It’s always fascinating to take a look back in time to newsreel footage from Japan’s earlier years, particularly footage in vibrant cultural areas such as Kyoto. Unfortunately, we must often do so without the benefit of sound. Thankfully videographer Guy Jones, who compiles and restores rare and old historical film footage, has uploaded footage of Kyoto from 1929 featuring sound that provides added audio insight into bustling Japanese city life from all those years back. According to Global Voices, the original footage was provided by University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC), caretaker of the Fox Movietone News Collection. Among the the many interesting scenes brought to life…

While net cafes and capsule hotels are mostly viewed as an affordable bare bones way to crash when traveling in Japan or after missing a last train, recent years have seen specialty types open targeting otaku and book fans. Now “Manga Art Hotel, Tokyo”, fittingly located near Japan’s “city of manga” in Jimbocho, is opening up and offering capsule lodging with over 5,000 manga titles to keep you entertained. Manga Art Hotel, Tokyo cites a growing number of foreign travelers to Japan (particularly as a lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics) as one reason to offer the special accommodation, which will focus on offering a collection of manga titles (which…

The traditional Japanese art of papercutting, or kirie, can truly be a beautiful sight to behold. 25-year veteran Masayo Fukuda, however, may have produced one of the most intricately gorgeous cutting yet. She recently took to Twitter to post what she is calling her masterpiece of 2018 in the form of a stunning kirie octopus! Source: Masayo Fukudaa Source: Masayo Fukuda The super detailed octopus is actually cut from a single sheet of paper, and it took Masayo two months to painstakingly craft and brilliantly make use of negative space. Source: Masayo Fukuda Source: Masayo Fukuda While it may appear as a finely drawn illustration, videos below prove that it’s…

As very modest compensation for their grueling training and dedicated lifestyles, sumo wrestlers enjoy a bit of a revered status in Japan, and along with that comes a certain level of celebrity that means getting asked for your autograph a lot. However, sumo wrestlers don’t simply hand out signatures. They treat fans to tegata, or hand prints that both serve as an autograph and proud proof of the giant hands sumo use to batter their opponents. But when you have thousands of clamoring fans to please, you need to be as diligent in stamping as you are in an actual contest. A video below, posted by the Japan Sumo Association,…

In searching the internet for Japanese photography, you’ll find no shortage of beautiful work that celebrates the country’s rich culture and scenery. While many of these certainly accurately portray the gorgeous sights Japan has to offer, some rely on extensive set up and conditions for the perfect shot. Kamakura and Tokyo-based award winning street photographer Shin Noguchi welcomes the opposite approach, aiming to capture what he calls the extraordinary moments of excitement, humanism and beauty among the flow of everyday life. While his technique and skill are recognized on a worldwide level, he forgoes elaborate staging for an approach that he hopes can subtly and naturally show the nuances of…

Despite being home to rich natural splendor and the endlessly charming Edo period merchant town of Kawagoe (one of the most popular day trips from Tokyo), Saitama prefecture has a bit of a bad rap in other areas in Japan. Due to its image of a “bed town” (a quiet and limited town lived in only for a reasonable commute to Tokyo) and stereotype of having only rice fields, family restaurants, and rural atmosphere, the entire prefecture is often referred to (particularly by those in Tokyo and sometimes self-deprecatingly by Saitama residents themselves) as “Dasaitama”. This is a derogatory term that combines the prefecture’s name with the Japanese word “dasai”…

We’ve seen optical illusions used in everything from special shirts to give appearance of a bigger breast size and bringing anime characters to life, but 15-year-old Japanese artist Keito (@Yassun0222K might have found the most effective way to use them by drawing everyday objects all around him. Keito says he likes to practice copying objects he sees in his daily life, but one of his most recent illustrations had many convinced it wasn’t a drawing at all. コカ・コーラ描きました！！🍹#コカ・コーラ #色鉛筆 pic.twitter.com/DJdZc9x84k — 慧人 (@Yassun0222K) 2018年11月20日 Outside of producing a very realistic illustration of the bottle itself and a tricky 3D effect, Keito seems to have perfectly captured the image of a…

In the past we’ve had the pleasure of introducing Tokyo-based French anime artist Thomas Romain (Symphogear, Space Dandy, Aria, Macross Delta, and Basquash!) and the collaborative series of artwork he produces with his two sons titled “Father and Sons Design Workshop Illustrations”. Working together, Romain takes the deceivingly simple looking (but definitely creative) doodles and sketches made by his sons, and then applies his skills as a professional animator to turn them into detailed illustrations that help shine a light on the imaginative power of character design and world building that can stem from a child and a piece of paper. In the series (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,…

Highlights of the prolific career of revered illustrator Yoshitaka Amano include lending his beautiful combination of Art Noveau inspiration and traditional Japanese brushwork to iconic titles such as the Final Fantasy series and Vampire Hunter D. The world famous artist has taken on some quite surprising side projects along the way, however, including a beautiful Cinderella picture book and other renditions of European and Japanese fairy tales. Now Amano has lent his elegant artistic touch to a shamisen he helped design with an original female ninja character! It is a beautiful woman ninja Shaura painted by game FF Amano Yoshitaka.Everyone in London is pleased with the shamisen of Yoshitaka Amano…

You may remember super talented Japanese university student and papercraft art enthusiast @02ESyRaez4VhR2l (Haruki), who just last month impressed Twitter and even garnered national television coverage in Japan for his awesome reconstruction of an empty Pringles can into a dapper figure of Julius Pringles, the Pringles mascot. If you need a refresher, here’s the original. プリングルズの空箱で工作しました！#papercraft#packingart pic.twitter.com/l8Wx38MXt0 — 晴季 (@02ESyRaez4VhR2l) 2018年10月16日 Now Haruki has outdone himself a group of five Pringles gentleman (from orginal, sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, bbq, and honey mustard if you’re counting) that are so colorful and lively posed, they could double as a potato chip themed boy band or Japanese sentai superhero group!…

The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls: Starlight Stage, made by Cygames and Bandai Namco Studios for the Mobage mobile social network platform, is a free-to-play simulation game for smart phones where you manage the career of a producer interacting with and training Japanese pop idols on their road to success. The game’s latest function takes interaction a step further by allowing players to use AR to insert their favorite idol character into the real world. デレステARで夢が叶いました。方々の皆様、本当にすみません。#デレステ #デレステAR #橘ありす pic.twitter.com/iBAKyYhnLW — こうや (@ky_gtr) 2018年9月7日 The characters are customizable with a variety of different costumes and impressive 3D modeling (after setting a waypoint in you local vicinity for the idol to appear, you can…

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of strolling through the Japanese countryside, you’ve likely been treated to a smorgasbord of sights, sounds, and even scents that can sometimes make it seem as if you’ve been spirited away by nature. Some of the most rewarding finds, however, aren’t in plain sight. Collector, photographer, and nature enthusiast sakanakudo helps shine a light on those hidden wonders by taking pictures of the tiny ecosystems inside Japanese drainage pipes: miniature gardens and animal homes! Source: @sakanakudo Source: @sakanakudo Sloping walls and structures such as these are found everywhere in hilly areas of Japan, and are meant to retain soil and mud from overflowing into…

As seen with the stunning animal skull bonsai series from Tokyo Bonsai Lifestyle, sometimes the most fascinating art finds a way to combine the macabre and the gorgeous into a striking aesthetic. Jewlery designer Shinji Nakaba is an artist definitely accomplishing that. Perhaps best known for his pearl skulls, Nakaba’s creations feature intricate carvings, ranging from pearls to even disregarded items such as pieces of trash. View this post on Instagram Repost from @milla_maroc_01　Shinji Nakaba is a master of carving carefully into miniature objects, creating skulls and other anatomical forms from pearls no larger than the end of a finger tip. Nakaba considers these works “wearable sculptures,” as each pearl…

Japanese burger joints are no stranger to black buns. In the past we’ve seen the release of pitch black burgers modeled after the Makkuro Kurosuke soot sprites of Studio Ghibli films, as well as some truly haunted Ghostbusters burgers. Now to celebrate the release of Venom in Japan, Department Store Parco is offering a collaborative menu that shows off the symbiotic menace’s iconic maw and especially long tongue. The Ikebukuro location features a “Venom Long Black Burger” with purple cabbage, cheese, and a particularly long slab of bacon to mimic Venom’s tongue. There’s also a Venom Waffle and a “Berry Dark Smoothie” that infuses a sour berry sauce into a…

If you enjoy traditional Japanese music, you may be a fan of NHK World Blends, a fascinating program that helps introduce classical Japanese instruments and musical performers by playing popular modern songs on traditional Japanese instruments. One of the show’s appeals is rediscovering an appreciation for songs by hearing gorgeous renditions of them accented by the gentle touch of shakuhachi (traditional Japanese bamboo flute), koto, and shamisen. One such standout is a cover of “Back in Black” by rock giants AC/DC on traditional Japanese instruments, featuring the returning Yoshimi Tsujimoto, a talented veteran player of the shakuhachi. A notable addition to this performance is the shime-daiko, a taiko drum used…