Selected essays.

How Weekly Shonen Jump Became the World’s Most Popular Manga Factory

The New Yorker, August 25, 2025

The Life-Changing Magic of Japanese Clutter

Aeon, October 11, 2024

The Secret Behind ‘Shogun,’ the TV Show That Dominated the Emmys

The New York Times, September 14, 2024

Shigeichi Negishi, the Inventor of Karaoke, Dies at 100

The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2024

Studio Ghibli Sold the West a Fantasy

Unherd, December 13, 2023

The Shock of Japan’s Extreme Heat

The New Yorker, August 28, 2023

Anime Confronts a New Apocalypse

The New Yorker, April 18, 2023

A Mini Moon Rover from the Toy Company That Created Transformers

The New Yorker, December 21, 2022

The Great Regression: A History of Kidults

Aeon, August 5, 2022

A Tribute to Nintendo Engineer Masayuki Uemura

The New Yorker, December 14, 2021

The Anger Games

The New Yorker, July 22, 2021

Japan’s Olympic-Sized Problem

The New Yorker, May 16, 2021

Why QAnon Flopped in Japan

The New York Times, March 26, 2021

How Gunpei Yokoi Reinvented Nintendo

Vice, November 12, 2020

The Flashing Warning of QAnon

The New Yorker, September 26, 2020

Pokémon: The Japanese game that went viral

BBC Culture, August 17, 2020

The Walkman, Forty Years On

The New Yorker, June 29, 2020

Do “Murder Hornets” Really Exist?

The New Yorker, May 13, 2020

From Japan, A Mascot for the Pandemic

The New Yorker, April 9, 2020

Oki Sato, the Surprise Artist

The Economist 1843, May 2019

The United States of Japan

The New Yorker, May 4, 2018

Good Libations: The Evolution of Japan’s Cocktail Culture

The Japan Times, March 24, 2018

Donald and Shinzo’s Excellent Adventure

The New Yorker, November 7, 2017

Japan’s Cute Army

The New Yorker, November 30, 2015

How Emoji Got to the White House

The New Yorker, May 6, 2015