Book Review
The Paradoxical Promise of Postwar Liberation
Art history has struggled to address a contradictory artistic output that engaged with Japan’s modernization and occupation, a new book argues.
Japan
Art
The Cinematic Dreaming of Ryuichi Sakamoto
The late musical colossus’s first comprehensive exhibition in the nation makes you feel like his spirit is in the room, sitting at the piano.
Books
An Overdue History of Japanese Women Photographers
The expansive catalog offers an essential compilation of essays, interviews, and profiles of Japanese women photographers from the 1950s through the present day.
Art
A Japanese Painter’s Cosmic Love Letters to Hawaiʻi
After moving to Honolulu in his early 70s, the Gen'ichirō Inokuma drew inspiration from the rainbows, night sky, and other natural phenomena of his new home.
Film
A Japanese Reality Show’s Dark Legacy
Livestreaming, confessional monologues, and subjects’ willingness to let mass audiences surveil them all started here.
News
Artifacts Looted 80 Years Ago Repatriated to Okinawa
The scrolls, pottery, and a 19th-century hand-drawn map were presumably looted from the Japanese island in the final days of World War II.
Interview
Benshi Performers Pass Along a Way of Thinking
Ichirō Kataoka and Kumiko Ōmori tell Hyperallergic about the modern-day conventions and challenges of the Japanese art of narrating silent films.
Art
Remembering a Giant of Japanese Painting
Nearly 50 years after Setsuko Mitsuhashi's early death, her legacy lives on and in the hearts of anyone who sees her art.
Art
A Pioneering Feminist of Japanese Modernism
Whether she’s depicting herself or something else, the act of making a picture clearly brought Yuki Ogura a sense of completion and even joy.
News
Tokyo Public Toilet Puts On a Mesmerizing Light Show
Tomohito Ushiro's design features billions of shifting lighting patterns and encourages people to use the restroom without "feeling stress."
Film
Inu-Oh Infuses a Classical Japanese Tale With Rock ’n’ Roll
Masaaki Yuasa’s latest anime feature embodies a revolutionary spirit in its tale of outcasts breaking ground in medieval Japan.
Film
Films to Watch on the 50th Anniversary of Okinawa’s Return to Japanese Rule
From 1968 to 1973, the Nihon Documentarist Union did radical documentary work in Japan. They made two films in Okinawa before, during, and after its reversion.