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Industry focus

A mother and two young women laughing and singing along to a record player while a phone records them

Inside the Industry

Why was a 1979 debut single streamed 500 million times on Spotify forty years later? The rebirth of Japanese city pop

In 1979, a record producer asked a composer for a song that "completely ignored the rules of Japanese pop." Forty years later, young people around the world who don't speak Japanese made it their own.

Why did the athletes at the Tokyo Olympics march in to video game music? How Japanese game scores made it into the world’s concert halls
The karaoke room the whole world sings in started as a shipping container? A noodle shop owner’s accidental invention in Okayama
Anime gives a song a story: why do overseas fans love Japanese anime songs? Starting with JoJo’s new opening theme

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Inside the Industry

Industries, startups and investing, explained through stories.

Anime gives a song a story: why do overseas fans love Japanese anime songs? Starting with JoJo’s new opening theme

In October 2026, the opening theme of a new JoJo anime topped the Japan Songs charts in the US, the UK, France and Brazil at the same time. Why are the Japanese songs that overseas listeners play most so often…
How Did Whisky That Was Almost Poured Away Sell for $1.5 Million? Japanese Whisky’s Journey From “Imitation” to Auction Record

In 2004, someone set a deadline for getting rid of this whisky. Sixteen years later, 54 bottles filled from it sold in Hong Kong for HK$11.89 million.
Why Can a Single Koi Sell for ¥200 Million? The Bloodlines and Competitions Behind Japanese Koi Prices

In 2018, a red-and-white carp sold for ¥203 million. Most of what the buyer paid for wasn’t the fish itself.
A Company That Lasted 1,400 Years Nearly Went Bankrupt. Why? The Rise and Fall of Kongo Gumi, the World’s Oldest Company

Kongo Gumi has been building temples since 578 AD. It survived wars, typhoons, changes of regime and the suicide of one of its heads. What finally pushed it to the brink of bankruptcy was something mundane: jobs taken on for…

Local Stories

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.
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.
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”?

People

Why are boys in Japanese anime so often voiced by women? Starting with Masako Nozawa, the voice of Dragon Ball’s Goku

In the original Japanese version, Goku’s voice belongs to a woman born in 1936. The arrangement traces back to a very practical problem in the 1950s: dubbing was…
Why Does a Famous Japanese Inventor Hold His Breath Underwater to Find Ideas? Dr. NakaMats, Who Turned His Whole Life Into an Experiment

He says his best ideas come “0.5 seconds before death.” For more than ninety years he has turned meals, illness and elections into invention projects. It all started…
Japanese Ikebana Is Obsessed With Vases. Why Did a Grand Master Arrange Flowers in Rubber Boots? Atsunobu Katagiri’s Eight Months in Fukushima

In Japanese ikebana, there are rules even for the angle of a single flower. When the grand master of an ikebana school walked onto a coast devastated by…
After Clearing 3,000 Rooms of People Who Died Alone, Why Does She Turn Them Into Miniatures? Estate Cleaner Miyu Kojima

At 17, a Japanese estate cleaner nearly lost her father to a “lonely death.” Later she walked into thousands of rooms where no one had said goodbye, then…