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Washoku
by Kaori Shoji Back in May when we had lunch, my sister Rinko – who is eight years older than me – fessed up about a guy in her life. “He’s working in the washoku diner around the corner,” she said....
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“A Man” Takes Imposter Syndrome To New Dimensions
by Kaori Shoji Three minutes into A Man, you already know that Rie (Sakura Ando), who is minding her mother’s stationery shop in rural Miyazaki prefecture, will be dating the guy (Masataka Kubota) who...
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Samurai play soccer and other fairy tales: Japan and the world cup
by Kaori Shoji When the professional soccer league of Japan aka ‘J-League’ officially came into existence in 1993 it was a huge deal. Suddenly, everyone was talking about rules and bandying about...
View ArticleEgoism and Love: Not mutually exclusive
Egoist. The title seemingly belies this love story. From the vantage point of today’s incessantly narcissistic and increasingly toxic dating/relationship culture, Egoist is the exact opposite of what...
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Japan Goes Up in Smoke
I hail from a family of smokers. My parents, their siblings, my cousins, my grandparents. New Years’ family get-togethers were marked by cramped living rooms dense with smoke, full ashtrays waiting to...
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The Unbearable Pathos Of Poop (Okiku’s World film review)
by Kaori Shoji Poop is the main thing that remains in the mind after watching Okiku And The World. Lots and lots of poop. Ninety-nine percent of the film was shot in black and white which alleviates...
View ArticleAn Honest Portrait of a Japanese B*tch
Japanese women are angry. If you didn’t already know this you probably shouldn’t be reading a review of The Ripple because you won’t be interested in a film about older, enraged Japanese women....
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What This Means (a short-story about love and marriage in Japan during the...
by Kaori Shoji credit: Kaori Shoji Rikako, my wife, was staying with her best friend from university, the one that hung around her all these years and never got married. She was pretty attractive too,...
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Boy Idols And Dostoevsky Come Together in Bad Lands
Bad Lands is the latest film release from Masato Harada who at this point, is Japan’s most exciting filmmaker. Forget the foreign critics’ darling Ryusuke Hamaguchi of Drive My Car fame – Harada is...
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In Ichigatsuno Koeni Yorokobiwo Kizame (International title: Voice), a young woman named Reiko (Atsuko Maeda) professes to her boyfriend-for-hire that she had been sexually abused as a child. Reiko...
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The Race To Run Tokyo: Who’s going to be the next governor of the megapolis?
by Kaori Shoji What a grab bag. Or perhaps more fitting; a snake pit? The Tokyo gubernatorial elections are slated for this Sunday and we have just a day to sift through the whopping 56 candidates, by...
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Performing Kaoru’s Funeral
The Story of the Woman Who Scripted Her Own Funeral by Kaori Shoji Noriko Yuasa strikes you as the kind of person who locks eyes with every bull that dares cross her path, grabs it by the horns, and...
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Going Gently Into That Good Night May Not Be So Bad
‘Teki’ means enemy. The 77-year old protagonist Gisuke Watanabe in Teki Cometh (Japanese title: Teki) can’t quite figure out the exact identity of that enemy but he’s aware it’s coming to destroy...
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Art and DEI Get Cozy at the agnès b. Gallery in Aoyama”
These are weird times when everyday, the news brings yet another series of incredulous, synapse-shredding headlines. One can’t be so naive as to believe that art will step in and save the world. Yet,...
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BABU Skateboards and Makes Art But You Can’t See His Face
Feature photo ©︎Shu Nakagawa BABU is a street artist based in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka. He skateboards in the post-earthquake disaster areas like Fukushima and Noto Peninsula. He makes art from found...
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