culture Archive

“Sailor moon”, “Naruto”, “The Neon Genesis Evangelion”, “Dragon ball”, “Draemon”, “Sgt. Frog” and “Bleach”……There are infant characters in those comics but there is a possibility that such comics will be banned in Tokyo.

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HASEGAWA Tohaku : national tresure “Shorin-zu byobu” (right) in Tokyo national museum

This is tense and modern painting. Only black and white depict trees daringly. Do you believe that it is 400 years old?

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Japan doesn’t stop catching whales despite the criticism from anti-whaling nations and groups. Why aren’t Japanese people satisfied with other meat such as beef or pork? Are the Japanese really savage and eat many poor whales?

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Many people enjoy a huge number of comics freely, and see autographs and original drawings of famous cartoon artists in the museum. It must be a heaven for all manga fans, isn’t it?

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Sometimes advertising designers use Chinese fonts such as “MingLiU” instead of Japanese fonts. But Kanji in Chinese fonts are a little different from those in Japanese fonts. So, an advertisement which uses a Chinese font looks odd for Japanese people. If you want to make natural Japanese ads, you should use Japanese fonts.

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I previously explained that Tamahagane which is a Japanese traditional steel is the best steel.

But CHIYOZURU Korehide, who has been admired as the great master of the plane and a legendary blacksmith in the 19th century, left a will that said “Don’t use Tamahagane. Use imported steels” for his disciples.

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Kinkakuji, Kyoto. Photo by http://k-kabegami.com/

Leaf peeping, seeing the foliage, is the biggest entertainment in Japan. Many Japanese go to enjoy the changing colors of autumn leaves. From October to December, mountains change into vivid red and yellow colors. The glowing colors are spectacular, they delight a lot of tourists.

The Japan Tourism Association announced the top 10 popular ‘leaf peeping’ places. I will tell you about the top five.

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Today, many kinds of steel are used as knives but the king of steel is traditionally “Tamahagane” in Japan. Although Samurai swords are made of Tamahagane in recent days, the steel is very rare.

Tamahagane is made from iron sand by a traditional furnace called “Tatara”.

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