A red-eyed horse sculpture that killed its creator greets motorists as they approach Denver International Airport, where public art and conspiracy theories converge in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. The 32-foot blue mustang sculpture—nicknamed “Blucifer”—looks like one of the four horses of the apocalypse, rearing up on its hind legs outside America’s biggest airport, which is twice the size…
This post mainly covers Japan-related travel writing, all the best pieces I have that don’t pertain to movies (which receive their due elsewhere in my Movie-Lover’s Guide to Japan portfolio). There are 130 links here, some inbound, others outbound to Explore.com and two GPlusMedia sites, GaijinPot and Japan Today. In 2023, I poured more effort into the site you’re now reading, The Gaijin Ghost,…
Webster’s defines “Mickey Mouse” as an adjective for “too easy, small, ineffective, or unimportant to be taken seriously.” The portfolio of a freelance writer who first entered the market online as a Disney parks photoblogger might be worthy of such a description. But that’s what this is. It’s the running list of Disney-related articles, blog posts, and photo galleries that I’ve published here and…
“It feels like a coming home,” said director Jon Favreau after walking out onstage on the opening day of Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025. It was the morning of Friday, April 18, and Favreau was there to promote The Mandalorian & Grogu, the first new Star Wars movie since 2019’s The Rise of the Skywalker. Yet his comments about this homecoming-like occasion (a nod to the franchise’s Japanese…
The memory systems of this R2 unit contain 50+ Star-Wars-related articles and posts that I wrote while working as an independent contractor for the Death Star /Film and other sites. The links below cover a ten-year period, from December 2015, when The Force Awakens was in theaters (and Aomori’s Star Wars Nebuta floats were in Tokyo), to April 2025, when the Star Wars Celebration event took place…
On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, I had a front-row seat for the fall of the new Roman Empire. No, I’m not talking about the result of the U.S. presidential election. I’m talking about my position in the theater at Gladiator II’s Asian premiere, which served as the centerpiece screening of this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. Before the lights went down, Denzel Washington, returning cast…
The 105 links in this post represent six years’ worth of freelance writing from a cinephile and Japanophile’s perspective. Here, you’ll find Japan-related film analysis and film-related travel writing that I’ve done for /Film, Inverse, Dread Central, Explore, and GaijinPot, including my Lost in Translation and Anthony Bourdain sightseeing guides, which respectively ranked as the #1 and #7…
For six years, /Film was my home for film and television criticism. From June 2017 to June 2021, I contributed to the site on a freelance, article-by-article basis. From July 2021 to July 2023, I maintained an hourly News Writer position. More recently, I’ve branched out and contributed to Inverse and Dread Central. Pull-quotes from my movie and TV reviews have appeared on Rotten Tomatoes and…
As I post this, news of the massive earthquake on the opposite coast of Honshu in Ishikawa Prefecture is still unfolding live. The bulk of this was written before today, but we’ve heard the tsunami warnings and seen the ongoing TV footage of buildings burning and road damage caused by the quake. It’s not a very auspicious start to the New Year for that side of Japan. My heart goes out to anyone…
Usually, Tokyo’s Rainbow Bridge is illuminated white at night, which may be disappointing for some visitors who have seen dynamic photos of it lit up in actual rainbow colors. According to Japan Airlines, the bridge’s real name is “Tokyo Bay Connector Bridge,” but that was news to me when I first heard it, and I’ve never heard anyone call it that. In years past, the Rainbow Bridge did sometimes…
In Oppenheimer, the pen is mightier than the bomb, even in the context of a three-hour biopic about the bomb’s father. Christopher Nolan’s summer movie adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, is finally available to rent in the U.S. as of this week. Yet the movie’s single most effective scene, emotionally if not…
A new Michelin Guide for Tokyo in 2024 dropped last week, just in time for me to wrap things up here with “The Michelin Files.” This will be my last installment for the time being, but it’s focused on two of my favorite Japanese foods, yakitori and curry. Due to its proximity to a certain yakitori restaurant, I’ll also circle back to where I started with this series — sushi — and talk about one…
To see the fall colors in Tokyo this year, I wanted to do something a little different. Despite its suggestive name, Shinjuku Gyoen’s “Naked Autumn Night Garden” involved no nudity, but rather, light displays from the digital art collective Naked Inc. I caught the event on November 30 before it ended last night. Since it didn’t start until 6 p.m., it gave me time to head down the Oedo Line to…
Yesterday, while people in the U.S. were eating turkey and giving thanks, I took a trip to Tocho, a.k.a. the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, to get a vaccine booster. It was my first time doing that at Tocho, which has a couple of free observatories up in its twin towers. I had been to both observatories several times already, and I was surprised when they ushered me onto the elevator to…
Every year, the 50 Top Pizza World list recognizes the best Neapolitan-style pizza inside and outside Italy. Though a pizzeria in Naples naturally tops the 2023 list, there are also a couple of Tokyo restaurants on there — one of which, The Pizza Bar on 38th, climbed the rankings from #16 to #4 this year. Located on the top floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Nihonbashi, The Pizza Bar on 38th…
Unlike other hotels at Tokyo Disney Resort, which have lobbies and restaurants that the general public can access, the new Toy Story Hotel is only open to guests with a room reservation. Its entrance is blocked off by a parking garage (the “RC Racer Garage”), so you can’t even really see the front of the hotel from the sidewalk. The only real photo op for non-guests is the sign out front, which is…
Until this month, I had never been somewhere with a good elevated view of the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace . The 35th floor of the Marunouchi Building does yield this view , but what you’re seeing there is more the edge of the palace grounds and Kokyo Gaien National Garden. For its part, Tokyo Midtown Hibiya also rises 35 floors above ground, but most visitors will only ever see the…
Halloween is over, but if you’re a cinephile (or dark tourist?) looking to see the house from The Amityville Horror in real life, there are three choices. All of them come with a dose of mundane reality. I spend a lot of time searching for information on travel locations online, and I’ll often come across a listicle or some other form of clickbait content peddling outdated info. Sometimes, they…
In the wake of last October’s fatal crowd crush in Seoul, South Korea, city officials in Shibuya, Tokyo , have let it be known this year that the Halloween street party is over. In years past, the area around Shibuya Crossing would overflow with a crowd so thick that it could leave you shoulder-to-shoulder with costumed people, swaying back and forth as if in a game of tug-of-war. That’s what…
Tokyo has more Michelin-starred restaurants than any other city in the world. The current count is 200, and when you factor in other Bib Gourmand, or value-type, restaurants, that brings the total number with Michelin recognition up to 422. No wonder Anthony Bourdain once said, “If I had to eat only in one city for the rest of my life, Tokyo would be it.” As its name implies, “The Michelin Files”…