Stationery - Japanology Plus
Japanese stationery is famous for its quality, design, and functionality. We look at many unique items, including products for research labs, left-handed users, and even writing in virtual space.
Japan's globally famous stationery, loved for its high quality, varied design, and great functionality.
This 3D figure made from eraser dust has received lots of attention.
This new device lets you write and draw in virtual space, as well as on paper.
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The Mainichi
5 days ago
- The Mainichi
/番外編5 三島由紀夫と過ごした下田
2025年は作家、三島由紀夫（1925～70年）の生誕100年に当たる。ゆかりの地では企画展やイベントなどが開かれているが、静岡県下田市もその一つ。三島は晩年の7年間の夏を家族と一緒にここで過ごした。三島の伝説が今も生きている場所の一つである。 ドナルド・キーンさんと三島との縁は深い。最初に会ったのは京都大学に留学していた1954年の秋。すでに三島は若手作家として頭角を現していた。キーンさんは古典文学の研究だけでなく、現代の作家との交流も始め出したころで、年齢も近かった分、気はあったようだ。本編25，31，44とは別の自伝で読んでみよう。 I first met Mishima Yukio in November 1954 when his play Iwashi Uri Koi no Hikiami was being presented at the Kabuki-za. It is difficult to remember now our conversation or even the impression he made on me because these early memories have long since yielded to fresher, stronger ones. When I see photographs taken of Mishima about that time Ieven wonder -- did he really look like that? The closely cropped hair, powerful body, and up-to-the-minute sports clothes were so much a part of Mishima's appearance (and for so long) that the slender young man with wavy hair in a yukata gently smiling from the back of the American translation of Sound of the Waves seems a stranger. I cannot recall a single instance during all the years of our friendship when we had difficulty finding a topic of conversation. We often disagreed, even on literary matters. I never shared, for example, his professed admiration for conspicuously bad taste, whether in comic books or yakuza movies. I had trouble in understanding even his tastes in modern literature, and could not take seriously his political opinions, which seemed just as paradoxical and implausible as his praise for bloodthirsty novels of the Taisho period. But such divergences of opinion made it easier, rather than more difficult to converse. [MEETING WITH JAPAN] 2人の性格は一見するとかなり違うタイプに思えるのだが、交流は足かけ17年にも及んだ。現代文学の研究対象として三島をとらえたキーンさんと、最良の翻訳者としてキーンさんに期待した三島。それぞれに仕事上での思惑もあっただろうが、それを上回る見えない縁があったに違いない。最後の夏となった1970年の出来事はこうだった。 In the summer of 1970 Mishima invited me to Shimoda, where he customarily spent August with his family. He normally wrote every day from midnight to six, slept from six to two, then went to kendo practice or some other gathering until it was time to return home and start writing again. He spent little time with his children, but he made up for the neglect by devoting the month of August to them. I almost canceled my trip to Shimoda because of a painful attack of gikkuri-goshi (slipped disk), but I was instinctively certain that Mishima had planned every moment of my stay in Shimoda from arrival to departure, and I could not bear to upset his plans. On the train I debated whether or not to mention my gikkuri-goshi, but when I saw him on the platform, sunburned and cheerful, I decided I would act like a samurai and keep the pain to myself. We had lunch at a sushi restaurant. Mishima ordered only the most expensive fish. Later I was able to guess the reason: he had no time to waste on lesser fish. That evening we were joined by the journalist Henry Scott Stokes, who later wrote a book about Mishima. Mishima took us to a restaurant where lobsters were served out of season. He ordered five dinners for the three of us. But when the five dinners appeared, he ordered two more, not satisfied with the quantity. I thought this was peculiar, but no doubt he wanted to be sure we would have our fill of lobster at our last meal together. The next day Mishima and I went to the hotel pool. He did not go in the water, but he was pleased to display his muscular body. We talked about his tetralogy The Sea of Fertility, which was approaching completion. He said he had put into the work everything he had learned as a writer, adding with a laugh that the only thing left was to die. I laughed too, but I must have sensed something was wrong. Violating our pledge not to discuss "sticky" matters, I asked, "If something is troubling you, why not tell me?" He averted his glance and said nothing. But he knew that three months later he would be dead. That night in his hotel room he put into my hands the manuscript of the last chapter of the fourth volume of the tetralogy. He said he had written it in hitoiki (one breath). He asked if I would like to read it, but I declined, supposing I would not understand it without knowing what had happened in preceding chapters. Although it was written in August, he would inscribe the date November 25 on the manuscript, just before heading for the Self-Defense Headquarters. I left Japan for New York in September. Departure time for the plane was ten in the morning, and I was greatly surprised when Mishima appeared to see me off. He was unshaven and his eyes were bloodshot. He probably had not slept that night. It still did not occur to me that his unusual behavior, both in Shimoda and at the airport, foreshadowed a calamity. After my plane left, Mishima went to the airport restaurant with other friends who had seen me off. He startled everyone by suddenly declaring that he refused to die a "stupid death." That was the last time I saw Mishima.
SoraNews24
25-06-2025
- SoraNews24
Brad Pitt reveals his favorite Japanese food, many Japanese people say they've never eaten it
Is Brad Pitt's favorite Japanese food really Japanese? Japan often gets Hollywood movies later than the rest of the world, but F1, starring Brad Pitt, is fittingly, arriving in Japanese theaters as quickly as possible, premiering here on June 27, the same day as it does in the U.S. To promote the movie's opening, the producers have released a promotional video in which Kenyu Horiuchi and Shintaro Morimoto, who serve as the dub actors for Pitt and co-star Damson Idris, ask Pitt, Idris, and director Joseph Kosinski some questions on behalf of Japanese fans. The first question involves special training the on-screen cast undertook for their roles, and the next deal with special efforts made during filming and the cast's most memorable scenes. The three interviewees also express regret that while F1 includes footage shot by a separate crew at Japan's Suzuka Circuit, none of them were able to travel to the country themselves for filming. The final question is a common one when overseas celebrities are making Japanese media appearances: What is you favorite Japanese food? Idris leads off with the predictable, but totally agreeable, answer of 'sushi,' with an expression of bliss washing over his face as he fine-tunes his answer to 'toro,' extra-fatty tuna. Kosinski goes a bit farther off the beaten path, saying 'I love a good hot shishito pepper,' a side-dish often found at yakitori restaurants, where they're usually grilled on a skewer over an open flame. ▼ Although, ironically, not every shishito is hot, as the number of seeds inside, which are where the heat comes from, can vary quite a bit from pepper to pepper. But it's Pitt's answer that's truly unique, as he replies, and very confidently, that his favorite Japanese food is: 'Whitefish with ponzu sauce. Always.' Pitt's answer was surprising to a lot of Japanese people. Yes, ponzu, a sauce made from mirin, bonito stock, and citrus juice (such as lemon, lime, or yuzu), and often mixed with soy sauce, is a popular condiment in Japan. ▼ Ponzu However, ponzu is most commonly used as a condiment for hotpot or other simmered foods, or as a dipping sauce for sashimi or gyoza. It's generally treated like a substitute for soy sauce, and thus isn't something that Japanese people ordinarily pour on a slice of cooked fish. So not only is it unusual to hear someone say that whitefish with ponzu is their favorite Japanese food, the 'always' is an unexpected emphasizer for an unorthodox combination that you're not likely to encounter in Japanese restaurants or kitchens. 日本人でもこの答えを1stチョイスでいう奴はあまりいねえだろ。。 — 事務カリー(大掃除垢) (@zimkalee) June 23, 2025 Because of that, online reactions to Pitt's answer have largely been some sort of variation on the one embedded above: 'I don't think there are even many Japanese people who'd give that as their first choice.' Other have included: 'Now I wanna know where he tried that.' 'This is kind of like if someone asked 'What's your favorite American food?' and you said 'Alligator steak.'' 'Brad, someone pulled a fast one on you.' 'It's so specific. Was the person who cooked it Japanese? I can't ever remember eating whitefish with ponzu poured on it.' 'I wonder if the fish was grilled, steamed, or simmered.' 'It's got to be something he had with sake.' 'This would be good for a 'try not to laugh' challenge.'' 'Ponzu really does taste good when the flavor seeps into the other ingredients you're eating it with.' More than a few commenters theorized that when Pitt said 'whitefish' he was really talking about fugu, blowfish/pufferfish, which is often eaten with ponzu. That seems unlikely, though, since fugu's international fame as a Japanese delicacy that can kill you if it's not prepared correctly means that it rarely gets linguistically lumped in with whitefish by English-speakers. So odds are that Pitt really has eaten and enjoyed whitefish with ponzu sauce, and on more than one occasion. As for where he ate it, there are a couple possibilities. First, while it's not a standard or traditional combination, it is possible to find recipes, in Japanese, for whitefish with ponzu. There's one here, for example, on Cookpad, a website where home chefs can share recipes with one another. On the website of the U.K division of soy sauce maker Kikkoman, which also produces ponzu, the company specifically recommends using ponzu 'as a marinade for fish, meat and vegetables.' If you run a search for recipes on Kikkoman's Japanese website for fish with ponzu, though, you won't find any. Likewise, Mizkan, another major ponzu maker, has 220 recipes for ponzu on its Japanese website, but not a single one that uses it as a sauce for cooked fish. With ponzu experiencing a recent surge in global popularity, it's possible that Pitt orders whitefish with ponzu at a nominally Japanese restaurant he frequents outside Japan, or that he's had it at restaurants in Japan with avant-garde sensibilities and a cosmopolitan, international clientele. 'I bet he goes to some really fancy Japanese restaurants,' mused one commenter. Or it could be that he has a personal acquaintance or private chef who's made whitefish with yuzu a part of their cooking repertoire and presented it to him as a kind of 'Japanese food,' since ponzu is a Japanese condiment and whitefish is part of Japan's culinary culture too. 'I think more so than comparing it to many other kinds of Japanese foods that he's tried, whitefish with ponzu sauce is the dish that has the strongest place in his memories,' said one commenter, and while just about everyone was surprised as Pitt's pick for his favorite Japanese food, no one seems to think it'd taste bad, even if they're not 100-percen sure it's really Japanese. Source: YouTube/ワーナー ブラザース 公式チャンネル via Hachima Kiko, Twitter/@zimkalee, Kikkoman (1, 2), Mizkan, Cookpad Top image: Pakutaso (edited by SoraNews24) Insert images: Pakutaso, SoraNews24 ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
NHK
20-06-2025
- NHK
Stationery - Japanology Plus
*First broadcast on June 19, 2025 Japanese stationery is famous for its quality, design, and functionality. We look at many unique items, including products for research labs, left-handed users, and even writing in virtual space. Japan's globally famous stationery, loved for its high quality, varied design, and great functionality. This 3D figure made from eraser dust has received lots of attention. This new device lets you write and draw in virtual space, as well as on paper.
