Kanmon Pedestrian Tunnel Walk from Honshu to Kyushu under the sea
Casa Caban Hayama Patricia Urquiola's fourteen-room hotel on Sagami Bay, where the facade, the ceiling and the pool floor are all variations on a weave
Jimbōchō Tokyo's used-book district, where more than 170 shops share a few blocks
Hon no Mori-go A retired Seto Inland Sea ferry, rebuilt by Tadao Ando into a free floating library
Hoshinoya Nara Prison Japan's last intact Meiji prison, radial wings and all, reopened in June as a hotel where every suite is a run of nine to eleven cells
Frank Lloyd Wright, Japanese Art Dealer For years the prints paid better than the buildings — until 1919
How Blackwing Pencils Are Made California cedar goes to Japan and comes back a pencil, in Blackwing's first film of its own process
CafeCat Marshmallows A hand-drawn marshmallow cat that floats in your coffee, then gradually doesn't
Karafuneya Coffee The Kyoto kissaten that built a parfait for 25
Oshirado A pavilion of a thousand horse-god effigies, rewrapped in prayer cloth every year
Japanese Anatomical Woodblock Prints Tiny workers run the body like a village, one gate labeled 'urine'
Finds
- Kanesa Katsuobushi Shoten An 1882 Nishi-Izu workshop that still smokes bonito over an open fire in a deep pit
- Kanmon Pedestrian Tunnel Walk from Honshu to Kyushu under the sea
- Moonstar × Wildside Gym Classic An 1873 Japanese shoemaker's canvas sneaker, dressed in black by Yohji Yamamoto's Wildside
- Casa Caban Hayama Patricia Urquiola's fourteen-room hotel woven from bamboo, resin and suminagashi
- Craig Mod's Walks Every long walk he's taken, mapped, logged and linked to what came of it
- Jimbōchō Tokyo's used-book district, 100+ stores deep, mapped through four favorites
- Hon no Mori-go A retired Seto Inland Sea ferry, rebuilt by Tadao Ando into a free floating library
- Circadian Tea Atelier Gyokuro cold-extracted for eighteen hours, poured into wine glasses
- Evil Mickey Attacks Japan (1934) A Japanese propaganda cartoon in which an army of Mickey Mouses on bats is routed by folk heroes
- Hoshinoya Nara Prison A 1908 Meiji prison reopened as a hotel, each suite made from nine to eleven original cells
- Frank Lloyd Wright, Japanese Art Dealer The architect's decades-long, cash-driven trade in ukiyo-e prints
- Godzilla Museum, Nijigen no Mori The world's first permanent Godzilla museum, bolted onto a zipline through its mouth
- Ma The Japanese concept of interval as an antidote to certainty
- How Blackwing Pencils Are Made A pencil's 5,000-mile route from Kofu graphite to Stockton ferrule
- CafeCat Marshmallows A cat that floats in your coffee, then slowly doesn't
- Tomarigi A thousand live cameras, arranged on a map of Japan
- Ozu in Color Every Frame a Painting returns to explain how Ozu learned colour
- Seiko Presage x Tradman's Bonsai A dial textured like black pine bark, in a green that means good fortune
- Thank You, Everything A picture-book litany of thanks, built on tsukumogami
- Tousu at Tofuku-ji Japan's oldest surviving toilet, still standing after 500 years
- Karafuneya Coffee 150 parfait flavors, some built to feed 25 people
- Oshirado A folk museum pavilion holding a thousand hooded horse-god effigies
- Funatsu-Tainai Lava Tree Mold A cave in the shape of a tree that burned away
- Japanese Anatomical Woodblock Prints Tiny workers run the body like a village, one gate labeled 'urine'
- Panasonic NN-SF57RM A Japanese-style microwave with a flatbed interior and no turntable
- Bandai Co. Head Office Godzilla, Goku and Shin-chan standing life-sized on the pavement outside an office tower
- Osaka's Midpoint The golden pin every distance sign in the city counts from
- Station Melodies of Greater Tokyo A listening archive of the jingles that greet trains at the platform
- Coleman Japan Dual Gas Burner Stove A camp burner that runs on convenience-store gas, not rare OD canisters
- Saya Irie's Eraser Shaving Sculptures Images erased, then recomposed from their own shavings
- Yasujirō Ozu's Former Home Sleep in the century-old Kita-Kamakura house where Ozu spent his final years
- Park Hyatt Tokyo (reopened) The Lost in Translation hotel reopens after a Studio Jouin Manku redesign
- Manga Kamishibai Eric Nash's book on the Japanese paper theater that preceded anime
- Snow Peak Field Barista Kettle Stainless and brass pour-over kettle with a removable wood handle
- Snow Peak Micro Hozuki Sub-inch waterproof clip-on lantern, 27 lumens, candle-warm light
- Snow Peak Shimo Tumbler 360 Duo Set Stackable, vacuum-insulated 12-ounce stainless tumblers, two-pack
- Snow Peak Urban Umbrella Water-repellent, UV-treated umbrella with a ring hook for hanging off tables
- Spring Stacking Titanium Mug Set Two double-walled Snow Peak titanium mugs, anodised in seasonal colour
- Kai Hakone A 34-room ryokan on the Old Tokaido Road, refurbished around Edo-period travel rituals
- Noir (Yamazaki) Japan's bittersweet answer to Oreos, made when Mondelez moved Oreo production overseas
- Azuma Farm Koiwai A 24-room slow-living retreat on a working Japanese farm
- Capella Kyoto Kengo Kuma-designed hotel that feels like an old townhouse, not a chain
- Casa Nano 2.0 Japanese micro-house where every cubic inch does something