Sushi. That delicious Japanese food that everyone seems to love. Call this post a rant if you want, but everyone is doing it wrong. I believe in sushi purity, where no other sushi is allowed to exist in my extremely racist one-sushi world. But seriously though, Americans ruin all ethnic foods. Taco Bell? Happy Teriyaki? [...]
Image Source: Flickr Swords have always been a big deal in Japan. Japanese swords, or nihontō (日本刀) are one of the most highly sought after types of swords in the world today. A sword was even involved with the mythological creation of Japan. The Japanese sun goddess of the universe Amaterasu gave her grandson Ninigi [...]
Probably more than anywhere else, robots are a big part of Japanese culture, and it’s no secret that we here at Tofugu think that these machines are evil, human-hating beings. But even with my open revulsion to these sinister automatons, I learned something interesting about them recently – they’re much older than I thought. Lots [...]
One of the things Western visitors notice on their visit to Japan is the homogenous population. As an urban-living American, walking through the streets of the U.S. and seeing a wide, diverse range of ethnicities is an everyday occurrence that doesn’t cause more than a blink of an eye. Not so much in Japan. To the [...]
Today’s guest post comes from everybody’s favorite Kiwi, the awesome Hikosaemon. He’s an incredibly prolific video blogger living in Tokyo, and his post today is about coming to understand Japanese values. Enjoy! About five years ago now, I sat in a meeting room being interviewed by a very senior woman executive of the American company [...]
If you live in South America and love Japan, then a visit to the Land of the Rising Sun might be closer than you think. Well, kind of. Brazil is not only the home to awesome things like bossa nova and Pelé, but the biggest Japanese population outside of Japan is – believe it or [...]
Japanese folklore has a rich and terrifying tradition of all sorts of zany ghosts, ghouls, monsters, and goblins. Japanese ghosts collectively known as yūrei (幽霊), and Japanese monsters collectively known as yōkai (妖怪) are arguably the most popular. But how many traditional Japanese spooks do you actually know anything about? Read on to see what [...]
Konichiwaarrrrrrr. Ahoy ye Mateys’! Captain Viet is here to bring you on a journey to the Seven Seas of pirate culture, Arr! Before you meet Davy Jones’ Locker, come gather at the deck with grog in hand and be prepare to listen to my tales of legendary Japanese pirates! Before I share the tales of [...]
One of the hottest things in Japan right now is the idol group AKB48. This army of teenage singers, besides experimenting with creepy, Frankenstein vocaloids, has taken the world by storm, topping Japanese pop charts for close to three years. But are they more than just your run-of-the-mill idol group? Majirox reports that recently the [...]
Crime in Japan is incredibly low compared to most other countries; it’s generally regarded as one of the safest countries in the world. So when there is a crime in Japan, it definitely gets noticed. Did you know that one of the biggest crimes of all time in Japan happened nearly 50 years ago, and [...]
