Tokyo Journal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tokyo Journal is an English-language magazine about Tokyo and Japan that was started in 1981.
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, and claimed a circulation of over 60,000, was able to get interviews with celebrities, and is currently retailing for 600 yen.
Former editors included Rick Kennedy, Glen Davis, Karl Taro Greenfeld author of Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation, and editor of Time Asia from 2002 to 2004, Greg Starr, Dave McCombs, Dan Papia, Andreas Stuhlmann, a multilingual German, and Colin Liddell, who left the magazine in 2007.
The owner and editor-in-chief is Steve Hauser, a German businessman with connections to the German and EU business communities. Prior to buying the magazine, Hauser had launched his own weekly called Tokyo YY, which was later merged with TJ to maximize the synergies of both papers and to increase profitability.
Tokyo Journal has featured articles on many aspects of Japanese society, including geisha, the Japanese porn industry, sumo, traditional Oriental medicine, butoh, martial arts, Japanese ghosts, ikebana, onsens, Japanese history, the Japanese far right, yakuza, tattooing, Zen, Japanese female wrestling, kabuki, Japanese baseball, love hotels, samurai, modern ninja, the sex industry, robots, sex dolls, interracial marriage, pornographic comics, the Japanese freemasons, Aum Shinrikyo, the homeless, the Japanese dimension of 9-11, and the recent phenomenon of otaku, among others. Among those interviewed by the magazine have been 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. The magazine is owned by NeXXus Communications K.K., a publishing and translation company.
