A French magazine, about Japan. Food, crafts and culture. Bilingual French and English language.
If the cities of Japan are the receptacle of all our desires for shopping and going out until the end of the night, it is the Japanese countryside that makes our hearts waver. You only need to wander around social networks for a few minutes to realise this: videos worthy of a Miyazaki anime; pastel color photos of septuagenarian farmers collecting daikon; couples of young neo-rural people walking their Shiba between the rice fields... Let's say it: the Japanese countryside makes us all dream.
Should you therefore submit your resignation letter and go in search of one of the many akiya, these empty houses that you can buy for a pittance? Will the rural exodus not see this image of Epinal collapse in the long term? And will these young urbanites who leave everything behind for a better, gentler life, closer to nature, be enough to save the countryside? The answer in this new 196-page issue!
Contents of this issue:
🫖 The town of Mashiko, the beating heart of Japanese ceramics, opens its doors to you. Our reporters take you to meet those who bring Mingei, the popular arts movement, to life.
🤳Is the Japanese countryside like on the networks? Discover behind the scenes, between depopulation and struggles to preserve communities.
🐐Hori Itaru, a farmer like no other, tries to convert the Japanese... with goat cheese. Meeting between two drafts.
🎞️ Photographer Hiroshi Takai returned to his native village of Ichijima, to sensitively explore the fragility of these environments.
🍙 What if the rice disappeared? Between soaring prices and announced shortages, farmers have decided to take matters into their own hands.
📸 Ishiuchi Miyako, the cult photographer, welcomed us into her home for a major interview where she talks about her obsession with the passing of time.
📝 Le Grand reportage returned to Noto, a year after the great earthquake and tsunami, to meet those who are fighting to revive their city.
🪡 In Ivry-sur-Seine, in a discreet workshop, an artisan explores the limits of aizome, the natural Japanese indigo dye.
🍱 The Travel Diary takes you to Fukui, to discover the culinary know-how of Buddhist monks.
For readers of The Passenger, Popeye, The Weekender and Kennedy.
