Japan's content royalties just hit a record. The state fund built to export that culture is up for shutdown. Which one is "Cool Japan"? A Black-Ink Wind-Down【Workday Tokyo#042】 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

An AI sang the full chorus before the artist who wrote it could. Two days later, Japan’s copyright body drew a line: AI-generated music has no rights worth protecting. The first line. And it’s not enough. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Tokyo's streets have less shade than Phoenix, Arizona. So people started bringing their own. Why Japan's cities are moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the world — and what a parasol has to do with it. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

100 issues in. Looking back, I wasn't writing about different things each week — I was circling the same three questions: inheritance, work, and belonging. No final answers yet. Full piece here → open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Japan is building 30 new arenas in five years. But concerts are getting harder to route west of Osaka. And a 5,000-seat arena is, apparently, the hardest size for live music. So what exactly fills these boxes? When the Box Isn't Enough【Workday Tokyo #040】 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Can anime pilgrimage be measured? Tourism tries to reduce friction. Pilgrimage can turn friction into meaning. That may be why some of Japan’s strongest anime “sacred places” are not the easiest ones to reach. Can “Sacred Place Power” Be Measured?【Wisdom Tokyo#14.5】 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Can a shrinking city still be rich? This week’s Weekend Tokyo looks at Busan’s 15-minute city and Japan’s search for “smart shrinkage.” Maybe the future of cities is not only about growth, but about keeping daily life close. substack.com/@letterfromt...

Baseball in Japan may be closer to the NFL in the U.S. than many realize. After Netflix’s exclusive WBC streaming deal, Japan is now debating “universal access rights” for sports broadcasts. Who owns a national sport? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Amazon gives you choices. Japanet gives you certainty. Why a Japanese “TV shopping” company is becoming something much bigger. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why is Japan making money from forests by not cutting trees? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

What if Japan’s next tourism challenge is not attracting more visitors, but helping them understand why a place matters? I wrote about Nikko, regional tourism, and the quiet competition of local stories. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why is a toy company growing in a country with fewer children? Maybe because play no longer ends with childhood. Why Is a Toy Company Growing in a Country With Fewer Children?【Workday Tokyo#038】 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why is Japan talking about “Showa 100” when Showa ended in 1989? Because the phrase does not only contain Showa. It also contains Heisei — the 30 years when Japan’s postwar growth model quietly stopped working. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Japan’s April reset isn’t just about new laws. It’s changing how people move—and how cities define safety, identity, and trust. Bikes, scooters, mopeds… The lines are getting blurry. Here’s what that means👇 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

In Japan, spring is not only cherry blossoms. It is when society resets faster than people do. That gap may explain why so many “new employee” social media mistakes happen in April. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why is Japan making money from forests by not cutting trees? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why does Japanese entertainment keep romanticizing outlaws? From yakuza films to BreakingDown, Japan has repeatedly turned anti-establishment figures into emotionally sympathetic heroes. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why does Japanese entertainment keep romanticizing outlaws? From yakuza films to BreakingDown, Japan has repeatedly turned anti-establishment figures into emotionally sympathetic heroes. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why did a Japanese distillery survive an earthquake because it didn’t sell its products for 10 years? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Japan hit a record ¥2.7T box office in 2025. But the more interesting shift may be in Jakarta. Indonesia’s local animation is moving from import culture to real industry. A new curve in Asian animation is forming. #jumbo open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Sailor Moon is now infrastructure. Ninjas are now export. Japan’s 2.5D culture is becoming a global industry. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why do so many people in Japan start thinking about quitting their jobs right after Golden Week? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why are Japan’s local governments getting richer yet losing the ability to invest in the future? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why do some Japanese manga teach you how to win while others ask what winning even means? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

A game company that profits even when games underperform. #Koei Tecmo just posted record earnings —not because of sales, but structure. How Koei Tecmo Makes Record Profits【Workday Tokyo#034】 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why do people in Japan stop wanting children around age 25? Did they really change their minds— or did something in the system make the decision for them? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Film is booming in Japan. But movie theaters are fading. Tokyo isn’t a “film city” anymore. It’s becoming an IP city. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why is the film business expanding in Japan even as movie theaters are disappearing?

Amazon gives you choices. Japanet gives you certainty. Why a Japanese “TV shopping” company is becoming something much bigger. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Hokkaido is turning wood, water, and time into value. This isn’t just whisky. It’s industrial design at a regional scale. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Most of Japan’s companies are invisible. Not because they’re small. But because you’ve never heard of them. A story from Okayama open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

I created a map of anime locations across Japan. These aren’t just places. They’re locations where stories became real—and people actually travel to experience them. Anime Pilgrimage Map Japan maps.app.goo.gl/qcHWCmsMmmbG...

Anime is changing how people travel in Japan. Not to see places— but to experience meaning. Can pilgrimage be engineered? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Why do Japanese kids love trains—and never stop? Because trains are not toys. They are models of the world itself. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Japan’s April reset isn’t just about new laws. It’s changing how people move—and how cities define safety, identity, and trust. Bikes, scooters, mopeds… The lines are getting blurry. Here’s what that means👇 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Japan once created dozens of “sakura songs” every spring. Now it just replays them. What changed? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Tourism in Japan is booming. But Japanese people are traveling less. And now, even inbound growth is hitting limits. This is not a recovery story. It’s a structural shift—from volume to value. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Japan is home to some of the world’s oldest companies. It is also confronting a succession crisis across its SME economy. I wrote about how third-party succession, policy, and “succession capitalism” may shape Japan’s future. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

At 2 a.m. in Tokyo, you don’t need Uber—you just walk outside. That’s why delivery struggles here. substack.com/@letterfromt...

Why are people in Japan traveling just to escape pollen? This spring, levels are up 30%. Over 40% of the population is affected. Now places like Okinawa and Kushiro are offering “pollen-free” stays. When allergies move people, tourism changes. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

After the 2011 tsunami in Japan, a short poem appeared in a local newspaper. Today that poem is read in schools. It begins with a difficult line: “If we had known it was the last time.” Why would a society teach children a poem about the last goodbye? open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Today is March 11. In Japan, disasters are remembered not only as history, but as habits — drills, infrastructure, and shared responses to risk. I once wrote about how earthquakes became something like social protocols here. Sharing it quietly today. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Today in Tokyo: Today is Mario Day. But what Mario really represents today is the economics of intellectual property. I wrote about Nintendo’s earnings and the expanding IP ecosystem behind its characters. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

For 30 years, Japan’s economy stagnated. But one Japanese creation quietly expanded across the world. Games Cards Anime Science education Global culture Pokémon just turned 30. Maybe the real growth story of Japan isn’t in GDP. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

People are starting to travel for a surprising reason: to sleep. In Japan, where sleep deprivation costs the economy about $100B a year, hotels are beginning to sell something new — sleep itself. Why People in Japan Are Traveling Just to Sleep【Weekend Tokyo#028】 open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

Imperial Hotel opened a 55-room property in Kyoto. It’s not expansion. It’s time. With Tokyo redevelopment delayed and 80% of revenue tied to one flagship, Kyoto may be a strategic pause — not growth. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

I wrote about what this reveals about Japan’s body and institutions. open.substack.com/pub/letterfr...

In Japan, people willingly race backward on office chairs for two hours. It looks absurd. But it’s a carefully designed civic format — low cost, strict rules, high endurance. Sometimes uselessness becomes institutional energy.