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The latest issue of TEMPURA takes you straight into the beating heart of the 1990s—a turbulent, trailblazing decade that pushed Japan firmly onto the global stage. Fashion, design, aesthetics, electronics, pop culture… the ’90s didn’t just leave their mark; they sparked a full-on revival that still resonates today.
But how did this decade become so influential at the very moment Japan was sliding into an unprecedented economic slump? After the country’s own “thirty glorious years” of free-flowing consumerism, were the ’90s the end of an era, or the beginning of something entirely new? Dive into our vibrant, nostalgia-soaked 196-page special to find out.
Inside this issue:
🗼 Tokyo, 1990. What did it really feel like? Japanese men and women look back on a city buzzing with possibility.
💼 Grey suits, tired faces, quick steps through Shinjuku Station… As the bubble bursts, is the era of the iconic salaryman coming to a close?
🎥 Stéphane du Mesnildot revisits the cinema of the ’90s—a decade shaped by shifting values and the search for identity.
🖼️ Can art save Japan? Michael Ferrier reflects on a period marked by crisis and catastrophe, from the Kobe earthquake to the Tokyo subway sarin attack.
✍️ Writer Ryoko Sekiguchi, who spent the ’90s in France, shares how those years seeped into and shaped her literature.
🪩 Cult author Jake Adelstein uncovers the rise of Japan’s disco king—and what happens behind the scenes when the music stops.
🚓 A rare, in-depth conversation with Natsuo Kirino, Japan’s leading crime novelist, as she probes the darker corners of the national psyche.
🇮🇳 Our reporter meets the Indian communities of East Tokyo—early signs of a more open, multiethnic Japan pushing forward against all odds.
🤼 Are university sports clubs still a boys’ world? We step inside elite locker rooms, where hazing rituals and toxic masculinity continue to cast a long shadow.
🚒 In old Edo, fires were constant—and the city survived thanks to its everyday heroes: the firefighters. Meet the modern heirs of this fierce, proud tradition.
🚞 Plus: a journey to the mountains of Nasu, home to steaming hot springs, centuries-old ryokan, and sacred peaks.
And plenty more surprises.