Mitsubishi built Tokyo’s first office block, in the Marunouchi district, 114 years ago, and the firm is behind the area’s current redevelopment into a major financial centre. Overleaf, we dissect a Marunouchi building site…
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.
Fluffy, furry mascots are everywhere in Japan but Kumamon has captured the nation’s imagination like no other. We explore his ‘very’ soft-power potential.
Notebook-and-pen has taken a knock from digital in recent years but that hasn’t stopped one classic stationery brand from launching Think of Things: its own high-street showcase for bright ideas.
A Japanese book distributor is espousing an unusual business model that sells not just books, but the bookshop experience itself, to bibliophiles and casual shoppers alike.
Aya Nishimura with recipes from Japan: Asian cuisine that riffs on western comfort food: that’s what’s up. Here we cook up some katsu curry, ‘omu’ rice and potato croquettes – and encourage you to do the same.
Under its post-war constitution, Japan is not allowed a navy, only a Self-Defence Force. Yet, today, the country has one of the largest, most sophisticated fleets in the world. Tensions with North Korea and China have also…
Politics and cost have prevented Japan from putting a human up there but, they say, their cosmic focus is not the vain flag-planting of the space race, rather research and exploration. A strategy that has led to them dev…
Fascinated with furniture design, Noritsugu Oda bought his first chair in the 1970s. He now has 1,200 of them. But, as Monocle discovers, he isn’t in the slightest bit precious about his priceless collection.
Fiona Wilson reporting from Okinawa prefecture: With territorial disputes in the East China Sea intensifying, the Japan Coast Guard has had to rapidly evolve to contend with new threats. We drop anchor at Ishigaki Island…
As Tokyo gets set to host the Olympics and Paralympics after 2020’s false start,
a multitude of behind-the-scenes players have long been exercising their minds to
ensure a gold-standard Games. We meet some of the unsung…