JR Central and JR West unveil Supreme Class, the Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen's new top tier: a private cabin with a locked door, free service, and a steep price. Here's the cost and how visitors can book it.
Japan's 2025 property investment topped the 2007 record, with foreign buyers at their largest presence yet. We break down Tokyo's 0.9% office vacancy, 7.5% rent growth, and why the Japan-West interest rate gap is pulling global capital in.
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.
Kobe Beef and Miyazaki are on menus worldwide, yet Mishima and Iga beef never leave Japan. As wagyu exports hit record highs, here is why some brands cross the ocean and others stay home, from breeds and slaughterhouses to the stalled China resumption.
Corn and mayonnaise on pizza, bread and salad is everyday food in Japan but baffles the world. A look at Hokkaido's corn history and what makes Japanese mayo so different.
On June 1, Shibuya became the first of Tokyo's 23 wards 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.
Niseko, Japan's premier ski resort, is moving beyond its winter-only image. We break down 'Niseko by Nature', the new brand from the Niseko Promotion Board (NPB), what a tourism DMO actually does, and how to enjoy Niseko's green season.
Tourists are buying Japanese knives in record numbers, and makers are posting all-time-high profits. But there's a tier money can't fast-track—where top chefs wait years. Meet three masters: Sakashita, Nenohi, and Yu Kurosaki.
Printer and sewing-machine maker Brother opened BROTHER JOYFACTORY TOKYO in Kyobashi on June 30, 2026. Become a samurai, record a song, or do calligraphy, then walk out with a printed T-shirt or record. Prices, access, booking and what this maker-led tourism experiment means.
In Japan's science city of Tsukuba, a coffee roaster and the KEK physics lab created five drip-bag blends named after subatomic particles, each tuned to the particle's real character. Why visiting researchers love them as souvenirs.
While matcha sells out worldwide, the kyusu, the side-handled teapot once found in every Japanese home, is quietly disappearing. What a kyusu is, where its odd shape came from, why it fell out of use, and why you should try a cup brewed in one when you visit Japan.
Warabi mochi is a Japanese sweet famous for its jiggly, melt-in-your-mouth texture. We dig into its surprising origin (it is not made from rice), its thousand-year history, the rise of matcha warabi mochi, and why it keeps going viral on TikTok.
A new private tour called NINJA ORIGINS lets travelers train as real ninja in Iga and Koka, the birthplace of ninjutsu. From 200,000 yen (about $1,260) per person per night, guests sleep in restored historic buildings and join shrine rituals and a museum infiltration mission, as part of a model that funnels tourism revenue back into heritage conservation.
From August 2026, The Pokemon Company will use Japan's My Number national ID card to verify identity for Pokemon Center Online lotteries and select official tournaments. It's a hard counter to scalpers and impersonators, and an unintended wall against overseas collectors who have long worked around the system. Here's what changes.
Japan welcomed 3.69 million foreign visitors in April 2026, down 5.5% from a year earlier, even as the yen sat near 159 to the dollar. We unpack the three forces behind the drop (China's travel advisory, an Easter calendar quirk, and Middle East flight cancellations) and ask whether this is actually the right moment for foreigners to book that long-postponed Japan trip.
Two Japanese volcanoes are on heightened alert at the same time. Sakurajima produced its first pyroclastic flow since 2018 on May 8, while Mount Meakan in Hokkaido recorded 254 volcanic quakes in 24 hours. Here's what tourists need to know about nearby destinations, alert levels, and trustworthy sources
ufotable, the studio behind Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Chapter 1 and its ¥117.9 billion worldwide gross, announced on May 11, 2026 the acquisition of a 98-year-old former Mizuho Bank building in Tokushima. The 1928 structure, which survived the WWII firebombing of the city, will become a new entertainment hub and could turn into the next must-visit destination for global Demon Slayer fans making the pilgrimage to Japan.
Taiwanese buyers now account for 62% of all foreign home purchases in Tokyo's 23 wards, according to data released by Japan's government for the first time. Behind this surge: a historic yen, a Taipei property bubble exceeding Tokyo, TSMC's Kumamoto pipeline, geopolitical hedging, and Taiwan's AI boom—all converging at once.
Air Canada launches the first-ever direct flight between North America and Hokkaido in December 2026, connecting Vancouver and Sapporo's New Chitose Airport with three weekly Boeing 787 services. Who it targets, why now, and what makes Hokkaido a winter prize.
Gunma Prefecture's passport-style pamphlet, GUNMA PASSPORT, hit its full print run of 10,000 applications on its first day of issue, May 1, and the queue closed. Behind the rush sits a 15-year-old internet joke about "the unexplored land of Gunma" and the idea that Japan is really two countries, plus the self-deprecating humour of North Kanto's place near the bottom of the prefectural attractiveness ranking. The prefecture has since reprinted 30,000 more.