A new era is about to dawn in Japan. Suffering from ill health, the elderly Emperor Akihito will abdicate the Chrysanthemum Throne in favour of his son, Crown Prince Naruhito, on the thirtieth of April this year. His reign, alongside Crown Princess Masako, will mark the beginning of the ‘Reiwa’ era, as announced on the […]
Japan
Japan and ‘Kintsugi’: an art form threading not just through pottery, but society?
The craftsman washes the clay from his hands. He boils some water for tea, and reaching for a teacup knocks it off the shelf. It smashes on the floor. He cradles the broken pieces, and carefully puts them back together again with gold lacquer. He holds it up to the sun. Where there were once […]
Review: Ninagawa Macbeth
Shakespeare’s celebrated play of ambition, the supernatural, and a mad tyrant, iconically set in the scenic highlands of Scotland during the Middle Ages, is taken to Japan and transformed into an extraordinary cross-cultural adaptation by the late director Yukio Ninagawa. First performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1985, the play gave Ninagawa his name […]
The Truth Behind the Travel Insta
Last June I filled my suitcase with a summer’s worth of denim shorts and sun-cream, bid a heartfelt farewell to my savings and hopped on a plane to Asia. There are hundreds of Exeter students who jet off on their year abroad, yet few seem to have heard of the summer programme opportunities – which […]
Tokyo care home attack: a hate crime against the disabled
Content warning: Murder, suicide. On Tuesday 26 July, Satoshi Uematsu walked into the west Tokyo care home where he used to work and stabbed 19 disabled residents to death in their beds. 25 other residents were wounded as he tried to take their lives. Having done this, he turned himself into the police, and announced, […]
EP Review: Exitpost – Nami
Self-described as “Tokyo-born, NYC stuck”, electronic artist Ken Herman, or Exitpost, gets an Exeposé look-in as a friend of trendy, Exeter-based, electronic pals Delmer Darion and grooves in the same wave of post-Aphex Twin, post-Kanye bedroom producers that grew with the increased accessibility of Macbooks and Logic Pro. The availability of electronic music and it’s […]
Victory in Japan – seventy years on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s efforts to mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the cities had a noticeable sense of calm. Bells marked the 70th anniversaries of the respective moments that Little Boy fell on Hiroshima and Fat Man exploded on Nagasaki. White doves, an enduring symbol of peace, were released into the sky in both cities, […]