Edo era

HISTORY

Mount Fuji Eruption: The 1707 Disaster and Next Big One

What happened the last time the famed Mt. Fuji erupted? Learn about the Hoei Eruption, and the great crisis it caused during…

JAPANESE LANGUAGE

McDonald’s Japan Runs Ad in Forged Edo-Era Script of the Gods

McDonald's Japan's latest social media ad campaign harkens back to claims that Japan had a pre-Chinese writing system.

TRAVEL

GACKT: Japan Should Return to Isolationism, Maybe

Singer-songwriter GACKT appears to have the solution for overtourism: return the country to isolationism.

TRAVEL

Tourists Love Koedo Kawagoe – and The City Doesn’t Know Why

Koedo Kawagoe's Edo-era charm is attracting more tourists than ever better - but the city is at a loss to explain its…

JAPANESE LANGUAGE

You Can Write These Japanese Loan Words in Kanji (But Probably Shouldn’t)

We typically write them in katakana now - but these Japanese words originally had kanji. How many of these can YOU read?

JAPANESE LANGUAGE

Tako! How Did “Octopus” Become a Japanese Insult?

Did someone just call you an "octopus"? How "tako" became both a fish and an insult in Japanese (spoiler alert: it involves…

FOOD

Tsukudani: The Fishy Preserves that Saved a Shogun

June 29th is "Tsukudani Day," a minor holiday for the fish-and-seaweed dish. It's also the food that saved shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu's life.

CULTURE

Japan’s “Mermaid Mummy” Finally Identified via New Research

A team of researchers set out to discover the true identity of a "mermaid mummy" enshrined in a Japanese temple. The result?