Tokyo Journal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tokyo Journal is an English-language magazine about Tokyo and Japan. It was originally founded in 1981 as a monthly guide to Tokyo life and a listings magazine for expatriates.
The first issue cost 200 yen and contained 24 black & white pages. As the only reliable source of information in English, it went from strength to strength, becoming a glossy 82-page, monthly color magazine, filled with articles and adverts, with a circulation of over 60,000, and, and able to get interviews with top celebrities, and retailing for 600 yen.
The rise of free weekly magazines, like Tokyo Classified (later renamed Metropolis) and Tokyo Notice Board, cut into the magazine's circulation and led it to scale down its listings and advertising and eventually adopt a quarterly instead of a monthly format.
The owner and editor-in-chief is Steve Hauser, a German businessman with connections to the German and EU business communities. The magazine has featured articles on many aspects of Japanese society and in recent years has featured interviews with Horie Takafumi (founder of Livedoor), Carlos Ghosn (CEO of Nissan), Shogo Kariyazaki (ikebana maven), Konishiki (Hawaiin sumo wrestler), Akebono (first foreign-born yokozuna), Nobuyoshi Araki (photographer), Shintaro Ishihara (Governor of Tokyo), Issey Miyake (fashion designer), Ensari Yenturk (Imam of Tokyo Camii Mosque), Fuyuko Matsui (artist), Natsuo Kirino (Japanese novelist), and Hello Kitty.
Former editors include Gregory Starr; Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation, and editor of Time Asia from 2002 to 2004; Andrew Marshall, author of Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of Empire and Andreas Stuhlmann, a multilingual German.
The magazine is currently owned by NeXXus Communications K.K., a publishing and translation company.
