Twentythree

Name could have used some more time in the kitchen, but we still want these in our stomach ASAP.

Today we’re talking about some hearty fare, and it comes with an extra-large portion of linguistics to chew on, so let’s dig in.

One-hand Bento by Hokkahokka-tei is a relatively new spinoff from Japan’s chain of Hokkahokka-tei takeout shops that specialize in bento, or boxed lunches. Hokkahokka-tei is a national chain, but they’re headquartered in Osaka, so they had a presence at the Expo 2025 world’s fair that took place in the city, where they offered something they called the “one-hand bento,” a heaping helping of rice, vegetables, and meat, folded over so that you can hold the contents of a bento in one hand.

The one-hand bento proved to be a hit at Expo 2025, so after the event ended, the decision was made to open a permanent One-hand Bento by Hokkahokka-tei　shop inside Osaka entertainment complex Abeno Harukas. That happened back in April of this year, meaning the shop is heading into its first autumn, and so also its first tsukimi (moon-viewing) season.

In its culinary sense, tsukimi got its start with noodles, with the term referring to cracking a raw egg into the broth. From there, we’ve seen tsukimi applied to burgers featuring a fried egg, plus pizzas and sandwiches with soft-boiled eggs. That brings us to One-hand Bento by Hokkahokka-tei’s debut tsukimi creations, the debatably named One-hand Bento Tsukimi Wagyu and One-hand Bento Tsukimi Chicken.

The Tsukimi Wagyu One-hand Bento makes use of Naniwa kurogyu, a type of wagyu beef raised in Osaka Prefecture, prepared by simmering in a sweet and savory sukiyaki broth. As you can see, it also has a boiled egg. Well, half a boiled egg, technically, but the linguistic issue is that it doesn’t really look much like a moon.

With the original tsukimi noodles, fried-egg tsukimi burgers, or soft-boiled egg pizzas and sandwiches, the eggs all have a circular shape resembling the full moon, and since Japanese moon-viewing parties are traditionally held on full-moon nights, that’s why the “tsukimi” name started being given to foods. On the other hand, the moon never really looks like a half-sliced boiled egg, and even if it did, those wouldn’t be the nights on which moon-viewing is going on.

There’s a similar situation with the One-hand Bento Tsukimi Chicken (which, like the wagyu version, is priced at 756 yen [US$4.75]). Instead of wagyu beef you get teriyaki chicken, accented with a touch of spicy mayo, and sliced grilled eggplant. Once again, though, the supposed “tsukimi” qualification comes from half a boiled egg.

While we’re on the subject on linguistics, let’s take a look at the other parts of the Tsukimi One-hand Bento name. Yes, it’s true that bento contain both rice and other items, but so too do rice balls, called either onigiri or musubi in Japanese. Sure, these are some very big rice balls, with a much greater variety of fillings than the one or maybe two items you’ll find in most typical onigiri, but since they’re completely lacking a container, it’s hard to argue that they should be called bento, i.e. boxed lunches.

And as for being “one-hand,” sure, they may be big enough that you’ll need to be careful balancing them, but size-wise, you can fit them on your palm…but take a second and think about what would happen if you tried to eat them with just one hand.

Close your fingers around it, and you’re going to be squeezing directly into the topping. Even with a non-tsukimi One-hand Bento, like the one pictured above, you’re going to be digging your digits into something meaty, and with the new tsukimi versions, you’ll be squishing down into the yolk of the egg. So odds are you’re going to need to use two hands to eat these things, either so that you can pluck the topping off and eat it by itself first before you move on to the rest of it, or to stabilize the stack as you peck like a bird to get the topping items in your mouth.

With all of that said, though, you can’t literally eat words, and while their names may be wonky, that doesn’t at all change the fact that the Tsukimi One-hand Bento look delicious, and would make for infinitely better meal choices than something with air-tight naming but questionable flavor. So while they may not really be tsukimi, bento, or one-hand, they’re sure to be popular and are on sale now.

Related: One-hand Bento by Hokkahokka-tei website
Source, images: PR Times
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Photo book takes you on a journey through some of the most iconic Starbucks stores in Japan.

Japan is home to some of the most beautiful and distinctive Starbucks stores in the world, and now there’s an easy way to explore their unique design features, through a special photo book called Starbucks Coffee Japan Store Design Works 002.

This new book follows on from the success of the 001 volume, released in 2025, which features 17 stores that opened or underwent renovations between 2023 and 2024. The 002 issue expands on this concept, shining a spotlight on 18 stores that opened or were renovated between autumn 2024 and spring 2026.

Designed as a coffee table book, the 002 version dives deeper into the store designs and the local stories behind the cafes, creating a substantial volume that has more pages than the first.

Some of the stores featured in the new book include:

The Cafe & Art Gallery Yanaka Gotenzaka branch in Tokyo, which recently opened as a space that combines coffee with contemporary art by emerging local artists.

The Yoshinogari Historical Park store in Saga, which is located inside an important archaeological site that encompasses a large ancient settlement from the Yayoi Period (300 BC to 300 AD), and the Miyakonojo Kirishima Greenship store in Miyazaki, which was created through a joint project with Kirishima Shuzo, a local distillery founded in 1916.

▼ The Miyakonojo Kirishima store, as it looked during the design phase.

Other Starbucks locations include Ginza House, Cafe & Art Gallery Kyoto BAL, Hokkaido Ballpark F Village, Tokyo Skytree Town, Kyoto Maruyama Park and several stores in Okinawa. Starbucks Reserve cafes and locations inside shopping centres and service areas also feature in the book.

▼ The recently opened Shibuya Tsutaya branch appears in the book as well.

The beautiful photos help to capture the unique feel of each store, while also giving us a sense of the wider culture that exists in the local environment around them.

▼ The 144-page book comes in a beautiful craft paper envelope for gift-giving.

The stores that appear in the book are just a drop in the ocean for the green mermaid’s approximately 2,100 Starbucks stores across Japan, giving us a tantalising taste of what’s out there beyond our local store.

It makes for a great souvenir and keepsake from your time in Japan, and it can be purchased at Starbucks Japan’s online store for 4,800 yen (US$30).

Source, images: Press release
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Lego version of the launch PS1 reproduces the style and size of the landmark piece of game-changing video game tech.

When the original PlayStation launched back in December of 1994, it was an odd-looking design. CD-based gaming was still something new for many mass-market console gamers, making the clamshell-lid design an unfamiliar element, and the controller seemed downright bizarre, with its two-pronged form and lack of exposed center for the directional pad.

It wouldn’t become long, though, until the PlayStation’s mix of high-tech edges, inviting curves, and playful splashes of color became something gamers became very accustomed to, the visual prelude to the fun of playing the lion’s share of memorable blockbusters and niche titles of the 32-bit era. In recognition of the PlayStation’s now iconic design, it’s about to become the latest piece of video game retro tech to inspire its own Lego set.

The straightforwardly named Lego PlayStation recreates what you got in the PlayStation box on launch day: the console itself and one controller (Sony’s tradition of naming its controllers “Dual-something” didn’t start until later in the PlayStation’s life with the introduction its analog controllers in 1997). And yes, it includes the cord, so that you can plus it into the console.

The console’s buttons for opening the lid and turning on the power can be pushed and are functional. Look closely, and you’ll see that Lego has left a slit in front of the power button, where the PlayStation’s green power indicator light would glow when the system was turned on, and it seems like that effect will be reproduced, judging from the preview announcement in which Lego’s design director says “We have the opening button, we have the light.”

The Lego PlayStation is a 1,911-piece set. If you’re a master builder and thinking that number seems too high for what’s seen in the above photos, your keen eyes aren’t deceiving you, because in addition to the console and controller, the kit includes parts to build diorama-like scenes of Gran Turismo and Ape Escape, two of Sony’s biggest first-party hits from the PS1 days.

The scenes can be displayed separately from the console, or they can be slid inside it so that they occupy the area underneath the lid.

It is, admittedly, a little odd that, despite the set recreating the system’s original controller, the two games being given a physical shout-out are both titles that were heavily promoted in conjunction with the PlayStation’s analog controller, which wouldn’t come out until a few years later. As a matter of fact, Ape Escape was the first PlayStation game that required an analog controller, meaning that it couldn’t actually be played with the controller recreated in the Lego set.

▼ Try not to let that upset you too much, though, and instead choose to be upset that Ape Escape wasn’t released worldwide under its Japanese title, Saru Get You.

Lego says the console “Measures over 2.5 inches. (6 centimeters) high, 10.5 inches. (26 centimeters) wide and 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) deep.” Setting aside the unusual vagueness of the “over” part, that would make the Lego PlayStation pretty much the same size as the actual system was.

Regional pricing for the set will be 27,980 yen in Japan, US$179.99 in the U.S., 139,99 pounds in the U.K., and 159.99 Euros in the EU. Preorders open through the respective Lego online shops on October 1 for Lego Insiders with Early Access privileges, and October 4 for everyone else.

Source: Lego (1, 2) via PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: Lego, PR Times
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Too soon?

In 2022, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who at the time had retired and was a Member of Parliament, was shot on the street while campaigning for a fellow party member in Nara City and died soon after. It was a shocking incident in a country with very strict gun control, which the killer, Tetsuya Yamagami, circumvented by building a gun from pipes and a wooden board.

The case took an even more surreal turn in the aftermath of the incident, when it was learned that Yamagami had intended to kill Abe partly because of his connection with the Unification Church, which he claimed bankrupted his mother years earlier. As a result, connections between the religion and Japanese government were heavily scrutinized, and in 2026, the Unification Church was stripped of its official religious status in Japan. It’s something that’s only happened to two other groups before, one of which was Aum Shinrikyo, whose members carried out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

The entire case became a murky chapter in Japanese history, but it appears a movie based on the events that transpired is in the works by an unnamed studio and director, both of whom are said to be well-known in Japan. One name that has been mentioned by an unnamed source is actor and singer Masaki Suda, but his agency has not commented on the matter.

▼ Suda made his debut in Kamen Rider W (he’s the guy seen below without a hat), and was the youngest actor to ever play a Kamen Rider, at 16 years old, though I suppose he was technically only half of a Kamen Rider.

According to insiders who spoke with Tokyo Sports, the movie will be from the perspective of reporters covering the incident, possibly to minimize the chances of appearing biased in this potentially politically charged subject matter. However, the insider also said that producers are expecting the controversy surrounding the film to make it one of the highest-grossing of all time in Japan.

Comments online seem almost unanimously against this movie being made, with the biggest point of debate being whether this is bad because it promotes terrorism or bad because there isn’t enough substance to warrant making a decent movie about it.

“Is there really a need to turn this into a movie?”
“Who’s going to play Abe?”
“This is abnormal and bizarre… There are still people living through this, and the trial isn’t even concluded yet.”
“Does this guy even have enough backstory for a movie?”
“It makes me sick that they’re turning Prime Minister Abe’s assassination into entertainment.”
“Unbelievable. Surely they’re not going to glorify a terrorist like Yamagami.”
“I don’t think we should be giving this person any more attention.”
“This is probably going to backfire on them. Who wants to see a movie about this anyway?”
“Is a movie about an incident caused by the whim of some idiot who hated his life and blamed everyone else really going to be interesting?”
“I hope this is just a hoax. This movie shouldn’t be made.”

It could be said that this is a knee-jerk reaction to the news, and over time, morbid curiosity will bring people to the theaters if this movie is ever released. Then again, within days of the killing, a rough cut of another film, Revolution+1, was screened by former Japanese Red Army member and director Masao Adachi on the date of Abe’s state funeral.

The film follows the story of a man named Tatsuya Kawakami, but mirrors the reported life of Tetsuya Yamagami very closely. It was a low-budget independent movie with a limited screening, and ultimately still hasn’t generated a great deal of attention from the public at large.

So it’s a long shot that an Abe assassination dramatization, only a few years after the incident occurred, would be boffo box-office. There’s been a great deal of secrecy surrounding the project, so only time will tell if they even go through with it from here on out.

Source: Tokyo Sports, My Game News Flash, Twitter/@tospo_prores
Photo ©SoraNews24
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Starbucks in artsy neighborhood wants to showcase work by local creatives.

There are a lot of Starbucks dotting the map of Tokyo, but only one of them is also an art gallery. Back in March, Starbucks Japan opened a new branch in the city’s Yanaka neighborhood, known as an enclave for artists and other creative types, and in addition to an especially stylish interior, the coffeehouse also has ample space for displaying works of art.

Like any proper art facility, Starbucks Cafe and Art Gallery Yanaka Godenzaka, as the branch is called, periodically cycles in new pieces to display, and as of September 4 it’s started its third exhibition since its opening. This one is extra special, since it’s a joint project with Tokyo University of the Arts. The public university, also known as Tokyo Geidai, is considered to be one of the finest art schools in the country, and its main campus in Ueno Park is just a 15-minute walk from the Starbucks gallery.

So while they may not be literal neighbors, Starbucks still wants to extend a neighborly sentiment by serving as the venue for an exhibition by eight students in Tokyo University of the Arts’s Department of Oil Painting 6th Laboratory creative unit. The event, titled GABE6‒Drawing as Practice, is described as “focusing on drawing as an aspect of the daily creative process” and invites guests to “enjoy the diverse artistic expression born of the exhibiting artists’ individual thoughts and inquisitiveness.”

The exhibition (which has no admission fee beyond the price of your Starbucks order) opened on September 4, the same day as this year’s iteration of Tokyo University of the Arts’ annual Geidai campus festival, so visiting both on the same extra-cultured day is an option. However, while Geidai only runs until September 9, GABE6‒Drawing as Practice will continue on through October 12, giving the student artists an opportunity to share their creations and possibly turn some coffee fans into art fans as well.

Location information
Starbucks Cafe & Art Gallery Yanaka Gotenzaka / スターバックス カフェ & アートギャラリー 谷中御殿坂
Address: Tokyo-to, Arakawa-ku, Nishi-Nippori 3-2-5
東京都荒川区西日暮里3 丁目2－5
Open 8 a.m.-9 p.m.

Related: GABE6‒Drawing as Practice website
Source, images: PR Times
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Visitors to 600-year-old temple prohibited from wearing traditional garment following problems caused by those prioritizing cool social media photos over basic manners.

Seiraiin is a temple in Kyoto’s Gion district, founded some 600 years ago and known for its beautiful garden and dynamic white dragon painting on the ceiling of its main hall. Ordinarily, its traditional aesthetics would make it a perfect place to visit on a day of sightseeing while dressed in a kimono.

However, Seiraiin recently announced that would-be visitors wearing kimono are prohibited from entering the temple grounds.

▼ Seiraiin’s white dragon painting, which visitors are encouraged to view by lying on the tatami reed flooring and looking up at it

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The reason for the unexpected policy, announced in July, is one that’s becoming all too common in Kyoto: bad-mannered tourists. The temple says that it has been experiencing problems with people coming to take elaborate and invasive photos on the temple grounds. In addition to making it difficult for other visitors to use the temple’s facilities as intended (as a place to offer prayers and appreciate its art), the temple says there have been multiple instances of visitors entering restricted areas and causing damage to the temple while posing for photos, such as stepping into a raked rock garden or opening up a sliding door without permission and damaging it in the process.

None of the damage was caused as a direct result of wearing kimono, and the temple has said that its complaint is not with the practice itself of wearing the garment. However, the proportion of problematic photo-takers who wear kimono is large enough that the temple has apparently concluded that banning such attire is a necessary precaution against visitors for feel the importance of getting a cool photo of themselves to post on social media trumps being polite or preserving a cultural site.

In addition to kimono, Seiraiin also established a rule prohibiting the wearing of “Japanese-style clothing” and “costumes.” This doesn’t appear to have been a snap decision, either. Seiraiin is one of a number of sub-temples located within the perimeter of Kenninji Temple, which itself posted a statement on its website in November of last year reminding visitors that “Our temple is not a photo studio, theme park, or similar facility,” and that visitors displaying impolite or inappropriate behavior will be asked to leave.

The situation ties into many different points about Japanese cultural traditions and their places in modern society. To start with, Japan has no taboos against non-Japanese people wearing kimono, and most locals are happy to see foreigners taking a participatory interest in the country’s customs. It’s also largely understood and accepted that those with an interest in classical Japanese fashion often enjoy other traditional aesthetics as well, which is why kimono rental shops are often found in cities and neighborhoods with historic quarters, such as Kyoto. And while Japan’s temples are, of course, religious institutions, even many Japanese visitors are drawn to them for their picturesque qualities or historic significance more than out of spiritual fervor. Many temples embrace the photogenic nature of their appeal, including Seiraiin, which has spaces where visitors can enjoy refreshments while looking out over its garden.

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However, if there’s one rule that supersedes all others in Japanese culture, it’s to be considerate of others, and it’s a clear violation of that to treat a temple like it’s your private rented-out photo spot.

Seiraiin appears to be the only temple so far to have instituted a no-kimono rule, but with overtourism being something on the mind of just about every noteworthy destination in Kyoto, no doubt others are watching to see the results. Hopefully, if and when the situation improves, Seiraiin will feel comfortable walking back the restriction, but for now, this is a reminder for all travelers to avoid acting like selfish jerks and ruining things for everyone else.

Source: BengoshiJP News via Livedoor News, Kenninji
Top image: Pakutaso
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Arrest follows Okinawan hotel fire that took place last month.

Okinawa offers a wide range of activities for travelers to enjoy. It boasts Japan’s finest beaches, perfect for relaxing or marine sports such as snorkeling and scuba diving. The prefecture’s dense jungles offer ample hiking opportunities, and its unique Ryukyu cultural heritage can be experienced both at historical sites such as Shuri Castle and through the many restaurants serving traditional Okinawan cuisine.

Generally not recommended for visitors though? Arson and attempted murder, the activities for which one American tourist has been arrested on charges of.

In the pre-dawn hours of August 15, a fire broke out at Hamby Resort in the Chatan neighborhood of Okinawa City. The hotel, located a few blocks from both the shoreline and United States Marine Corps Camp Foster, had 19 guests staying in its trailer-style bungalows, close to full capacity during the busy Obon vacation period.

▼ Video of the fire

Thankfully, no lives were lost, although one guest, a 55-year-old man from Osaka, lost consciousness from smoke inhalation before being rescued by police and U.S. Marine Marshall Martinez, who saw the fire and volunteered to help. The man remains hospitalized in Okinawa.

Six days after the blaze, Posedion Roberson, a 32-year-old American tourist was arrested for trespassing into and sleeping inside a building complex in the town of Urasoe, roughly half an hour south of Chatan. Roberson, it turns out, had also booked a room at the hotel on the night of the fire, but disappeared after the incident, and investigators now believe he was the person responsible. On September 1, he was rearrested on charges of arson and attempted murder, and is currently in police custody.

▼ The hotel, prior to the fire

There’s been a noticeable uptick in high-profile crimes committed by foreign tourists in Japan over the past year or so, including vandalism, assault, and theft. Attempted mass murder, though, is on a whole other level, and if convicted, Roberson is unlikely to receive much in the way of clemency.

Source: Teleasa News, Okinawa Times, Stars and Stripes
Top image: Pakutaso
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