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1 week ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
The car pulls into Yumeshima Station with a shhh, and the gleaming doors with a trim of neon green lights open onto a brand new train platform. I’m headed to the Osaka Expo 2025, a six-month world fair that wants to “design future society for our lives,” and though I expect a whisper-quiet entrance to match the train ride, my first thought is that the future is very loud and full of rules. As the doors open, I’m hit with a wall of sound.
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3 weeks ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
In staid and overstuffed Kyoto, every year documentarians come bearing news from beyond the old Japanese capital. This year, despite a grim global outlook, they’ve brought mostly cheerful tidings.
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1 month ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
From the author who brought you “woman who’s one with a convenience store” and “woman who’s sure she’s an alien,” comes a brand new dystopian adventure — “woman with 40 imaginary lovers.”Sayaka Murata has gained a cult following for speculative stories that start with familiar domestic scenes and spiral out to wild and outlandish conclusions.
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2 months ago | 
courrierinternational.com | Thu-Huong Ha
Avant, c’était l’accessoire par excellence de l’homme d’affaires, puis l’agenda papier japonais est tombé en disgrâce au début de ce siècle. Aujourd’hui, cet objet est redevenu une véritable institution et séduit en dehors des frontières de l’archipel. Le papier n’a pas dit son dernier mot, c’est même la star des réseaux sociaux. Un phénomène analysé par le “Japan Times”. Cet article est issu de Courrier Week-end.
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2 months ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
“The Place of Shells” by Mai Ishizawa, a strange and slim novel of erudition, captures the emotional haze in the aftermath of disaster. Ishizawa’s debut novel, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton. It takes place in the summer of 2020, in the months following the global outbreak of COVID-19.
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2 months ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
On a Sunday morning in January, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) in Kiba Park was flooded with bright winter light and a throng of people. Visitors waited in densely packed lines to see “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Seeing Sound, Hearing Time,” billed as the largest solo exhibition dedicated to the composer and musician who died in March 2023. The sign propped by the start of the line read “Wait time: 60 minutes.”The show has been a smash hit, far exceeding the expectations of the curatorial team.
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2 months ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
Tomoka Shibasaki’s short stories don’t run on human time; they run on architectural time. In her curious collection “A Hundred Years and a Day,” released on Feb. 25 in English with translations by Polly Barton, the stories seem indifferent to their human characters. The 34 stories, each somewhere between three to seven pages long, take place mostly in Japan, and occasionally in other unnamed countries.
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2 months ago | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
Beneath the trappings of a cozy cat book is a visceral, no-holds-barred account of devotion. “Mornings Without Mii,” Mayumi Inaba’s 1999 memoir, translated into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori, is available in the U.S. this month. The 192-page book charts the course of the author’s 20-year relationship with her cat, Mii, named after her high-pitched cries of mii-mii. Mornings Without Mii, by Mayumi Inaba. Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. 192 pages, MACMILLAN, Nonfiction.
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Feb 6, 2025 | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
Japan’s bestselling books often converge around practical life advice: Mental math tricks for kids, tips on how to sound smart and personal finance hacks have all been top sellers in recent years. Wider pop culture trends break through, too: In 2020, Japan’s top five bestselling books were all related to either the gory smash-hit manga “Demon Slayer” or cozy escapist video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
japantimes.co.jp | Thu-Huong Ha
Come the end of the year in Japan, there’s a rush on cleaning services, straw decorations and boxed osechi ryōri (traditional New Year’s cuisine). But over the past few years, a new item has joined Japan’s January prep lineup: planners. Japan has a globally renowned stationery industry, with niche items you never knew you needed, like “memorization pens” that make it easier to study and highlighters that leave rulers ink-free.
