Twentythree

Tokyo Metropolitan Police officers issue warnings to pub owners in Ueno.

There are two sides to Tokyo’s Ueno neighborhood, both literally and figuratively. Head out one side of the station, and you’ll find yourself in Ueno Park, a sprawling park that’s home to many of the finest museums in Japan. Exit the station on the opposite side, though, and you’ll soon be in Ameya Yokocho, a.k.a. Ameyoko, a lively web of shopping streets with discount stores and pubs, where staff boisterously call out to passersby to stop and see what they have on offer.

Ameyoko rose to prominence in the postwar period as a black market, but here in the modern era it’s largely a legitimate, law-abiding place. However, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police swooped into Ameyoko on May 5 to tell proprietors to clean up their act regarding outdoor seating.

The primary targets of the crackdown were izakaya (Japanese-style pubs) that have set up tables and chairs in the street outside their storefronts. While this style of operation has been fairly common in the neighborhood for quite some time, Hirohisa Mizutani, the head of a local residents group, said that more and more izakaya owners began spreading their seating into the street during the coronavirus pandemic, in order to maintain wider distances between customers. However, even with there no longer being a need for such spacious social distancing buffers, street seating hasn’t receded to its previous levels, and with Ameyoko not having the widest streets to begin with, complaints have been coming in about the congestion, which also poses safety issues by potentially impeding emergency vehicles such as ambulances or fire trucks to access the neighborhood if needed.

Citing clauses within the Road Traffic Act that prohibit the placement of objects on roads or sidewalks that obstruct the flow of traffic, approximately two dozen officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s Ueno Precinct patrolled Ameyoko on Tuesday, handing out awareness fliers and informing violators that they would have to remove tables and chairs deemed to be impeding traffic. No arrests were made, but when one izakaya owner refused to comply with the directions, the police confiscated roughly 30 pieces of offending furniture.

Curious to see how much of an effect all this has had, we stopped by Ameyoko to take a look for ourselves. First off, despite the police warnings to pull outdoor seating back, it doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case that it’s been banned outright.

That said, it did seem like the restaurants on the main streets of the neighborhood were at least keeping their seating underneath their buildings’ awnings/eaves. Depending on how exactly the property lines are drawn, it could be that these seats aren’t “in the street” on account of technically being within the boundaries of the business, and so not in actual violation of the Road Traffic Act.

However, when we wandered down some of the smaller, secondary streets of Ameyoko, we came across setups like this, which look like they’d pretty clearly obstruct the flow of people and vehicles.

The timings of the police sweep and our visit add a few more wrinkles to the evaluation of how much things may or may not be changing in Ameyoko. The police sweep took place on May 5, a national holiday in the middle of Japan’s Golden Week vacation period. As such, the crowds were larger than usual in Ameyoko, which probably made for a stricter eye test as to whether or not tables and chairs protruding into the street were hindering traffic. In contrast, we visited the neighborhood (and took the photos seen in this article) on May 7. This was the first day after Golden Week finished, and a weekday to boot, meaning a much smaller than normal number of shoppers and tourists were out and about, and fewer bottlenecks in the streets most likely made violations easier to overlook.

It’s also generally the case in Japan that when new rules come into effect, the authorities don’t start off with iron fist-style enforcement. With Japan being a largely considerate, rule-abiding society, efforts to gradually build understanding and awareness of rules often results in widespread compliance. Whether such a patient approach will result in Ameyoko’s restaurant owners voluntarily pulling seating back towards their buildings, or if the Tokyo Metropolitan Police will feel the need to make follow-up sweeps of the neighborhood, is something we’ll have to wait a little longer to know for sure.

Reference: Yomiuri Shimbun
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Inside Chiba Station, Manyoken is a piece of edible history.

The name of bento boxed lunch shop Manyoken translates loosely as “House of 10,000 Leaves.” That count isn’t necessarily meant to be taken literally, though. Yes, in Japanese man does mean 10,000, but in non-scientific contexts it can also be used just to mean “many.”

Really, the impressive number for Manyoken is 98, as in the 98 years the company has been in business since its original founding in 1928. You don’t stay in the bento game that long without winning over a lot of fans, and so when field work recently had our ace reporter Mr. Sato out in the vicinity of Manyoken’s one and only branch at Chiba Station, he decided to stop by and try one of their boxed lunches for himself.

Finding the place turned out to be a little tricky. Manyoken’s address indicates that it’s on the third floor of the Perie Chiba shopping center, which is attached to Chiba Station (itself about 40 minutes by train east of Tokyo Station). However, even after wandering all around the third floor, Mr. Sato couldn’t spot the place. After some more digging, he found out that Manyoken is actually located inside the Chiba Station ticket gates. The easiest way to get to the shop is to go through the Chuo/Central Gate, and after walking straight for a bit, you should be able to see Manyoken’s sign, with its name written with the kanji characters 万葉軒.

Manyoken has a few different bento varieties, but Mr. Sato wasted no time in grabbing one of their Tonkatsu (pork cutlet) Bento, for 782 yen (US$5). The Tonkatsu Bento is Manyoken’s flagship boxed lunch, the one that’s earned the place generations of loyal fans, and remains the purest Manyoken experience.

▼ The Tonkatsu Bento

Yes, the packaging does do that surreal thing where the cooking is being done by an anthropomorphized character that is itself the source of the marque ingredient. The illustration might not match the modern cuteness of contemporary kawaii design cues, but its older-school vibes are completely in keeping with a bento shop that’s been around for almost 100 years.

Speaking of classic aesthetics, the Tonkatsu Bento goes with a very simple presentation, with a single compartment on which the cutlet is laid out directly over the white rice, like a ruler relaxing luxuriously on a chaise lounge.

For a second, Mr. Sato thought that the boxed lunch was completely devoid of vegetables, but it turns out they’re simply tucked underneath one end of the cutlet. Lifting up the corner of the katsu, he found pickled eggplant, bamboo shoots, and simmered kombu (kelp).

Seeing the cutlet in cross section might have some foodies bracing for disappointment, as the pork is thinly sliced. This higher ratio of breading to meat actually ends up having its own unique charm, though.

The tonkatsu sauce that Manyoken includes in its bento is fantastic, and with more breading for it to soak into, every bite is extra delicious, so make sure to pour on every last drop from the bottle.

All in all, this is a classic and extremely satisfying style of tonkatsu bento, Mr. Sato says, delivering not just tasty flavors but also a dose of comforting nostalgia, and he highly recommends making one a meal when you’re in Chiba. Especially in a tough economic time, he’s glad to see Manyoken still doing what it does best, and we’re looking forward to when the shop can change its chopstick wrappers, which currently say “Founded over 90 years ago” (創業九十余年)…

…to “Founded over 100 years ago.”

Shop information
Manyoken / 万葉軒
Address: Chiba-ken, Chiba-shi, Chuo-ku, Shin Chiba 1-1-1, Perie Chiba Ekinaka 3rd floor
Open 7 a.m.-9 p.m. (weekdays), 7 a.m.-8 p.m. (weekends, holidays)
Website

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Blending modern beats with the sounds of nature for a one-night-only ambient session.

For many, Kyoto is just a list of famous spots to check off an itinerary: the shining golden pavilion, the crowded bamboo forest, and the seemingly-endless vermilion gates. It goes without question that they’re beautiful, but they can sometimes feel like a museum, as art you’re supposed to look at. However, for the design innovation studio Moon, these historical places, and their surrounding environments should be something you can also hear.

Having curated a diverse range of projects that blend “nature” with “sound” — including Ambient in Nature, held at Kifune Shrine in northern Kyoto — Moon’s latest event, The Wave, marks the eighth installment of their Time & Space initiative, which seeks to let nature lead the music while the performers improvise around it.

▼ Moon’s most recent event, held in October, 2025.

The venue for the event has been chosen to be a small sub-temple of the much larger Tofuku-ji complex, Komyo-in, which is famous for its “rainbow moss” garden, a peaceful space filled with vibrant green moss and carefully raked sand.

Designed back in 1939 by Mirei Shigemori, a well-known name in the world of Japanese landscaping, the circular windows were included in the temple’s walls to make the room seem as if it was specifically designed for moon-watching.

While the typical soundscape of temples often features chanting, The Wave will instead offer modern ambient music performed by guitarist Gensuke Kanki and beatboxer SHOW-GO, along with the sound of chirping insects, the rustle of the wind, and the silence of the stones.

▼ Gensuke Kanki

▼ SHOW-GO

It’s a music performance, but instead of expecting a loud, high-energy concert, this is more of an opportunity to sit back, listen to some experimental music, and enjoy how it mixes with the sounds of a zen garden, creating a unique and intimate experience.

▼ The most recent performance in the Time & Space initiative held in May, 2025, at Komyo-in.

The event will be held on June 6, with doors opening at 6:00 p.m. and the show starting at 7:00 p.m. It’s not a performance where you can just turn up at the door, though, as tickets are available only through advance booking (link below), and start from 8,000 yen (US$51.31) per person.

If you’re ready to experience the beauty of a candle-lit Japanese garden to the blend of natural sound and human music, get your ticket before it’s too late.

Venue information
Tofukuji-Tacchuu Komyo-in / 東福寺塔頭・光明院
Address: Kyoto-fu, Kyoto-shi, Higashiyama-ku, Honmachi 15-809
京都府京都市東山区本町15-809
Event date: June 6, 2026
Event time: 6:00 p.m. (doors open), 7:00 p.m. (start time), 8:00 p.m. (finish time), 9:00 p.m. (doors close)
Venue Website

Related: Ticket Booking, Moon, Gensuke Kanki’s Instagram, SHOW-GO’s Instagram
Source and images: PR Times
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A 10-year wait turns out to be exactly the right length to warm her heart.

A while back, our Japanese-language reporter Mariko Ohanabatake was sorting through her mail for the day, and mixed in among the restaurant fliers, condominium ads, and other junk mail was a letter from her mom. You might be thinking that it’s unusual to bother sending a written letter in today’s digital world, where pretty much everyone has a phone with at least one messaging app, if not more, in their pocket, and you’d be right. What made this written-on-paper correspondence even more unusual, though, is that Mariko’s mom passed away from stomach cancer roughly a year and a half before the letter was delivered.

What’s more, the letter itself was written even farther in the past. In 2015, Mariko’s mom attended an event in her hometown of Nagasaki in which participants could write letters and entrust them to the organizers, who would mail them 10 years later. At the time, Mariko’s mother was yet to be diagnosed with her eventual medical condition, but she was still in a pensive mood. In the months prior to writing the letter, Mariko’s mom had lost both her younger and older brothers to illness, and her ex-husband, Mariko’s father, had also recently passed away. Mariko herself was also going through a rough time. This was before she joined our site as a writer, and she was still stuck in a punishingly exhausting and exploitative job elsewhere.

So no doubt Mariko’s mom had a lot on her mind about family, the pursuit of happiness, and the flow of time as she put pen to paper to write a message to her daughter a decade in the future. Evidently, she’d even gone to the trouble of contacting the organization that ran the letter-writing event after Mariko got married in 2023, updating the delivery information to reflect her new married family name and address.

▼ The letter Mariko received

So what did Mariko’s mom have to say?

This has been a year with so many very difficult days.

Right now, I’m at Mizubenomori Park with your aunt.

In 10 years’ time, will everyone be doing well? Will you, Mariko, be leading a happy life? Will you have children?

I hope you are all doing well.

– Mom

The question about whether or not future Mariko (now present Mariko) would have children stuck out to her, but not because she felt any anger or resentment about her mother’s curiosity. Mariko didn’t get married until she was around 40, but never once had her mom pressured her about finding someone and tying the knot. Because of her age, Mariko went into her marriage understanding that kids weren’t really likely to be part of the deal, but her mom never grumbled about wanting grandchildren. As a matter of fact, in one of their conversations, Mariko’s mom explicitly told her:

“I like kids, but I can’t picture you as a mother. Don’t worry about giving me grandkids, though. You were an adorable child, and that’s all I needed.”

Mariko believes that her mom’s words were genuine, but reading the letter, she couldn’t help but wonder if her mom really would have liked to have had a grandchild, even if she respected and understood that Mariko hadn’t walked that path in life. Given her mom’s kind, caring nature, she could even imagine her nervously wringing her hands in heaven, regretting mentioning grandkids in the letter she’d written a decade ago and that she knew was about to be delivered to Mariko, and which might stir up some complex emotions.

And yeah, the question in the letter did have Mariko feeling emotional, because exactly three days before it arrived in her mailbox…

…Mariko found out that she’s pregnant.

Yes, Mariko, now in her 40s, is expecting. With the timing of the letter’s delivery having been decided on 10 years ago, dry logic would say that it’s a coincidence that it arrived right after Mariko learned she’d be having a baby, but Mariko can’t help but feel like there’s some sort of fate involved, so that her mom can breathe a sigh of relief since the question about whether Mariko would have kids of her own feels prescient rather than pestering.

▼ Mariko’s mom

Mariko’s due date is coming up in the summer, so it’ll still be a while before her baby is big enough to talk or read. Once the kid is, though, she looks forward to showing them the letter from Grandma, and telling them the story of when it arrived.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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Gyonuts look set to become the nation’s trendiest new sweet. 

Japan loves to throw out the rulebook when it comes to foreign-born sweets, a fact we recently saw when udon noodle chain Marugame Seimen released Udonuts, made with – you guessed it – udon flour.

These unusual doughnuts became a surprise hit, with the chain selling more than a million servings in the six days following their release.

▼ Since then, the Udonuts continue to be a hit, even collaborating with Dragon Ball Z.

Now, Osaka Ohsho, a popular local restaurant chain specializing in Japanese-Chinese cuisine, particularly gyoza, is adding another weird doughnut to the sweets scene: the Gyonut.

As you might have guessed, Gyonut, or “Gyonatsu” as it’s pronounced in Japanese, is an amalgamation of the words “gyoza” and “doughnut”, and that’s exactly what this treat is about. Like Udonuts, these new morsels promise to be delicious while also making use of ingredients that would otherwise go to waste, making them good for both customers and the planet.

▼ 大阪王将 = Osaka Ohsho

▼ The new gyoza doughnuts are made from gyoza wrappers, and they first began appearing in stores last year.

According to Osaka Ohsho’s official website, these fried treats aren’t only made with gyoza wrappers, as they also make use of croissant dough. This suggests a more complex texture than the Udonuts, and with such unusual flavours on offer – Gyoza, Sugar, Strawberry Milk, Chocolate and Mapo Tofu – these definitely push the boat out on what normally constitutes a doughnut.

▼ The Gyonuts come in packs of five for 300 yen (US$1.92), and we purchased the Mapo Tofu, Sugar, and Gyoza varieties.

Gyonuts are fried to order, so it takes a little time for them to be served. However, the fact that they are guaranteed to be freshly fried and piping hot are one of their strengths, so we had high hopes for the tasting.

Starting with the Sugar variety, we were instantly hooked on the flavour it delivered. Powdery sugar coated the tongue to provide a mellow and consistent sweetness, while the crunchy, slightly hard texture was reminiscent of Sata Andagi, doughnuts that are a local specialty in Okinawa.

▼ The firm exterior gives it a wonderfully fluffy centre, just like a sata andagi.

The freshly made nature of the doughnut ensures the exterior maintains just the right amount of firmness, making for an impressive mouthfeel. This gave each one a signature texture that remained consistent throughout the board, but one thing that certainly wasn’t consistent was the flavours.

▼ Mapo Tofu

Mapo Tofu is a spicy tofu dish, and while it tastes great as a standalone meal, the doughnut version blew our minds. The flavour appeared to be all in the powder, and it tasted identical to mapo tofu, breaking all our preconceptions on what a doughnut should be.

Even our reporter Seiji Nakazawa, who eats a lot of Chinese food, confirmed that it tasted like the real thing, and when he tried the gyoza variety, it too, tasted so much like a dumpling that he couldn’t quite believe what he was eating.

The flavour of the Gyonuts was totally unexpected, and the Mapo Tofu and Gyoza varieties were so strong and punchy that they overpowered the palate, in a good way. Seiji says they’re like nothing he’s ever tasted before, and he reckons foreign visitors to Japan will get a kick out of trying them, as it shows just how weird things can get in this land of uniquely Japanese creations.

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Prizes are still random, but you’re guaranteed to get a pair of tanuki balls.

You always have to be prepared for a certain amount of randomness when buying something from Japan’s gacha/capsule toy machines, but if you want to limit the amount of uncertainty, there are ways to do so. One of the easiest techniques is to look for a machine that, rather than offering variation-on-a-theme lineups like canned-goods Sanrio characters or classic anime VHS cases, is instead stocked with a single design that comes in a variety of colors. For example, with the items we’re looking at today, even if you won’t know ahead of time which hue you’ll be getting, you can say, with complete certainty, that you will be getting a set of testicles to play with.

OK, we should probably explain the rich cultural legacy behind those gigantic balls. The critter that they’re attached to is a tanuki, or raccoon dog. Tanuki are some of the most adorable wildlife you’ll encounter in Japan, with their roly-poly physiques and fluffy tails, but for most people, the first anatomic element that comes to mind when they think of tanuki are their testicles.

As you can see (or actually can’t see) in the above photo, actual tanuki don’t have scrotums that account for the majority of their body mass. Tanuki balls figure prominently, though, within folklore and artwork. According to legend, tanuki are skilled shapeshifters, and their testicles often play a role in the transformation process. Tanuki balls are also considered signs of prosperity, which is why you’ll find tanuki statues outside many noodle restaurants in Japan, and all of them will have massive balls.

So with Japan having been fascinated with tanuki testicles for centuries, Tokyo-based capsule toy maker Tarlin has figured “Hey, we should give the people tanuki testicle capsule toys!”

And make no mistake, the designers are fully aware that people are going to be squeezing these things, as the line is called Momimomi Tanukin, with momimomi meaning “squeezy” and Tanukin being a mashup of tanuki and kintama (“testicles”). Actually, the official name for the line is Momimomi Tanukin 2, as this is the second time for Tarlin to offer such items. For round two, they’ve dialed up the top-end intensity on the range of colors. While the above brown version more or less fits with the animals’ real-world coloring, and the white one at least looks like it could be some sort of imaginary snow tanuki, it’s harder to speculate on what the natural habitat of the electric blue Momimomi Tanukin would be.

And while trinkets in traditionally girly colors do tend to be quite popular in Japan, the hue for the last of the four available models can also look rather, well, fleshy.

Like its predecessor series, Momimomi Tanukin 2 is recommended only for tanuki testicle fans age 8 and up, and comes with a choking warning (though that’s also implied by their name being “Squeezy Tanuki Testicles,” not “Bitey Tanuki Testicles”). They’re priced at 400 yen (US$2.60) per figure, and should be showing up in capsule toy vending machines as of this month.

Source: Tarlin via Japaaan
Top image: Tarlin
Insert images: Tarlin, Wikipedia/Zaltys
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No doorbell rung, one face slapped.

Sometimes, in his idle moments at home alone, a guy living by himself might think “Ya know, it’d be nice to have a girl here.” And if that happened to be the sentiment running through the mind of a 29-year-old man in Kagoshima City on Wednesday morning, the last day of Japan’s Golden Week holiday this year, then his yearnings were answered when a woman suddenly appeared in his house.

However, this woman was not a magical goddess sent to reward him for his pure heart, nor was it a childhood friend seeking to fulfil a promise they’d made to each other in elementary school, the spirit of the house’s previous occupant, or any other of the scenarios romantic comedy anime would lead us to expect. As a matter of fact, the man and the woman had never met before this unexpected encounter in his home at around 6:10 a.m., and while it’s definitely weird to just let yourself into the home of a complete stranger, what the woman did next was even stranger, as she slapped him in the face.

“There’s a woman I don’t know inside my house,” said the man as he placed a call to Japan’s 110 emergency police response number following the slapping. When officers arrived on the scene, they found the 54-year-old woman, herself a resident of Kagoshima City as well, still inside the man’s house. When questioned on the scene, she admitted “There is no mistake that I slapped him.” Though the blow to the man’s face was not powerful enough to require medical treatment, the woman was still placed under arrest on charges of assault.

The woman made no attempt to steal anything from inside the house, so it appears she really was there just to slap a dude, though the police are still investigating just why she’d want to do that. With no immediately obvious signs of forced entry, investigators are also trying to determine how she gained entry into the man’s home. Though the police have made no comment yet as to whether it was the case in this incident, it’s not incredibly uncommon for people living in Japan to leave their front doors unlocked if they feel like their home is in a safe neighborhood. But even in a country with very low crime rates, weird stuff can, and does, happen, so taking the time to lock your door is usually an effective way of keeping strangers out of your home and their palm off your face.

Source: TBS News Dig via Livedoor News/MBC Minami Nihon Hoso via Hachima Kiko, Kagoshima Yomiuri TV
Top image: Pakutaso
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