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July 03, 2026
 

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Michael Hoffman

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Michael Hoffman
Michael Hoffman is a fiction and nonfiction writer who has lived in Hokkaido by the sea almost as long as he can remember. He has been contributing regularly to The Japan Times for 10 years. His latest novel is "The Naked Ear" (VBW/Blackcover Books, 2012).
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 30, 2016
Is society on the cusp of massive change?
Philosopher Tatsuru Uchida, interviewed earlier this month by the Asahi Shimbun, merely confirms what we all know, or sense, when he says: “This is an age of transition. We’re going through the confusion characteristic of bedrock change.”
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 16, 2016
From sexual liberation to liberation from sex
Young people are forever shocking their elders, and elders, however shocking they themselves may have been to their own elders once upon a time, never fail to play their generation’s perennial role of shocked onlookers to shocking youthful behavior of one sort or another.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jan 16, 2016
‘It is I who rule’ — Japan’s ‘Manyoshu’ morning
What fun civilization is in its infancy! How bright and fresh the world looks at the dawn of consciousness! Listen:
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 2, 2016
Still dreaming of an end to household drudgery
As amazing as technology’s ability to solve our problems is its inability to solve our problems. (Its tendency to create new problems is a subject best left for another day.)
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 26, 2015
Can democracy survive the rise of the right?
“What,” demanded a protesting student at the height of the summer of protests just past, “is to become of democracy?”
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 19, 2015
Japan’s ‘Christian century’ failed to blossom
Christmas approaches. Christian or not, the mind turns to Christian themes.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 5, 2015
Hunter and hunted: Where are they now?
The mutilations are frightful — dog, cat, rabbit and pigeon corpses missing heads, tails, limbs, ears. Weekly Playboy magazine reports nearly 40 sightings in the past four months in the Kanto region alone. Who’s out there doing these things? With what thoughts in mind?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 28, 2015
Japan’s children face a dementia boom
Confucius said it’s not enough merely to provide for our parents. We must revere them. To fail in filial reverence, he said, is to be no better than the animals.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 14, 2015
More couples saying, ‘I do ... but not yet’
“Just the other day I had a date with a woman. We were planning on seeing a movie but it was such a beautiful day that I said, ‘We can see a movie anytime, let’s watch the sunset instead.’ She was furious: ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’”
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 14, 2015
Surviving a sudden transition to democracy
What is the worst thing that has ever happened to humankind?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 7, 2015
Without doubt, company executives will just go with the flow
Asahi Kasei. Toyo Tire & Rubber. Toshiba. What’s the connection? Executives lined up before the cameras, bowing their heads in shame.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 24, 2015
Media vultures circle over battered SEALDs
That’s it? It’s over?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 17, 2015
True Edo spirit can be found while soaking in a public bath
“Public baths are the shortest route there is to moral and spiritual enlightenment. Careful reflection shows this.”
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 10, 2015
It’s a small world, with no respect for islands
To what extent are your problems my problems? To what extent are Syria’s troubles Japan’s?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 26, 2015
Ashes to diamonds and the cost of death
‘Where do we go when we die?”
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 19, 2015
Government’s affinity to the universe, religion
Supposing we think of the universe this way: there is Heaven and there is Earth; nothing else — no other worlds, no gods. “Heaven” is roughly analogous to what we moderns call “Nature.” Heaven’s laws, however, unlike Nature’s, are moral, not physical.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 12, 2015
Will the bullies inherit Japan’s top jobs?
Why aren’t people nice, good and kind?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 29, 2015
Only a teenager, yet an expert on war
‘The last war was the worst.”
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 15, 2015
Add looming poverty to list of seniors’ woes
What a sad country this is. Granted, Spa! magazine paints in primary colors. Maybe it’s missing a nuance or two? Maybe things aren’t really so bad? Maybe. Hopefully.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Aug 15, 2015
The fraught debate over science and divinity
Truth is a sordid business. It brings nations down to earth, cuts people down to size. Why honor it, therefore? Why esteem it above myth, which does the opposite, raising nations to the gods and turning ordinary, unremarkable people into subjects of divine rulers?
Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ¥3,000 from ¥1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
More facilities in Japan placing sanitary bins in men’s restrooms
A sanitary bin with an awareness sticker placed in a men's restroom in the Nagasaki Municipal Government building
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
Why is the yen so weak and what can Japan do about it?
Japan spent ¥11.7 trillion ($73 billion) between late April and late May to prop up the weak yen.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.
Some startups see opportunity in an aging Japan
Yasmin Baba, CTO of Amilis, wins the Grand Prize at the Pitch2Tokyo Grand Final on Feb. 19.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
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