By Jonathan Clements. In 2013, the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe took the remarkable step of appearing on YouTube to talk about Japanese food. He was addressing the nation, and the world, about Japan’s unique culinary tradition, or washoku, as part of an effort to get it rated as one of UNESCO’s treasures of intangible […]
May 24, 2021 • Subscribe
More like this
Books: Japanese Drinking
By Shelley Pallis. Masaaki Watanabe’s anime series Bartender is part of a long tradition of TV shows about smart loners who help others in secret. Its leading man…
Books: Japanese Cinema
By Jasper Sharp. There are many paths one might take through the vast and varied terrain of Japanese cinema. Peter Cowie’s addition to the ever-expanding range of publications…
Kid-Friendly Japanese Food
Renowned for its sophisticated presentation, taste and rich nutrients (that we believe are linked to longevity), there's much about Japanese cuisine that fascinates the foreign community. But kids…
A Dictionary of Japanese Food
Hosking, Richard A Dictionary of Japanese Food: ingredients & culture Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., c1996. Many years ago a professor...
Keto Diet Meets Japanese Food
In a country renowned for delicious rice and noodle dishes, cutting carbs might not be as challenging as you think.
Books on Japanese Culture and Society
This past semester I taught a class on Japanese science fiction and fantasy, and I was surprised by how interested my students were in learning more about the…
The Japanese Twist on American Fast Food Chains
Explore how iconic American fast food brands evolve in Japan, from unique menu items to cultural adaptations. Dive into the surprising twists and flavors that await you in…
10 Japanese Literature Books To Read This Halloween
In the spirit of spooky season, it’s time to delve into the mysterious, the unsettling and the downright terrifying.
Read Japanese Books with the Listening-Reading Method
Want to read Japanese books and novels? We outline a method to help get you started - and build your Japanese listening skills along the way.
20 Books in 2020 (Part IV) Japanese Literature
It’s getting closer and closer to the end now, but there’s still a little while to go. Thanks to my Kindle screen becoming a temperamental little nuisance (by…
20 Books in 2020 (Part V) Japanese Literature
So, here we are. After spending a whole year attempting the challenge to read 20 books’ worth of Japanese literature in 2020, the deadline is here.
Books: Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video
By Jonathan Clements. Tom Mes’s new book begins in 2022 with Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car winning an Oscar, followed by a flood of gushing articles about how…
Which Japanese Books Get Left Out of Translation?
There are more Japanese books being made available in English every year. Still, only a small portion of them get translated.
8 Japanese food and drink experiences you’ll never forget
Japanese food is about more than just raw fish. With a cuisine so varied, where do you begin? Here's a roundup of our favourite experiences.
8 Japanese food and drink experiences you’ll never forget
Japanese food is about more than just raw fish. With a cuisine so varied, where do you begin? Here's a roundup of our favourite experiences.
Student Podcast Episode 8 - Yoshoku (Japanese-style Western Food)
In the Meiji at 150 Student Podcast, UBC students discuss aspects of Japanese culture they research in class. In this episode, a student samples Yoshōku, or Japanese-style Western…
10 Japanese Literature Books For Your Autumn Reading List
If you're looking to add some spice to your autumn reading and wish you could travel to Japan this fall, let the pages of a book take you…
Japanese Soup Chain’s Free Baby Food Plan Stirs Online Ire
Soup Stock Tokyo's new offering of free baby food has sparked a backlash, adding more fuel to the debate over child-rearing in Japan.
Osechi Ryori: The Hidden Meanings Behind Japanese New Year Food
They’re pretty, they’re delicious and they’re symbolic.
[Food] Of Japanese cuisine and the law of the universe
The Japanese gourmet Rosanjin Kitaooji [北大路魯山人] (1883-1959) (actually he is a man of many hats – aesthete, chef, writer, ceramic artist, calligrapher, painter, seal carver, philosopher, entrepreneur, cultural critic,…
Junko Takekawa’s Recommended Japanese Books – Cheltenham Literatur...
Junko Takekawa’s Recommended Japanese Books – Cheltenham Literature Festival 2022 Our Senior Arts Programme Officer joined one of the events with Daniel Hahn as part of the Cheltenham Literature…
How To Make Your Child Fall In Love With Japanese Food
Sushi. Ramen. Onigiri. For adults, trying new Japanese foods is an exciting adventure. For children new to living in Japan, however, Japanese food might seem more intimidating than…
Food Wars
By Hugh David. Soma Yukihira’s old man runs a small family restaurant in the less savoury end of town. Aiming to one day surpass his father’s culinary prowess,…
Books: Sexiled
By Shelley Pallis. Tanya is twenty-five years old. She’s got half a decade of adventuring behind her, looting treasure from dungeons, spell-casting to protect her friends from goblins…
Books: Orienting
By Jonathan Clements. “My stay here has been so short,” said Rabindranath Tagore to Japanese students in 1916, “that one may think I have not earned my right…
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Books: Ghibliotheque
By Andrew Osmond. The Ghibliotheque podcast started in 2018, and soon became an institution. It offered a journey through the films of Studio Ghibli, presented by Michael Leader…
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Junko Takekawa’s Recommended Japanese Books – The Times and Sunday...
Junko Takekawa’s Recommended Japanese Books – The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival 2023 During The Huddle Free Programme at The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival…
Food Fighter Tabelu
Mangaka Usuta Kyousuke うすた京介 quickly rose to fame in Shonen Jump for his beloved 90’s hit, Sexy Commando Gaiden – Sugoi yo!! Masaru-san セクシーコマンドー外伝すごいよ!! マサルさん. The popular work…
“Food” is Fuel
This portion of the series “Food Wars” for the third year generated a lot of controversy, as there was no agreement as to what it was. In the…
[Review] Food Wars
(DISCLAIMER: I won’t really go into any spoilers with this review, but I will be covering my thoughts on Food Wars through season 3, so it’s not limited…
Books: Combat Baker…
By Jeannette Ng. The light novel series The Combat Baker and the Automaton Waitress follows Lud “Silver Wolf” Langart, a former captain and mech-operator who retires after a…
Books: Monster Kids
By Jonathan Clements. In his lively new book Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All, Daniel Dockery talks us through the original plans in…
Books: Reading Murakami
By Jonathan Clements. Almost everything that is written about fiction is either reception (what the reader thought of the book) or production (an occasional making-of about the author…
Books: Leiji Matsumoto
By Jonathan Clements. For all the passion and excitement that the contributors bring to the new collection Leiji Matsumoto: Essays on the Anime and Manga Legend, their subject…
Books: Otherside Picnic
By Shelley Pallis. Sorawo Kamikoshi is a loner, a twenty-year-old nerd studying cultural anthropology at a Saitama university, whose hobby is exploring spooky places. Nor are these randomly…
Books: Anime’s Identity
By Jonathan Clements. Stevie Suan’s new book, Anime’s Identity, cannot resist telling a story from the production of King’s Avatar (above), a 2019 Chinese animated series that subcontracted…
Books: Rebuild World
By Jonathan Clements. When we first see Akira, he is gripped in the jaws of a mutant dog. Nafuse’s Rebuild World ditches the tiresome induction scene of many…
The Best Books
Buying books, especially old books, is a fascination and my biggest weakness. I love the old wear and tear on antiques, and sitting and pondering where the scraped…
Books: Studio Ghibli
By Jonathan Clements. Producer Toshio Suzuki was entertainingly underwhelmed when he was approached by agents for the pop stars Chage and Aska, who asked if Studio Ghibli would…
Books: Infinite Dendrogram
By Shelley Pallis. Infinite Dendrogram is the best game ever invented, a “virtual reality massively multiplayer online game” but not a crap one like all the ones that…
Books: Hayao Miyazaki
By Andrew Osmond. Hayao Miyazaki, published to tie in with the current exhibition about the director at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, is a whopping big book.…
Books: Kyoto Stories
By Jonathan Clements. “Riding on public transportation in Japan makes you feel a part of the general population,” writes Steve Alpert in Kyoto Stories. “One of the people.…
Books: Tatami Galaxy
By Tom Wilmot. Any mention of The Tatami Galaxy usually brings to mind Masaaki Yuasa’s much-loved 2010 anime. The charming series has become something of a modern classic,…
Books: Spirit Chronicles
By Shelley Pallis. Yuri Kitayama’s Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles has several different beginnings, and to be frank, I am not sure that it has stopped beginning yet, even…
Books: Tearmoon Empire
By Jonathan Clements. Then she woke up, and it was all a dream. Or was it? The teenage princess Mia Luna Tearmoon vividly recalls being eight years older,…
Books: Terminal Boredom
By Jonathan Clements. “There is something wrong with our present society,” Izumi Suzuki once wrote, “and I can’t stand SF written by people who don’t understand that… Even…
Books: Hell Mode
By Shelley Pallis. Kenichi is a gamer suffering from that common modern malaise, a frustration with games that make life too easy for him. He’s just spent three…
Food from the Wild, Food for Thought: “Eating Wild Japan”
Winifred Bird's Eating Wild Japan is an in-depth, humanistic, and fascinating journey across the wilds of the country in search of foraging.