Want a taste of the frights but too busy to go to a haunted house? How about a haunted train? This year, a Tokaido shinkansen, in what is being called the world’s first zombie bullet train, will travel between Tokyo and Osaka.
Continue readingWant a taste of the frights but too busy to go to a haunted house? How about a haunted train? This year, a Tokaido shinkansen, in what is being called the world’s first zombie bullet train, will travel between Tokyo and Osaka.
Continue reading
photos courtesy Wara Art Festival
Autumn is officially upon us. It’s the season of shorter days, brighter moons and bountiful harvests. Niigata prefecture, in Northern Japan, is known for its rice paddies and rice production. Around this time of year the rice harvest becomes a big deal, as well as the tons of rice straw, or wara, that is leftover. It can be plowed down as soil improver, fed to livestock, or even woven into decorative ornaments.
But before any of that, for the past 10 years Uwasekigata Park has hosted a Wara Art Festival by teaming up with art students to create creatures, both real and mythical, from rice straw.
Continue reading
all photos by Takuya Seki courtesy Maru Architects
Founded in 1870, Hanaju is a florist that has served Tokyo’s Yanaka neighborhood for over 150 years. The flower shop is located near the entrance of Yanaka Cemetery and is surrounded by traditional homes and businesses, including a headstone supplier, that harken back to older times. Just last summer, after 3 years of planning, Hanaju reopened with an outdoor garden and cafe.
Continue reading
Cokeco are a Fukuoka-based design duo who create leather accessories inspired by the natural curiosities of the world around them. Lately, their attention has been focused on sealife: specifically, our multi-limbed mollusc friends whose tentacles provide endless inspiration for bags, keychains and other everyday accessories.
Continue reading
unless otherwise noted, all photos by Takeshi Shinto
This summer, a unique store opened in Tokyo. Located just a few steps away from Tokyo Sky Tree is “Guruguru Shakashaka,” a salt specialty store that lets you explore 600 varieties of salt and then blend your own. Equally unique is the name, which is based on the Japanese onomatopoeia for mixing and shaking.
Continue reading
Tokyo-based artist Ogino Yuna creates semi-abstract paintings using motifs of living things that are familiar to her, such as flowers and people. But for her latest exhibition, which just opened in Tokyo, the artist has pointed her brush at one of the most basic yet intimate human connections: the embrace.
Continue reading
“TRYST” (2021) by Masahiko Minami. Charcoal and mixed-media on wood panel
Masahiko Minami works with charcoal and graphite to create minimalist landscapes in dramatic contrast. At once both familiar and foreign, the landscapes present a tension between absence and depth, reflection and contemplation.
Continue reading
rendering of the Takara-yu sento in Tokyo
Japanese illustrator Enya Honami uses a style of architectural rendering known as isometric drawings to faithfully recreate cross-sections of Japanese public bathhouses, or sento. Honami is a skilled draughtswoman by trade, having obtained an MFA in architecture and working at a well-known Japanese architecture firm. But the grueling hours and workload eventually weighed on her physical and mental state and she fell ill, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Continue reading
“To the promised land” (2024) | installation view at YukikoMizutani
Tomohiro Inaba is an artist who creates sculptures that engage the viewer through their own imagination. Depending on your point of view, Inaba’s works look like they’re either disintegrating into mid-air, or being assembled into a whole as the wires continually thin out until only “blanks” remain.
Continue reading
Osaka Station just got a little more bizzare. Manga artist Hirohiko Araki, known best for his epic saga Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, has installed his first-ever public art piece at Osaka Station’s West Gate. Titled “Fountain Boy,” the circular, back-lit sculpture pays homage to the history and tradition of Osaka Station by taking inspiration from a statue of the same name, displayed in Osaka Station for 103 years that is now preserved at the Kyoto Railway Museum.
Continue reading
Artist Hiro Sugiyama Recreates Hokusai’s ‘Great Wave’ With 750,000 Dahlias
Sou Fujimoto’s Meiji Park Brings a Three-Dimensional Landscape to Hakata Station
Japanese Aquarium Drops 2026 Version of Flowchart Illustrating Their Penguin Relationships. This Year There’s an English Version.
Tatsuo Horiuchi | the 73-year old Excel spreadsheet artist
Socially-minded Coyaa bench designed by Pivoto
