Local Stories
Agriculture (1) Anime (9) Brewing & Distilling (1) Design (1) Fashion (1) Film & TV (3) Fisheries (2) Food & Dining (1) Funeral Services (4) Games (6) Idols & Entertainment (4) Manufacturing (3) Music (9) Performing Arts (2) Publishing (4) Restoration Services (2) Retail (2) Technology (1) Tourism (4) Toys & Collectibles (3) Traditional Crafts (4)
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Why are nearly a fifth of Japan’s anime studios in one Tokyo ward? The anime towns of Suginami and Nerima
Before the internet, a hand-drawn key frame had to be carried by a person to the next company. Why Japan’s anime studios cluster in western Tokyo comes down to that journey.
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How did a 170-person meetup become a 68,000-strong game festival? Why Kyoto became the home of Japanese indie games
Tokyo has more game companies than anywhere else in Japan, yet the country’s biggest indie game festival is held in Kyoto. The answer lies in a playing-card shop, a few foreigners, and a city small enough that everyone seems to know each other.
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A Mountain Village of Two Dozen People Has 350 Scarecrows. Why? The Story of Nagoro, Deep in Japan’s Mountains
In a mountain village of just over twenty people, about 350 life-size scarecrows stand by the roadsides, in the fields, at the bus stop and in the classrooms. The woman who made them says it all started with a packet of seeds dug up by birds.
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The Fish Market Moved Away. Why Is Tsukiji Still Packed? Eight Years of Tokyo’s Tsukiji Outer Market
In the autumn of 2018, the world’s largest fish market moved 2.3 kilometers away to Toyosu. The 400-plus shops left behind had to answer a question for themselves: without the market, is this street still “Tsukiji”?
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How Did an Island With a Copper Smelter Become a Mecca for Art? A Century of Naoshima, Refining Gold in the North and Showing Paintings in the South
More than 700,000 people a year come to the island to see art. Few notice that at its other end stands a factory that has been smelting copper for over a hundred years, and has never left.
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After Stainless Steel Took the Market, How Did a 700-Year-Old Blade-Forging Town Survive? The Story of Takefu Knife Village in Fukui
In 1993, ten family workshops in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, that forged and sharpened blades each took on about 30 million yen in debt, shut down their own workshops, and moved into a single building that anyone could walk into and watch. More than 30 years later, it has become a…
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Why Did Harajuku Shape Global Fashion? Twenty Years Recorded by One Street Snap Magazine
Photographer Shoichi Aoki spent twenty years photographing passersby on the streets of Harajuku. His pictures showed the world that fashion can start with one ordinary young person.
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After the Tsunami, Tourists Stayed Away. Why Do Anime Fans Still Say They’re “Going Home” to Oarai a Decade Later?
An anime sending fans flooding into a disaster-hit town isn’t unusual. What’s unusual is that more than ten years later, they’re still coming back. Even the anime’s producer says “anime has no power to revitalize a town.” So what has kept the fans here?