On July 7, 2026, Noto Airport became the world's first airport to carry the Pokemon name. All 111 Flying-type Pokemon and a giant Pikachu now anchor a recovery push for the quake-hit Noto Peninsula. We unpack the airport's own damage-and-revival story, Japan's distinctive model of rebuilding through beloved characters, and how to visit.
MIYAKO GALAXY-DOME, billed as Japan's first facility to pair a working observatory with an LED-dome planetarium, opened in June 2026 on Kurima Island, Okinawa. Southern Cross skies, live telescope-to-dome projection, prices and how to visit, explained for overseas readers.
Studio Ghibli is opening a Zen exhibition in Kyoto, running October 3 to December 6, 2026, at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art. Built around The Boy and the Heron, it traces back to a book of dialogues between producer Toshio Suzuki and three Zen monks. Here is what Zen actually is, and the surprising things it shares with Ghibli's films.
Foreign visitors spent ¥2.07 trillion (~$12.9B) on food in Japan in 2025, 21.9% of all inbound spending. What 42 million tourists eat, the dietary-diversity gap, and how to plan a gourmet trip.
On June 19, 2026, Iizaka Onsen in Fukushima launched a town-wide all-inclusive plan: one ¥25,000 passport for 16 inns, 13 baths, and 25 shops, with local sake, disc gyoza, and day-baths on the house. A look at a shrinking spa town's bet on a whole-district tourism model.
A stray calico named Tama once saved a doomed rural rail line. Now Japan's Wakayama Electric Railway plans to turn the whole route into 'Nyanderland'—a cat nation with passports, visas, and a queen.
Tokyo's life-size Unicorn Gundam in Odaiba is being redressed with new decals by original designer Hajime Katoki before its end-of-August removal. Here is what the Ver. TWC FINAL makeover involves, the final nightly light-up lineup, the free headband campaign, and how to see it before it's gone.
Studio Ghibli specialty chain Donguri Republic opens its first U.S. store as a pop-up near Los Angeles. Dates, hours, perks, and why the chain isn't actually new to overseas markets.
A hard drive on a concrete pillar in a Tokyo canal, rumored to hold trillions of yen in Bitcoin, was finally identified as an enterprise HGST drive. Then, a day after going viral, someone took it. The math, the law, and the vanishing act.
Steps from Nikko's World Heritage shrines stands a vending machine selling antique kimono jackets for a flat 1,000 yen, with the catch that you never know which one you'll get. Here's the story behind Japan's kimono gacha and the small theater that created it.
On June 1, Shibuya became the first place in Japan to fine street littering on the spot, 2,000 yen a pop, with 10 penalties on day one. But this is a country that spent decades removing its public bins. Inside Japan's awkward don't-litter-but-good-luck-finding-a-bin paradox.