In Ichinono, a small rural village in Japan, life-sized dolls have become part of everyday life, adding a sense of activity to an otherwise quiet community. These dolls are carefully crafted by ...

A Japanese village struggling with a low population created life-sized dolls to mimic the feeling of a bustling society. The hamlet of Ichinono, which has less than 60 residents and only one child ...

As Hello Kitty's commercial success expanded beyond Asia, so did her personal profile. By the late 1970s, Sanrio revealed the ...

A village in Japan, that is home to fewer than 60 people, is overrun by life-sized puppets as residents have handcrafted stuffed mannequins to create a semblance of a bustling society. Only one ...

With most of the population gone, residents of one village in Japan have come up with a novel plan to make it less lonely — replacing people with puppets. Fewer than 60 people live in Ichinono, and ...

There is a new exhibit at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park and it’s perfect for Halloween. Momoka Nakajima, visitor engagement coordinator with the garden, has some monsters she ...

Want to learn Japanese by playing video games and watching anime? A band of YouTubers — with the help of modern tools — has made learning one of the world’s most challenging languages into a ...

Shinzen is officially a friendship garden and was built partly in dedication to Kochi, Fresno’s sister city in Japan. It recognizes “the significant role of early Japanese immigrants and ...

Hideaki Mizukoshi and his wife, Mariko, to a farewell dinner at the Plates Restaurant, Cinnamon Grand Hotel on Oct. 7. The Ambassador completes three years in Sri Lanka and will be posted as ...

And that’s just in Japan, her literal birthplace but not ... (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama) “The main theme of Hello Kitty is friendship. When I first created it, I made a family of which Kitty ...