Fujiland

TAKASHI MURAKAMI EXHIBITION - PHOTOS AND VIDEOS

December 12, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Takashi Murakami is perhaps the most famous contemporary Japanese artist in foreign countries. However, he is not so well loved in Jap...

BOOK REVIEW: LOVE HOTELS - PHOTOGRAPHS BY MISTY KEASLER

December 08, 2015 Add Comment Edit

If you want to get a handle on Japanese society, you can always waste your time going to the nearest tourist office and picking up a loa...

VIDEO: PRINCES OF THE YEN

November 12, 2015 Add Comment Edit

GRAVITATIONAL PULL OF JAPAN SHAPES STAR WARS SAGA

October 22, 2015 Add Comment Edit

It is 150 years since Commodore Perry pointed the Death Star of technology at the head of this once feudal nation and ushered it int...

HERE COMES THE TENGU

October 19, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Maybe it's because of the big nose and the red face — like some grotesque characterization of Europeans — or it might just be the au...

JAPANESE WESTERN FESTIVALS

October 12, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Certain Western festivals catch on in Japan and others don’t. What is the secret factor that determines this? I would say it is a str...

VIDEO REVIEW OF THIS YEAR'S TOKYO GAME SHOW

October 11, 2015 Add Comment Edit

FICTION: SPEEDBUMP

October 10, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Once upon a time, there was a king who wanted to check up on the public spiritedness of his people so he placed a large rock in the mid...

PHOTO: THROUGH A JAPANESE TRAIN WINDOW

October 10, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Click to enlarge. A photo of passengers taken through a train window at Shinjuku station. Notice the pervasivenesss of smart phone u...

Land of the Rising Crescent: Muslims in Japan & Japanese Muslims

July 18, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Hitomi Tsukidate and Imam Yenturk Islam in Japan has an interesting history. Like most things in this country, it didn’t just happen ...

Poster: Elvis Presley as a Noh Play

May 22, 2015 Add Comment Edit

"Blue Moon Over Memphis" is a Noh play on the theme of Elvis Presley. Of course, such an act of cultural sacrilege was not pe...

Photo: Takarazuka Poster

May 21, 2015 Add Comment Edit

(Click to enlarge)

Japonisme: Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West

April 15, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Japonisme: Cultural Crossings Between Japan and the West by Lionel Lambourne Phaidon $44.07 on Amazon The great English potte...

HERE BE MONSTERS

March 22, 2015 Add Comment Edit

(CLICK to enlarge) From ESP labs to Pokemon panics to death cults, Japan is a wonderland of the bizarre. In the old days of d...

Photo: Have Bonsai Will Travel

February 21, 2015 Add Comment Edit

This photo shows a mobile bonsai merchant, spotted in the swanky shopping district of Ginza. Everything is packed in the back of motor ...

The Erotic Art of Susumu Tsutsumi

February 18, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Japanese manga porn has now entered a late decadent stage characterized by unreal borderline paedophiliac imagery, but in its heyday...

The Restless City: How Tokyo’s Sleazier Neighborhoods have Successfully Rebranded Themselves

February 04, 2015 Add Comment Edit

Godzilla visits one of Tokyo's sleazier neighbourhoods. When the shock waves from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake struck Tok...

THE BATTLESHIP MIKASA

January 10, 2015 Add Comment Edit

The Barometer of Japanese History If there’s one object that can exemplify the ups and downs of Japanese history over the la...

Google Autocomplete: Japanese People

January 06, 2015 Add Comment Edit

What are Japanese people famous for? Asking up front will only produce polite and evasive answers. If you want the truth you will have t...