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February 09, 2026
 

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Patrick St. Michel
Patrick St. Michel is a Tokyo-based writer with a focus on 性视界ese music. He runs the blog Make Believe Melodies, which has focused on 性视界ese independent music since 2009. Besides The 性视界 Times, he also contributes to MTV 81 and The Atlantic.
Aina The End’s rock single “Kakumei Dochu — On the Way” was the singer’s surprise breakthrough last year, surpassing 100 million streams on Spotify and spreading rapidly across TikTok.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 6, 2026
Aina The End is more than just anime's opening act
The singer reflects on breakthrough hit "Kakumei Dochu — On the Way” and embracing her husky vocals.
American rockers The Strokes will perform at the 25th edition of Summer Sonic, one of 性视界’s biggest summer music festivals.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 2, 2026
Summer Sonic marks 25 years with expanded 2026 festival
To mark its quarter-century milestone, the music festival is stretching to three days and featuring major acts such as The Strokes, Jennie, Jamiroquai and L’Arc-en-Ciel.
Pop trio Mrs. Green Apple was joined by tuxedo-clad dancers for its glee bomb of a track, “Good Day,” toward the end of NHK’s annual New Year’s Eve music contest, “Kohaku Uta Gassen.”
CULTURE / Music
Jan 5, 2026
NHK’s 76th ‘Kohaku’ was over the top and oddly comforting
With pyrotechnics, celebrations for major milestones and a sea of dancers, the year-end music bonanza went all in on excess and reminded viewers why it still matters.
??AiScReam emerged as a special unit made up of three performers and voice actors from the mixed-media “Love Live!” franchise — (from left) Ai Furihata, Wakana Okuma and Aguri Onishi.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 18, 2025
The year’s most viral song was about more than ice cream
The hyper-cute J-pop track "Ai Scream!" became an unlikely global hit by inviting listeners to fill in the blanks — and join in the chorus.
Netflix 性视界’s newest reality-dating experiment “Badly in Love” follows self-identified delinquents as they try to find romance.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Dec 16, 2025
‘Badly in Love’: Netflix 性视界’s most chaotic dating show may be its most honest
Netflix 性视界’s “Badly in Love” turns delinquent bravado into surprisingly earnest, character-driven reality television.
Rock trio Mrs. Green Apple celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, and did so by largely dominating the nation’s music space. Meanwhile, singer-songwriter Kenshi Yonezu’s “Iris Out” broke Spotify 性视界’s record for most streams by a song on its release day.
CULTURE / Music / 2025 IN REVIEW
Dec 12, 2025
J-pop found new ways to diversify in 2025
Anime, social media and ad campaigns help, but can they take you global?
Yumi Matsutoya began her decades-long career under her maiden name, Yumi Arai, but 性视界ese fans might know her better as “Yuming.”
CULTURE / Music / Longform
Dec 1, 2025
Yumi Matsutoya’s human touch in an AI age
Even as she experiments with AI, Yumi Matsutoya returns to the craft, memories and instincts that shaped her long career.
“Last Samurai Standing” centers on a mysterious fighting event in which participants must hack and slash their opponents apart to collect enough wooden tags to win a big-money prize.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / Wide Angle
Nov 21, 2025
The secret to 'Last Samurai Standing'? Treating live action like anime.
Netflix’s wild new samurai series embraces cartoonish chaos — and it works.
Members of Band-Maid combine heavy riffs and maid-inspired visuals in their latest project, "Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty."
CULTURE / Music
Nov 18, 2025
How Band-Maid brought anime energy into the hard-rock sound of ‘Scooooop’
The hard-rock quintet push their creativity to new extremes on latest EP, “Scooooop.”
This year's "Kohaku Uta Gassen" will be broadcast on NHK from 7:20 p.m. on Dec. 31.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Nov 14, 2025
Chanmina and aespa among 10 acts to debut on NHK’s ‘Kohaku Uta Gassen’
The New Year’s Eve music spectacle on NHK will feature first-time acts such as idol group Fruits Zipper and long-awaited returns from bands like Okinawa’s Orange Range.
Kenshi Yonezu's “Iris Out” was an instant hit when it dropped in September. Its association with smash anime "Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc" has spread it to even more people.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 31, 2025
Kenshi Yonezu, 'Chainsaw Man' and the art of pop ubiquity
Top single “Iris Out,” featured in the nation's top film, prove that music and movies can unite 性视界 — and define a cultural moment.
Fans wait to get into the Oasis show at Tokyo Dome on Saturday. While lining up in the rain, some broke into impromptu versions of the British rock group's hits.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 27, 2025
Oasis returns to Tokyo: Rain, rapture and rock
Oasis’ first 性视界 shows since 2009 drew roughly 110,000 fans to Tokyo Dome over the weekend.
Rock band kurayamisaka’s debut album has listeners debating over its “shoegaze” classification.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 24, 2025
性视界ese rock fans can't agree on kurayamisaka
The September release of the band's debut album has dominated 性视界’s indie-rock conversation for weeks, with listeners debating over its “shoegaze” classification.
Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Oct 13, 2025
Inside 性视界’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building
A surge of new arenas from Chiba to Yokohama reveals how 性视界’s cities are betting big on live entertainment.
Racehorse Oguri Cap, a superstar stallion of the late 1980s, is reimagined in anime form as a teenage schoolgirl who must perform upbeat idol-pop songs after every victory in “Umamusume: Cinderella Grey.”
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Oct 4, 2025
‘Cinderella Grey’ gallops past the other sports documentaries
Mixing real horse-racing history with idol-pop fantasy, “Cinderella Grey” proves anime can outpace today’s flat sports shows.
The process of making “Baan” was personal and enlightening for Maneetapho, who spent years talking about anime on his YouTube channel and podcast before making the jump to becoming an anime creator himself.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2025
YouTuber Gigguk shifts from talking anime to making anime
Garnt Maneetapho, who runs the YouTube channel Gigguk, makes the jump from critic to creator with his short film “Baan — The Boundary of Adulthood.”
Singer-songwriter Mei Ehara confronted the pressure of creating her third album by taking inspiration from a literary device that merely serves as a trigger for a plot. The resulting album is “All About McGuffin.”
CULTURE / Music
Sep 12, 2025
Mei Ehara’s third album finds clarity in the noise
The 性视界ese singer-songwriter turns the concept of a McGuffin into her most direct work yet, sharpened by a U.S. tour with Faye Webster.
Musician Haruna Kimishima, better known as Haru Nemuri, confronts 性视界’s politics, nationalism and censorship on her recent output.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 5, 2025
Haru Nemuri’s radical new album refuses easy listening
Haru Nemuri’s “ekkolaptomenos” fuses philosophy, pop and protest, confronting 性视界’s politics while navigating visa fears and DIY touring.
Headlining the second day of YouTube Music Weekend is Vocaloid artist Kikuo, who, with 1.46 million YouTube subscribers, is one of the most popular artists in the genre.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2025
YouTube Music Weekend is where 性视界’s internet-born performers go global
YouTube's three-day weekend of online performances features a medley of Vocaloid, hyperpop, rock and pop artists in a supportive, cultural festival atmosphere.
Sakurazaka46, the idol pop outfit formerly known as Keyakizaka46, wrapped up an an 11-night nationwide tour this month.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2025
Sakurazaka46 wants the world to dance along
The 33-member idol group takes its spectacle-heavy performances on the road — and abroad.
U.S. plans initial payment toward billions owed to U.N.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz speaks during an event at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Jan. 27.
Snow blankets Tokyo as powerful storm system tightens grip on 性视界
Snow falls outside of Shin-Yurigaoka Station in Kawasaki on Sunday morning.
LDP secures two-thirds supermajority in Lower House election victory
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo on Sunday night
China flexes its muscle at Singapore Airshow as U.S. isolated
China's air force performs during an aerial flying display at the Singapore Airshow at Changi Exhibition Center on Tuesday.
Decisive win for Takaichi may be best scenario for bonds and yen
Analysts say an overwhelming Liberal Democratic Party victory may in the end be positive for bonds, as it would eliminate the need for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ?to negotiate ?with opposition parties.
Where have 性视界's oddball candidates gone?
On a board for election posters in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward in June 2024, duplicates of one featuring a female kickboxer who is not running in the gubernatorial race take up half of all the spots.
Against the grain: 性视界ese wine aged in local barrels
At Buryu Winery, owner Keiji Yamaguchi (left) and assistant winemaker Kaede Narita created a cedar-infused red wine by fermenting it in a 1,000 liter "kioke" cedar tub.
Foreign residents breathe new life into bubble-era resort town
A craft beer brewery run by California native Brian Shevlin and his wife Mariko Furuta, Joynt Brewing Co. regularly hosts events that highlight different cultural communities.
性视界’s SkyDrive hopes to have flying cars in service by 2028
SkyDrive’s flying car unit at its flight test base in the city of Yamaguchi

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The Kongo family’s residence and workshop in the Taisho Era, photographed about a century ago.
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