Pop Culture

By Sandra Barron for JSRC originally posted on March 9th, 2011 It was one of those nightmare commutes. A crowded train finally pulled up to a rush-hour platform, dense with…

I was outraged, with him especially. How dare he violate these Japanese women's' spaces! How dare he pass on his disgusting views and methods onto other men! This guy was…

“When you go to Tokyo….if you’re a white male, you can do what you want. Just grab her, pull her in. She’ll giggle. Just say PIKACHU or POKEMON or something…

Halloween is one of the biggest party events in Japan and some have estimated that Japanese people spend more on the festivities than those in America. And why not? This…

I count this as one of my teaching successes. One of my Japanese students is a budding illustrator, and one of her characters is Gachico. Last year when she started…

"Have I said anything I started out to say about being good? God, I don't know. A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help. But if,…

Japan’s gaijin community is set to shrink to pre-Meiji era levels as they leave in droves due to Japanese women no longer finding them attractive. While male foreigners have long…

A recent revelation that Hello Kitty isn't a cat has left people, including ourselves, scratching their heads.

The UN committee does not give ratings to countries on well they are doing in "eliminating racial discrimination" but the essence of third improvement order to Japan was: "you're failing…

"I love the sort of monster figures and dolls that appear on Ultraman, and I wanted to buy more with the money I made from the action figure [I stole],"…