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 ...

For residents and visitors to Tokyo, the closest isle worthy of the Cat Island designation lies in Kanagawa Prefecture, the capital’s neighbor to the south. Enoshima, which can be accessed from a ...

One reason why ichiju-sansai is so beloved by Japanese people is how healthy it is. This set menu allows people to eat rice for energy-giving carbohydrates and soup for hydration, while the nutrition ...

Grasshoppers have been popular in Asian cultures for centuries. The Japanese cherish grasshoppers and have a long tradition of enjoying their beautiful calls, both in the wild and as pets. In Japan, ...

For the next thousand years, Japanese paper folding was largely restricted to religious ceremonial use, as paper was expensive. However, paper-making was one of the many industries that flourished ...

Tales of the samurai are synonymous with swordsmen around the world, but in fact some of Japan’s most celebrated warriors were women. Technically, women couldn’t become samurai. But samurai was a ...

Outside of Japan, Jizo is known as Ksitigarbha (from Sanskrit), and he is a Bodhisattva—a practitioner of Buddhism who has deferred their own enlightenment to help others along the path. As a guardian ...

As a result, Japan has some very strong over-the-counter medication to fight colds and flus. Many cold, flu, and pain-relieving drugs contain caffeine or other stimulants to fight fatigue and allow ...

Meiji Jingu (明治神宮) enshrines the spirits of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. Standing within a man-made forest in the heart of Tokyo, the strongest power spot here is said to be Kiyomasa's Well ...

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 ...

Let's start with the cheapest fruit on our list, a ¥15,000 (US$150) per piece square watermelon. We aren't joking, it's the cheapest on our list—the equivalent of a month of bento lunches in ...

Tohoku, the north-easternmost part of Honshu, the largest island of Japan, is made up of six prefectures: Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata. Not wanting to isolate Hokkaido (though ...