Kaoru Kubo welcomes thousands of travellers to Japan every day. A former announcer for public broadcaster NHK Kubo has, for 23 years, been the voice of the Airport Limousine buses that ferry passengers to and from Narita…
Harumi Kurihara is an unlikely celebrity, a down-to-earth housewife at heart who has hit the big time with her cookbooks, TV shows and chain of cafés and restaurants. Meet Japan’s unassuming answer to Martha Stewart.
‘Game of Thrones’ and high-definition, step aside: ‘Game of Silence’ and ultra-high-definition are here to take centre stage. Tune in for all the televisual delights that 2016 and beyond has to offer with our titillating…
The bigger the better, right? Wrong, according to the artists, directors and publishers finding ways to reach more engaged audiences with postage-stamp-sized paintings, television shows for smartphones and small print runs…
If you’re the sort of person who likes to mark things in the diary then you’ve fallen on the right few pages: here are the books, programmes, films, albums and exhibitions that should make your 2017 a year to remember. It…
The global camera market has switched from film to digital with lightning speed. In Japan, 94m digital cameras were produced last year, compared to 800,000 film cameras. However, an army of die-hard fans is keeping the…
They never make it on to most magazine’s “Best Hotel” lists, but Japan’s simple, pared-down ryokan are setting new standards in service and design. The Fuyija, remodelled by architect Kengo Kuma, looks set to introduce a…
Across the world there are people who are literally being John Malkovich. Or Homer Simpson or Paris Hilton. And in their home nations the voices of dubbing artists are more famous than those of their Hollywood counterparts…
Following the March earthquake and tsunami, NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, provided the footage that filled the world’s TV screens. Monocle visits the studios to find out what happened when the disaster drill became real…
What’s on the cultural agenda for the months ahead? Ten in-the-know critics reveal the films, television shows, music, exhibitions, dance events and theatre offerings that should be on your radar.
Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, has announced that it will be pairing up with Netflix on a four-part drama for the first time. The name has yet to be revealed but the topic is a controversial one: the Tokyo war crimes…
As a global Japanese image, Doraemon aptly combines cuteness and faith in technology. But with the blue robot cat from the future seeming increasingly rooted in the past, there’s a sense that Tokyo’s soft-power brokers want…