Cultural Analysis

Much has been written and spoken lately about the “Cool Japan” initiative. With the slogan having been in common use since the early...

One aspect of Japanese leisure culture to which nearly every visitor to Japan is exposed is the ubiquitous practice of karaoke .

She has over 170,000 uploaded YouTube videos, 1,000,000 created artworks and 100,000 original songs under her name, some of which have been top karaoke picks...

Anyone paying attention to the stock market over the past six months will have borne witness to the incredible run up of the...

Many a time, it has been said that Japan likes to do things its own way. And nowhere is this truer than in...

Having spent the past 28 years observing the Japanese market and its trials and tribulations, I am always amused by the “is Japan...

After years of reporting on a Japanese consumer in retreat, we believe we are starting to see a sea change.

The beginning of 2014 marks the end of my fifteenth year in Japan. That’s more than enough time in one place for any...

On a recent business trip to Singapore I was taken aback when told by someone well connected in the American business community there,...

There’s no polite way of saying it. It seems to me lately that Japan is turning into a nation of cheapskates. But, truth...

At the beginning of 2011 The New York Times wrote a piece with a headline “Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan.”

Top chefs from around the world predicted that vegetables and “fabulous experimental vegetarian food” would catch a wave in 2012, along with the...