In the 60s, a Japanese song became incredibly popular not only in Japan but across the world. In Japan, it was called 上を向いて歩こう or roughly, “I Will Walk Looking Up.” It was an emotional song about the defeat of a popular Japanese protest movement against American military bases in Japan. But people in English-speaking countries [...]
Tyler MacNiven is an easy guy to spot in a crowd. He’s tall, with bright hair and extremely outgoing. His charisma has taken him all over the world, including a win on the TV show The Amazing Race (season 9), and Iran, where he filmed his documentary I Ran Iran. Despite traveling all across the [...]
When the seasons change, my personality always seem to shift as well. The type of food I eat, the types of things I like to do, and the types of music I like to listen to change when one season gives way to the next. Here in the US, we’re heading into the dog days [...]
The internet has been awesome for amateur artists everywhere. Now anybody anywhere can upload their painting, photographs, videos, or writing to the internet for the world to see. Fortunately for everyone, that means a lot of less conventional artists get more exposure. There’s probably no better example of this than a Japanese artist I stumbled [...]
I love that nowadays you can travel pretty much anywhere you can think of without even leaving your house. With all the videos, essays, and photographs available online, it’s not hard to travel halfway across the world through the internet. That’s why I was really excited to find a video series that takes you all [...]
It’s no secret that western celebrities do commercials in Japan for some extra cash. Everybody’s gotta make a buck, right? But some of those commercials are more strange than others. Case in point, Jean Reno’s recent commercials for Toyota in Japan. Jean Reno, if you don’t know him, is a French actor who’s had crossover [...]
I first saw Cat Soup (ねこぢる草) back when I was taking Japanese culture classes at The Ohio State University. We were lucky enough to watch it in class, and it was pretty awesome. Surprisingly, I’d forgotten about it until just recently, so I watched it again. Now I wish that I’d remembered Cat Soup when [...]
