The Western Rooms

I like the color pink, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I wear pink shirts, I have a pair of pink boxers and a few…

Tokyo is expensive. That new Shinjuku office Square Enix is moving into must cost a large fortune. Some of the…

There are key cultural differences between Japan and the West. It's not just in linguistics, but in eroticism as…

Pure plastic love. It lives on desks. Its lives on shelves. But in Japan, it lives everywhere. Figures are more than…

It was the hot, sticky summer of 1990. Japan's bubble economy, the period of rapid growth during the 1980s, would…

Are you a nerd or a geek? If calculations are correct, I've probably pissed off oodles of others, who have also…

Nintendo, the world's family-friendly video game maker, formed under less virtuous auspices. Before Nintendo made…

"I'm just a regular, amateur cosplayer," says Ushijima Ii Niku, or Ushijima "Good Meat", in a swish Tokyo…

Internet cafes dot the Japanese urban landscape and offer a moment of pause for regular folks. Ditto for criminals.

I've lived in Japan for a long time. When I first came here, I liked living here. Now, I don't. I haven't changed.…