Tomoe Gozen (1157?-1247?) was an onna-bugeisha (女武芸者, female martial artist) who served Minamoto no Yoshinaka during the Genpei War (1180-1185). Before the samurai became a formalized caste in the Edo ...

Not every Nekojima is on the ocean, though, as Okishima is actually a floating island in the middle of Lake Biwa, the largest freshwater depository in Japan. With just 350 residents, the fishing ...

While Japan is home to over 300 castles, there are only 12 that still retain their original castle keep. These 12 so-called 'original construction' castles are the cream of the crop.

Completed around the year 1010, The Tale of Genji (源氏物語・Genji Monogatari) is generally considered to be the world’s first novel.It was written by a woman going by the pen name Murasaki Shikibu (c. 978 ...

For personal letters in Japan, you can start with e (”to”) and finish just as simply with yori (”from”) For business, though, old-school logic says you’ll need to bust out the decidedly musty Haike ...

It’s important to keep in mind the Buddhist origin of nanshoku, as most samurai were educated on the basis of Buddhist principles—often in monasteries.Given the life situation of samurai, it was ...

Most of Bunny Girl Senpai takes place in Japan's second most populous prefecture, Kanagawa (神奈川県). Renowned as a beachy and laid-back area popular with tourists, there is lots of anime-related ...

During the Meiji Period (1868–1912), soon after the advent of rail travel in Japan, the first ekiben (train station bento) were sold and subsequently popularized as the industrial rail boom spread ...

In fact, Japan’s culture evolved alongside nature and the two share an intimate relationship. Why else do you imagine festivals celebrating cherry blossom blooms or reddening autumn “leaf-turns” and ...

If you're familiar with the way Japanese people abbreviate foreign words, you might be able to sound this one out. Puroresu is short for pro wrestling, and while there were a number of attempts to ...

A must stop for anyone interested in the battle is the Gifu Sekigahara Battlefield Memorial Museum, a 10-minute walk from Sekigahara Station. Opened in 2020, this state-of-the-art museum includes ...

Sugoroku is the classic dice-based board game. The kanji for sugoroku are 双六 or 雙六, both meaning "two sixes," the highest value you can roll on a pair of standard dice. The original version of ...