Japan loves its food. It also loves its food movies. No matter where you go in Japan, you’ll always run into local dishes, special sweets, and famous restaurants and chefs. It really is a food obsessed nation. So obsessed, I’ve found, that there are a plethora of food museums and theme parks scattered around Japan [...]
Japan is known to for their bizarre and over-the-top festivals. A few that come to mind are the 裸祭り (はだかまつり, Naked Festival), the かなまら祭り (かなまらまつり, Penis Festival), and the 御柱 (おんばしら, festival with the extreme log riding). Not all of their festivals are conceptually odd. It may surprise some of you that not all Japanese activities are [...]
No, no – we’re not talking about aliens this time (sorry to let you down). The kind of UFO I’m referring to here is the classic Japanese arcade game: The Almighty UFO Catcher (or claw crane game for all you western-thinking peoples). But why is this particular UFO catcher such a big deal? Well for [...]
Japan has had many different names in its time. We in America are lucky. We just have “America,” “The United States,” and “The United States Of America.” I don’t think we’ve really been called much else, at least not as an entire nation. Japan, on the other hand, has been called so many different things, [...]
Where Is Japan? Is it even possible for people not to know this? Why even bring it up or let alone write an entire article about it? Even though approximately 2/3rds of American youths couldn’t find Iraq on a map and 88% couldn’t find Afghanistan in 2006 (not to mention 33% couldn’t find the state [...]
![Why Take the Stairs When You Can Take the Rock Climbing Wall? [Japanese Architecture]](http://www.tofugu.com/wp-content/themes/whitelight/functions/thumb.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2011/12/house-collage.jpg&w=960&h=200&zc=1&q=90)
Japan is well-known for its amazing architecture, from its beautiful, ancient temples, to the incredible skyscrapers of the future, or even enormous futuristic pyramids. Japan is one of the few non-European countries to have received multiple Pritzker Prizes, architecture’s highest award. But believe it or not, Japanese architecture isn’t just a field for for museums [...]
Image source Most people know about Tokyo’s Disneyland and a decent amount know of Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan (also known as USJ, which is eerily similar to Universal Studios in Orlando btw) but not many know about Japan’s lesser-known amusement park, Fuji-Q Highland (富士急ハイランド). Fuji-Q Highland was built many many years ago in 1961, and [...]
I went to a Japanese film festival over the weekend and watched a single film. That film was Nankyoku Ryourinin (Antarctic Chef). Why this film, over all others? Well, for one, I really want to chill in Antarctica for a bit, someday. Second, I love movies about food (especially Japanese ones, they have this genré [...]
With a name like “The Site Of Reversible Destiny” you know that it has to be good… or at the very least, weird. For the third episode of TofuguTV (you should watch the video above, before continuing on), my buddy Hiroyuki takes me to Yoro Park, an “experience park” opened in 1995. The theme of [...]
Michael from Gakuranman.com is an adventurer. He’s currently living in Japan, and one of his favorite things to do is to explore and discover haikyo (abandoned sites / ruins) in Japan. For Tofugu’s current series of “scary” Japanese things, Michael has kindly offered to share with us the things that scare him most about his [...]
