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Stay in an eerie Japanese ryokan inn near Tokyo Tower for US$40 a night

Traditional accommodation in Tokyo’s ritzy Minato Ward doesn’t get much cheaper than this…but there’s a catch.

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Matrix Resurrections review: “I don’t think it’ll be a big hit”

A spoiler-free look at the movie everyone’s talking about right now. 

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The best-looking ramen in Japan? New store creates beautiful noodle bouquets

But…do they that taste as good as they look?

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$100 ramen in Tokyo: Overpriced or totally worth it?

We splurge on luxury noodles with a luxury price tag.

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Japanese drama set in New York is your next binge-watch series

HodoBuzz shines a spotlight on women in the media with a cast of characters that redefines what it means to be Japanese.

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This ramen restaurant has no name, is one of the best hidden finds in Japan

You know a noodle joint is good when it doesn’t even need a name to get business.

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Ramen with bread and grilled cheese topping is our favourite noodle trend in Tokyo right now

Rice, bread and noodles is a triple-carb combination we are living for.

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Attack on Titan live action movie receives its most colossal review from a Tiny Titan

As you probably know, Attack on Titan, the mega-popular manga and anime series, was recently adapted into a live-action movie and infamously received absolutely horrible reviews—it might be a toss-up between this movie and Fantastic 4 as to which summer blockbuster was worse. For its part, the Attack on Titan movie was so horrible that one Japanese critic hoped for the titans to eat the characters and be done with the whole thing. No one is asking Dr. Doom to eat Mr. Fantastic…yet.

As they say though, you shouldn’t judge something till you see it for yourself, so we had to send one of our own.

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Many would argue that Mamoru Hosoda is the most talented director of family anime in the industry today. That “family” classification is two-fold, by the way. Not only are Hosoda’s works appropriate for just about all ages, taking the high road by eschewing in-your-face sex appeal and gratuitous violence, the bond between family members is a recurring theme in his films. In 2009, Hosoda’s Summer Wars showed audiences an extended yet close-knit family headed by the female lead’s tough yet kind grandmother. Three years later, the focus was on a single mother raising two lycanthropes in rural Japan in Wolf Children Ame and Yuki.

Now, Hosoda is turning viewers’ gaze towards a relationship he hasn’t put the spotlight on before, with the just-released The Boy and the Beast, which asks what a boy needs to learn from his father, and also what that father can learn from his boy. So how does it answer those quesitons? Read on for the rest of our review of Hosoda’s latest hit to find out.

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