3.5bn in various digital currencies had gone missing from under its management.

Continue reading...

Japan’s famous Nara deer dying from eating plastic bags

Posted on by

Tourists warned not to feed the animals after plastic waste found in stomachs of several dead deer

Authorities in Japan’s ancient capital Nara are warning visitors not to feed the city’s wild deer – a major tourist attraction – after several of the animals died after swallowing plastic bags.

Large amounts of plastic waste were found in the stomachs of nine of 14 deer to have died since March, according to a local wildlife conservation group.

Continue reading...

Lifting the lid on Japan’s poo museum – in pictures

Posted on by

Japan’s culture of cute has embraced poo, which gets a pop twist at the Unko Museum in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Visitors can play a poo-themed video game and pose on a variety of WCs. All the twisty ice-cream and cupcake shapes on display are artificial, and come in a variety of colours and sizes

Continue reading...

Paws for effect: Japanese zoo stages unusual ‘lion’ escape drill

Posted on by

Staff member in a lion costume helps zoo practise for the event of an escape, as real lions appear unimpressed

For one terrifying moment it looks like the lion is about to get the upper hand against its human nemeses.

The animal faces down its would-be captors – armed with a net and long poles - and, without warning, knocks one of them to the ground with its powerful paws. “Are you alright?” another zookeeper asks the prone victim.

Continue reading...

The year of Akira: how does 2019 Neo-Tokyo compare with today’s city?

Posted on by

From architecture to highways and the Olympic stadium, how does reality shape up against Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 animated dystopia?

It’s 2019 and Tokyo is a sprawling megalopolis preparing for the 2020 Olympics. The city is crowded, fraying at the edges. The young are aimless and underemployed, obsessed with cars and clothes. Cynical new religious movements are on the rise. Motorcycle gangs race at night on the expressways. There is a worrying trend of militarism after years of peace. The government is showing signs of corruption. And everyone seems terrifyingly eager to ignore the lessons of a recent nuclear catastrophe.

The real city of Tokyo and the imagined Neo-Tokyo of the 1988 anime film Akira are nearly indistinguishable. 2019 is the “year of Akira”: the date the apocalyptic science fiction film was set, a couple of decades after a mysterious nuclear-esque disaster had wiped out the original city.

Continue reading...

Schoolgirls for sale: why Tokyo struggles to stop the ‘JK business’

Posted on by

The persistent practice of paying underage girls for sex-related services, known in Japan as the ‘JK’ business, has seen charities step in where police have come up short

On a humid Wednesday night the streets of Kabukicho, Tokyo’s most famous red light district, hum with people. Some are tourists, here to gawp and take selfies, but others are customers. Adverts for clubs flash and sing and girls dressed as maids hold signs offering deals for local bars.

In a grubby shopfront a perky cartoon featuring a cute Mr Men-style creature offers part-time work. The ad, which has an alarmingly catchy jingle, doesn’t specify what the work is, but it doesn’t need to: the answer is all around us on the brightly lit billboards advertising the charms of male and female bar hosts.

Continue reading...

The Tokyo neighbourhood where people come to disappear

Posted on by

For hundreds of years people have come to Sanya in search of labouring jobs, shelter and a sense of belonging – but the area is changing fast, and its residents are struggling to adapt

At first sight, Sanya looks much like any other Tokyo suburb: well-appointed homes, supermarkets and fast-food restaurants. In the distance, soaring above the rooftops and mesh of overhead power lines is the unmistakable shape of the Tokyo Skytree.

But its proximity to the ultra-modern landmark is deceptive. Older men in well-worn tracksuits, baseball caps and plastic slippers clutch cans of early-afternoon chu-hi alcopops, and dozens of no-frills hostels advertise rooms with easily the lowest rates in the city – clues to Sanya’s status as a Tokyo neighbourhood like no other, but one that is struggling to adapt to irresistible change.

Continue reading...

Game of thrones: commuter sells seat on crowded Tokyo train

Posted on by

Novel wheeze to profit from packed trains latest in long line of creative ways to deal with Tokyo’s long commutes

Every morning, millions of Tokyoites cram into overcrowded trains across the world’s largest city. Most must stand, often squeezed uncomfortably together. So, earlier this month, one enterprising commuter came up with a novel wheeze to profit from the situation.

His morning journey ran from the suburb of Chiba into central Tokyo – a long trip for which he was almost always guaranteed to get a seat. So he put that seat up for auction – for 2,000 yen (£14.50). He named the car, and the time of the train, and asked buyers to show him proof of payment on their mobile phone.

Continue reading...

Has Tokyo reached ‘peak city’?

Posted on by

You could argue that the world’s biggest city has hit a sweet spot: a flatlining population, pervasive transit and little gentrification. But is ‘peak city’ even possible – and where does Tokyo go from here?

Tokyo is often described as crowded, mushrooming, figuratively bursting at the seams. Except, in many ways, it’s not.

Unlike many megacities, the world’s largest metropolitan area has largely stopped growing, either in land or population. Where Mumbai, Lagos or São Paulo continually sprout new informal neighbourhoods that are constantly outstripping the ability of the city to catch up, Tokyo’s urban planning and services more or less seamlessly encompass the central wards and the neighbouring cities of Kawasaki, Yokohama, Chiba and Saitama that form its unbroken metropolitan area.

Continue reading...

A city built on water: the hidden rivers under Tokyo’s concrete and neon

Posted on by

More than 100 rivers and canals flow beneath Tokyo, but from the ground it’s hard to notice them. Why has the city turned its back on water?

Of the near-endless flow of people over the busy Shibuya scramble crossing every day, few realise that beneath their feet is something else flowing, unseen and unnoticed: the crossing of two ancient rivers, the Uda and the Onden.

Beneath all the concrete and neon, Tokyo is a city built on water. It is the reason the Japanese capital’s 37 million citizens are here at all. From fishing village to seat of political power, canny water management was a key driver of the city’s extraordinary growth.

Continue reading...

‘There are almost no women in power’: Tokyo’s female workers demand change

Posted on by

Japan has a 27.5% gender pay gap and ranks just 110th in the world for gender equality – but social change is slowly happening

Last week, after Yumi Ishikawa’s petition against being forced to wear high heels at work went viral around the world, responses ranged from solidarity – with some cheering Ishikawa and denouncing “modern footbinding” – to surprised disappointment. In 2019, in a liberal democracy such as Japan, could the issue of women’s rights still be stuck on stilettos?

But the global spotlight on the hashtag #KuToo (a pun on a word for shoes and a word for pain) may have obscured what’s really happening in Japan. “It’s so trivial,” says one senior female publishing executive, who wished to remain anonymous. After all, on the streets of Tokyo, there is a growing movement for real change for women, not merely more comfortable footwear.

Continue reading...

Carlos Ghosn’s former home: inside Tokyo’s notorious detention centre

Posted on by

Short tour allowed inside Japanese prison accused of keeping suspects in conditions designed to ‘break’ them for confessions

The forbidding outline of Tokyo detention centre is impossible to miss, even on a dark, wet afternoon in early June. The X-shaped building dominates the skyline of the unfashionable Kosuge neighbourhood in the city’s north-east.

Aside from brief eruptions of media interest when a high-profile killer is led to the gallows, for much of the time there is little public scrutiny of its occupants – more than 1,600 inmates and about 800 staff.

Continue reading...