[Beauty of Japan Season 2] Yugo Matsumoto is an Englishman who owns a popular café in Shinagawa, Tokyo, where customers of all age groups stop by to spend their time. What are the reasons behind the café’s popularity? In this episode, we observe Japan through the eyes of an Englishman...

[Beauty of Japan Season 1] Katsushika ward in downtown Tokyo is one of a few cities where many craftsmen known as “Shokunins” still exist. Many of them work with skills used since the Edo or Meiji periods (late 19th century). The traditional crafts that they create through careful study of...

[Craft Masters of Japan] The Sendai Tansu furniture was created around the end of Edo period (mid-19th century). Its fabrication process is based on 3 traditional techniques which were all inherited from the Edo period; ‘Sashimono (furnishing)’, ‘Urushi lacquer’, and ‘metal fitting’. Nowadays, the tradition is well harmonized with a...

[Beauty of Japan Season 2] Tonami City's Yotaka Festival is said to bring good harvests. Its show-stopping parade consists of 6-meter-tall red decorative paper lanterns, and its highlight is the great paper lantern fight. Fighting bravely but gracefully, it showcases the very moment in which the lanterns look the most...