December 08, 2011

Hafu, a doc about being mixed-Japanese in Japan

Three days left to contribute to the post-production costs of an upcoming documentary called Hafu, about the experience of being half Japanese in Japan. According to the filmmakers -- one of whom went to my my middle school -- one in 30 Japanese today are born to one non-Japanese parent. Yes, the world is getting more diverse! And yet there's a lot of inherent discrimination against mixed-race people. An interesting topic close to my heart -- I also have one non-Japanese parent, and most of my friends do too. These ladies have more than met their fundraising goals, but why not join in on the fun? Donate to their IndieGoGo campaign here.

November 22, 2011

Upcoming documentary about an amazing female judo wrestler

My friend Yuko is the editor on this awesome upcoming documentary about Keiko Fukuda, the only woman in the world to earn the highest ranking in judo. She's 98 years old now. Pretty amazing. The Kickstarter campaign is over (and funded - yay) but I'll keep you guys posted on when this comes out so we can all get excited about watching it!

September 08, 2011

Blind, a short film about post-nuclear Japan

I don't really know what to say about it at the moment, but it's a beautiful short five-minute movie worth watching.

May 17, 2011

Love Exposure, a four-hour movie about Christianity, panties, and love triangles

I just discovered this trailer for the movie Love Exposure, a four hour film about a love triangle involving a guy whose job is to take photos of women's panties and a woman whom he mistakes as the Virgin Mary. Four hours is a looong time... but it has pretty good reviews. If anyone's seen it, let me know if it was worth your time!

via @nmillions

March 16, 2011

Awesome real life Mario trailer from SXSW

If Mario was a real person, he's probably be exactly like this.

I'm sorry, among all the earthquake frenzy I lost the tipster original email. Please identify yourself so I can thank you properly in this post!

About

Lisa Katayama's personal blog.
My Photo

My Bio

  • I write articles about culture, technology, and human rights for Wired, Popular Science, Fast Company, and the New York Times Magazine. I also produce radio segments for PRI's Studio360 and am a Correspondent for Boing Boing, one of Time Magazine's five most essential blogs of 2010.

    In 2008, Chronicle published my book: Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan.

    I am also the founder of The Tofu Project, a boutique program that helps Japanese entrepreneurs and creators think deeper, tell better stories, and go out into the world in a much bigger way. We work with companies like Mixi, Japan Airlines, and Salesforce.com.

    Sometimes I try to explain Japanese culture on CNN, BBC, CBC, WSJ, ABC (so many acronyms!) or in person at places like the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, ETech, and Ignite!

    Follow me on Twitter
    Become a Facebook Fan
    Read some of my published magazine stories

    Send tips to mango [at] tokyomango [dot] com

MY BOOK

  • My book, Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan, was published in April 2008. Get it now!

TokyoMango on Twitter

we love unko