An ‘onmyoji,’ an expert on yin and yang, performs divination with counting rods in an Edo-period illustration.
Kyoto University Library/Wikimedia
In medieval Japan, healing might mean taking medicine, undergoing an exorcism or sidestepping harm in the first place by avoiding inauspicious days.
Toho Studios
An homage to Honda Ishiro’s original 1954 film, the new hit Japanese film Godzilla Minus One centres on the human costs of war.
David Parry/Victoria and Albert Museum
The exhibition showcases how nature coexists with Japan’s major cities.
Courtesy of Netflix
The series addresses the role of samurai, what life was like for women and people of mixed heritage, and violence in Edo-period Japan, with varying degrees of accuracy.
Rainbow ears, but is Japan’s parliament listening?
Lucas Calloch/@dreiimos/Unsplash
Japan has a rich queer history and is seeing societal changes in favor of greater LGBTQ recognition. That said, national politicians have yet to catch up.
Auad/Alamy
An uncompromising writer who wrote about the dark and light of postwar Japan
Shinzo Abe: Japan’s longest-serving post-WWII prime minister, who was assassinated on July * 2022.
EPA-EFE/ Kimimasa Mayama
Abe was Japan’s longest-serving post-war PM. His legacy, while considerable, is mixed.
CPA Media Pte Ltd / Alamy
A mermaid with face of a monkey and body of fish has reignited interest in the Japanese ningyo
Territorial ambitions: in his speeches and writings, Vladimir Putin has indicated an ‘empire complex’.
EPA/Dmitry Astakhov/pool
Putin is following a strategy used by other imperial countries, particularly 19th-century China and Japan.
FabrikaSimf/Shutterstock
Despite its cutting-edge image, Japan has a soft spot for the decidedly 20th-century machines.
Male-dominated: Japan’s royal family greet well-wishers for the new year in 2020.
EPA-EFE/ Franck Robichon
There have been eight women who ruled as empress, but Japanese culture has always prioritised maleness.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s Mitsukuni defies the skeleton spectre.
conjured up by Princess Takiyasha
(1845–46)
Art Gallery of NSW
A new exhibition surveys the haunting Japanese traditions and beliefs that connect the supernatural with the everyday.
Japan’s new Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako make their first public appearance to at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan, May 4, 2019.
EPA-EFE/Franck Robichon
History tells us there were eight women who ruled as empresses of Japan, but since reforms of the constitution in 1947, only a man can inherit the throne.
Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako at their residence Togu Palace in Tokyo, Feb. 17, 2019.
Imperial Household Agency of Japan/Handout via Reuters
Japan’s 86-year-old Emperor Akihito abdicates on April 30 — an exceedingly rare event for this ancient monarchy. Can his son, Prince Naruhito, give Japan’s royal family a modern makeover?
Grill, a 19-year-old female California sea lion, holds a brush in her jaws after writing the calligraphy ‘Reiwa’ to mark the beginning of a new era for Japan.
EPA-EFE/Jiji Press Japan
The country has reached back more than a thousand years into its early literary heritage for an auspicious name for a new era under a new emperor.
Iwao Hakamada in 2014.
EPA/Franck Robichon
Iwao Hakamada was tried for quadruple murder in 1966, but the evidence that convicted him is regarded with widespread scepticism.
President Donald Trump, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
US-Japan relations are under pressure. As leaders of the two countries meet this week, a scholar tells the story of the exchange program that made such a difference to American attitudes toward Japan.
Japanese soldiers of the Sino-Japanese War.
Wikimedia Commons
As Japanese imperialism rose and fell, its leaders interpreted and re-interpreted a single distinctive concept: “bushido”.
Genking, a male-born Japanese TV personality and ‘genderless’ pioneer.
_genking_/Instagram
In Japanese popular culture, new trends come and go. But the Japanese have toyed with gender norms for generations.
Shin'ya Tsukamoto (right) and Andrew Garfield in Silence (2016).
Cappa Defina Productions
Martin Scorsese’s new film Silence will be shown to an audience of priests at the Vatican today. It tells the story of persecuted Christians in 17th century Japan - an event still remembered by Nagasaki’s Catholic community.