East Japan Railway Co. has debuted a new luxury sleeper train to offer travelers a journey in style across northern Japan. Train Suite Shiki-shima is painted in champagne gold and departed Ueno ...

Twice a year the lingerie maker Triumph International announces a "concept bra" inspired by trends in the Japanese zeitgeist. By turns amusing and innovative, past bras include one based on ...

Tokyo's latest retail complex is Ginza Six, which opened in the eponymous district of central Tokyo on the location of the old Matsuzakaya Ginza department store. The shopping complex, which ...

Japanese beer commercials are somewhat notorious for their ubiquitous use of celebrities. The standard approach is to feature a well-known face holding up a glass of cookie-cutter lager and gulping ...

When governor Yuriko Koike came to power she quickly set about making sweeping changes from her predecessor's administration. She put the controversial move of Tsukiji Market to Toyosu on ice. She ...

Asian drivers. Yes, we all know the stereotypes. But the sad truth is that road traffic safety is a problem in Japan because of the combination of narrow streets, especially in Tokyo and other ...

Celebrate the recent release of Rogue One on DVD and get ready for Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi at the end of the year with this awesome Star Wars Inflatable First Order Stormtrooper. The ...

Bridgestone has announced the latest in its line of "airless tires" that do not require inflation, this time adapting the technology for bicycles. The second generation of the Air Free Concept was ...

While the days when we used to look forward to consumer electronics from Sony, Panasonic and the like with great excitement have faded away, there is still a lot of interesting tech coming out of ...

The pioneering film director and video artist Toshio Matsumoto has died, aged 85. He passed away on April 12th in Tokyo from intestinal obstruction, local media has reported. Matsumoto was well ...

Whether you're an anime fan or not, it cannot have escaped your notice if you live in Japan that last year there was a film released called Your Name. (Kimi no Na wa.). In fact, it's still on release ...

Japanese advertising tends to consist of merely hiring some ubiquitous celebrity and having them hold the product in question. This lazy and mind-numbing approach has become the default for almost ...

Something special happens when anime music meets classical music. As was true with the classical music concert renditions of the Ghibli, Final Fantasy, and Super Mario soundtracks, the music becomes ...

Sado Island, the rustic s-shaped landmass off of Japan's western coast, is known for a lot of things. Heavy metal music is not traditionally one of them. As part of a campaign to attract visitors, ...

Family restaurant chain Coco's has teamed up with android and robotics creator Hiroshi Ishiguro to offer tabletop robots that can entertain diners while they wait for their orders. The small ...