Popular actors Shotaro Mamiya and Yuko Araki, both born in 1993, play the lead roles of former elementary school classmates in the mystery “Iikoto Waruikoto” (“The Right to Judge”), now airing on the Nippon TV network on Saturdays at 9 p.m.“When I heard that this drama is about former classmates who lived through the height of the Heisei era (1989-2019), I realized that the Heisei era in which we were born evokes a feeling of nostalgia and has already become a thing of the past,” said Mamiya ahead of the drama’s broadcast. Mamiya plays Sho Takaki, who was almost like the leader of his class in the sixth grade in elementary school.Yuko Araki plays Sonoko Saruhashi, a former classmate of Takaki’s who now works as a weekly magazine reporter.“It’s rare for me to act with so many people of the same generation in the same drama. I want to enjoy it to the fullest,” Araki said with a smile.The story begins when former elementary school classmates come together for a reunion and dig up a time capsule that they buried on the school grounds 22 years ago. In the capsule, they discover a graduation album in which the faces of six students are blacked out. Then, one of the six dies in mysterious circumstances, followed by more deaths among the six. Takaki and Saruhashi start to investigate what they believe is a serial murder, trying to stop it.

I have a feeling that events in general can be divided into two different types: One is a one-off event with explosive power, and the other takes time to grow. The latter type attracts a small audience and takes place irregularly at first before gradually becoming a regular event held at a fixed time and garnering a bigger audience. I can feel directly this type of event is becoming more established.One such event I organize is Tokusatsu Bijukujo-bu Matsuri, which literally means a festival held by a club of beautiful, mature ladies from tokusatsu sci-fi superhero dramas and films. Since last year, its fifth edition, the event has taken place in August. The participants are actresses who played female leads and other characters in those shows. The word “bu” (school club) in the title indicates its nature, that the actresses enjoy chatting and playing games like in school club activities. The sixth edition of the event was held this summer. As it has now become widely known among tokusatsu fans, tickets for the event were sold out for the first time this year.The four main participating figures are Michiko Makino and Sumiko Tanaka from “Chodenshi Bioman,” Mai Oishi from “Dengeki Sentai Changeman” and Yuki Nagata from “Hikari Sentai Maskman.” As the organizer, I serve as the head of the club and jointly finalize event details together with the four.Other regular members of the club, or participants, include Megumi Mori from “Choju Sentai Liveman” and Rika Kishida from “Chojin Sentai Jetman.” They are joined by Mizuho Nogawa, a suit actress who played Kyoryu Pink and other female superheroes after transforming from their human personae in many Super Sentai series shows from the Heisei era (1989-2019), and Yumi Nemoto, who played the daughter of the superhero team commissioner in “Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan.” Mayumi Yoshida from “Choshinsei Flashman” and Juri Miyazawa from “Seiju Sentai Gingaman” complete the lineup.

TOKYO (AP) — “Last Samurai Standing,” a Netflix series launching on Thursday, is set in a Japan where the feudal samurai era is about to end.

Kyoto’s Nishijin-ori textiles, long cherished as a material for kimono and obi sashes, is attracting attention from high-end overseas fashion brands. The potential of the textile is being expanded through use in clothing, bags and interior decoration.

The Ainu Thanksgiving Festival will be held at the Curian civic hall in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, on Nov. 15.

“Gintama - Mr. Ginpachi’s Zany Class,” the anime series based on a spin-off novel series of the popular manga “Gintama,” airs at midnight on Mondays on the TV Tokyo network.In this series, the familiar characters are now high school students enjoying their youth.The original “Gintama” manga series by Hideaki Sorachi has sold more than 73 million copies in book form and became an anime series of the same title that began broadcasting in 2006. The story is set in a fictitious version of Edo, which is the former name of Tokyo, and features characters with strong personalities — with odd-job workers Gintoki Sakata, Shinpachi Shimura and Kagura at the center — who run wild.“Gintama” features moving stories, from tear-jerking tales of humanity to thrilling battles as well as stories that touch on a wide variety of topics, including controversial accounts of current affairs, parodies and even dirty jokes, making the world depicted in it extremely popular with fans. The manga’s final installment was released in 2019, and the TV anime concluded with a film shown in theaters in 2021.Set in a multiverse version of “Gintama,” the new anime’s story unfolds at Gintama High School and indicates that the worlds of “Gintama” and the high school coexist simultaneously. When news broke that the novel would be adapted into an anime, fans expressed their excitement on social media.The Yomiuri Shimbun interviewed Tomokazu Sugita, who voiced Gintoki in the original series and now voices high school teacher Ginpachi Sakata in the new one.