Metropolis
Metropolis is a godsend for any foreigner living in the Tokyo/Saitama/Chiba/Yokohama areas. It is an English-language magazine that has grown from a 4-page classified ad sheet thrown into the Daily Yomiuri newspaper to a 72-page free colour magazine that covers food, design, entertainment, politics and everything ele to do with Japan.
It was created in 1994 and has recently celebrated it’s 500th issue. The usual features include a news round up – generally of the more quirky stories in Japanese news, an interview or a feature article (past interviewees include Alberto Fujimori, former president of Peru and Asashoryu, the Mongolian yokozuna, or top sumo wrestler in the sport), a roudup of the week’s upcoming events (my favourite section) and a huge classifieds section. The personal classifieds can be highly entertaining.
Metropolis can be picked up for free in various English-speaking bars, shops and even embassies around Tokyo. It can also be read in it’s entirety online.
Links:
Metropolis
An article on Metropolis’s history
Wikipedia’s article on Metropolis
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February 8th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Yeah… Metropolis, also linked to Japan-Today / crisscross… The biggest piece of japanese populist crap available on the internet, written by journalist that barely understand or speak english… Always pushing borderline racist viewpoints to the frontpage in order to generate traffic in the comment section…
nuff said…
February 8th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
I’ve heard the same being said about Metropolis before. But I’ve also heard many, many people agree with their point of view. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, I suppose. I only read it for the events calendar and for the tips about living in Japan, personally. It is free though, you can’t fault them for that.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about journalists that barely speak English though…maybe you’re only talking about the website? I haven’t encountered any poor English in the magazine.
February 9th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
The english-challenged journalists are mostly working for criss-cross (their affiliated web site).
It’s an interesting form of sado masochism. Can be summed up as “News for foreigners against the foreigners…”
Sometimes I wonder if they don’t also post racists comments themselves in the user forums. You can insult any nationality it’s ok in their book, but use the word “J@p”, like Jap-music or Jap-TV (which for me is an abbreviation, not an insult) and you are censored. The moderator are way too patronizing, you’re basically treated like a poor retard by a wonderfull japanese master.
The fact that it’s free is part of the fault, they need audience in order to catch ad-revenues, so instead of beeing journalists with integrity, they just try to go for the lowest common denominator…
The only good point with crisscross/japantoday is the fact that their news are updated on the spot.
Also, don’t link the daily Yomiuri (not yomimuri) with this crapfest. The daily Yomiury in Japan might be one of the only newspaper doing a somewhat independant and objective work.
February 10th, 2006 at 7:09 am
Cheers for pointing out the typing error. Will change that now. I mention the Yomiuri because it’s a fact that Metropolis started out as an inserted sheet in the newspaper. Are you telling me I should comprise *my* journalistic integrity now? hehehehe