Of Rice and Zen proudly present our first video feature, in which the crew travel from our home in Kyoto to far-away Mitaka in Tokyo in search of the Ghibli Museum. Click on the video below to see how the otaku pilgrimage went down.

Pocky are something of a national institution in Japan, although quite why is perhaps more of a mystery. It is the snack of choice for the student doing homework in bedrooms and cafes across Japan. Of Rice and Zen would stick our necks out and say that never have we seen a snack referenced so frequently in Japanese pop-culture. So why the fondness for the little sticks? Let's investigate. First, let's get the obvious out of the way and say that like most highly selling snacks, Pocky are comprised of a lot of air. Thin sticks of biscuit are dipped at one end in chocolate or any assortment of seasonal coatings. The porous insides are certainly airy and would no doubt appeal to Oscar Wilde who believed that the ultimate pleasure left one entirely unsatisfied. When originally released in Japan Pocky were an instant hit, bringing in 30 billion yen in their first two years on conbini shelves. Perhaps the closest analogy for an English reader would be a longer, thinner pre-dipped version choc-dip. On one hand they lack the risk factor involved with mismanaging your chocolate to bread-stick ratio. On the other hand they make up for it in tidiness and ...

Ace cafe is situated on the 10th floor of the Empire Building in Sanjo. The prices are slightly more than you'd expect from a Kyoto cafe, but is there anything about it that justifies the haughty price tags? In these tough financial times Of Rice and Zen puts its wallet in harm's way to investigate. Walk out of Sanjo subway station via exit 6 and cross the late bridge to your left. Take a little glance at your old friend the Kamo River and breathe deep the cool and refreshing air as you pass over. If it's a warmer evening enjoy a glimpse of the high-spirited revellers drinking by the riverside or perhaps taking a dip while fire jugglers and buskers entertain those with fewer sheets to the wind. Once over the bridge take the first right down Kiyamachi until to see the Ace Cafe sign on a building to your starboard side (that's "right" to ye landlubbers). Like most of Kyoto's places of play, Ace Cafe is all but Invisible from the outside, it's position given away by a simple logo listed next to a nondescript elevator. You pass by an infinity of these in Sanjo, but this is one Ace ...

Shogun's Lookout (Shogun-zuka) is a point on a mountain over Kyoto. Legend has it that the first emperor in Kyoto, Emperor Kammu, buried a statue of a general here in order to protect the city. More importantly though, if Japan was a 1950s American teen-comedy Shogun's lookout could quite easily have been called "Get It On Point" famed, as it is, for being one of the most romantic views in Kyoto. It is also the gravesite of Sakanoue no Tamuramaro (坂上田村麻呂 758 - 811) who was a general and shogun of the early Heian Period of Japan. He was the son of Sakanoue no Karitamaro. Given the number of times Kyoto was ravaged by civil war and it's most famous buildings were raized to the ground, it was also no doubt a great spot from which to watch the pyrotechnics unfold. It's also safe to say that burying statues about the place is no replacement for basic fire safety precautions. Nowadays, however, it is far more often used for more amorous purposes. If one is lucky enough to be in possession of a car, or acquainted with a friend who is, Shogun's Lookout is a beautiful, peaceful spot with a must-see ...

History nibblet: Kyoto expats with a strong dislike for crowds, aside from living in the wrong country, may wish to avoid Fushimi Inari Taisha over the course of New Year. In 2006 the shrine attracted 2.69 million people over 3 days, setting a record for western Japan. It is no coincidence that Memoirs of a Geisha (known as Sayuri in Japan) was made in 2005. Also known as "the one with all the gates" or "the one in Memoirs of a Geisha", Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) is a photographer's wet-dream and looks good in every season and a variety of lighting conditions. Which presumably is why Hollywood decided to rebuild the shrine on a sound stage rather than use the real thing in the aforementioned movie. But hey, why use the real shrine if you can't even be bothered to use real Japanese people? History nibblet: Kiyoshi Nozaki's 1786 book Kitsune: Japan's Fox of Mystery, Romance and Humor claims the shrine's two-storey entry gate was built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Fushimi Inari Taisha is the head shrine of the Inari area and sits at the base of a mountain called Inari. The head monk is also called Geoff Inari. Ok, that last bit's not ...

Yasaka-jinja holds a special place in the hearts of the Of Rice and Zen team. It's situated at the east end of Shijo-dori. For residents of Kyoto, like the Of Rice and Zen team, Yasaka-shrine is a central hub all year round. It's a convenient and well-known landmark with which to orient and direct newcomers. Yasaka-jinja is also a huge spot for both new year and the hanami season in April. But why does it deserve a visit?For trivia fans or for readers of our trusty editor's prior website The Memoirs of a Gaijin, you may remember that Yasaka-jinja was the first shrine he visited upon his arrival in Japan and so much did he feel he'd arrived at his spiritual home he was actually moved to tears by one of Yasaka's simple bamboo water spouts and its purification basin. What a big girl. It's a place we pass on our way to a Shijo Starbucks or our favourite ramen joint. It's a place to come for great photographs all year round. It's a place you bring friends and family when they visit from home. It's the jumping off point for exploring Kyoto. It has a strange ubiquity and visible presence. ...

Kiyomizudera (Pure Water Temple) is a heavyweight among Kyoto buildings and a contender for the best view in Kyoto. You may think you've never seen it before but the Of Rice and Zen team would like to assure you that if you've ever a photobook of Japan, it's almost inevitable that you've seen a photo of Kiyomizu's famous stage. You'll probably recognise it when you get here. So for the trivia fans it's a Tendai Buddhist temple in Eastern Kyoto and it's full name is Otowa-san Kiyomizu-dera. For the accolade fans the temple is part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto Uji and Otsu Cities) UNESCO World Heritage site. For the architecture fans, you'll be brought to a proud twitching stand to hear that not one nail is used in the whole temple. For the history buffs among you, take a seat before you read that the temple dates back to 798 and that the present buildings were constructed in 1633. If you're not into numbers, nails or any of the above let use try to convey to you what a visit to the temple will feel like for the average visitor. Imagine the Kyoto of your imagination. The majestic ...

Capcom art has a special place in the collective heart of Of Rice and Zen Magazine. We can't review this art-book dispassionately and we're fine with that. We hope you are too. The Of Rice and Zen staff fondly remember summer holidays when frollicking in fields, camping and catching bugs was something children in movies could do. We on the other hand had a London Borough, a corner shop and a chippy (fish and chip shop to non-Poms). The best thing about the corner shop was the Bubble Bobble arcade game. That was until Street Fighter 2 came along and kick-started a new era of gaming. It was deep, strategic and and had more buttons than any other game at the time. It was like high-speed chess. These things are all well and good, but when you're a kid what you're really attracted by is the dazzle. The bright lights, the technicolour. The striking anime design. Before the world went 3D it wasn't the polygon count that caught the eye, it was the character design. And the artist was key. In the 8 bit days we went by the packaging to know what the character in the game was supposed to look like. ...

Ghibli are a small studio who undertake a feature length every project every couple of years. Big boss and genius behind the operation, Miyazaki Hayao knows that each production could be their last if it doesn't strike gold. Luckily for them Ghibli movies usually do. Ghibli is reknowned for working in a fairly old fashioned way. The artists still place a great emphasis on character development and they painstakingly hand-painted every frame of their latest masterwork 崖の上のポニヨ (gake no ue no ponyo - "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea"). A Ghibli movie's animation is of incredibly high quality from the first moment to the last. None of the static frames and camera pans that pass for animation in its cheaper and tackier TV brethren here. Ghibli avoid tendency to animate only an unrealistically flapping mouth while the rest of the character remains conspicuously motionless. Ghibli's characters puff and breath, they blow in the breeze and their hair isn't molded in concrete. We live in an age where magic is in short supply and the production of creative content is considered a chore that is outsourced to the third world. In this context Ghibli are playing by their own rules. They are resisting ...

This new guidebook from JTB publishing has two distinctive features which may just put it at the top of your shopping list if you're living in Japan. Kyoto: The Greatest Travel Tips is a well designed new guidebook covering Of Rice and Zen's favourite city and indeed hometown. Kyoto is a dense city and one best traversed with a guidebook or local. Kyoto: The Greatest Travel Tips features great photography, maps, illustrations and sections on sightseeing, eating, shopping, culture, lodging, transport and local customs. So far so standard you're probably thinking. Well there are two things that make this book stand above the rest as far as Of Rice and Zen is concerned. Firstly, the book is entirely bilingual, so all location profiles are written in English and Japanese. Not only does that make it very useful for finding your way around Kyoto, but it also makes for a fantastic way to study Japanese. Study is always most successful if it immediately addresses a real-world need and in this case you can sightsee while you learn. The second, and far more important, feature of the book is that it features a double page photo spread Of Rice and Zen editor Andy Heather. The ...

If you've ever taken a look at models in Japan, you'll have noticed that they are extremely ornate and are treated almost like an artform. The only way to improve upon these incredibly beautiful and eyecatching creations is to throw in the added appeal of our generation's second favourite trilogy, good old speed archaeologist, Nazi scourge and serial truck-jacker Indiana Jones. These models are of Indy and his father Henry Jones and are produced by Pansonworks, who first shot to fame for producing a range of nendoroid style Street Fighter 2 figures. Although plenty of complaints were voiced about Chun-li's Popeye-esque proportions, the collection sold like wildfire and Pansonworks has not found itself out of work since. The fine specimen on display in these photos was found in a Warner MyCal cinema in an Indy goodies section that had the Of Rice and Zen team drooling an unabashedly childish stream of liquid Lucas love-drool and sent us wheeling into a wallet bruisingly unrestrained spitplod shopping daze. Although these figures are available online to Japanese quite readily and American buyers on the IndianaJones.com official homepage, English readers may find them slightly harder to come by. The design is what used to be called "Super ...

When the name Katsuhiro Otomo crops up, fond memories of The West™'s first anime breakthrough hit Akira come flooding back like repressed psychic powers. His characters designs, through Domu, to Akira and continuing into the 3D generation with Steamboy are distinctive and easily recognisable. In Japan Freedom is hugely famous and bears his signature character designs, but is that where the similarity ends? Although it was actually directed by Shuhei Morita, Otomo is the big swinging paintbrush in the anime world having proved his mettle (and bankability) with the aforementioned epics and his is the name most people associate with Freedom. He even turned his hand to live-action directing in Japan when he adapted Mushishi, a truly visionary series and one of Japan's favourite anime that frequently appears in "best ever" anime countdowns. If his name appears on a franchise, it's going to get noticed. By asking Otomo to design the characters for Freedom, Nissin Cup Noodle (the original Japanese Pot Noodle) got a large dose of his magic without having to pay him to direct the series. It was an inspired marketing move. But therein lies the problem, modern anime aren't just TV shows or movies anymore. They are increasingly becoming ...

Mamoru Oshii is best known as the brains behind international anime movie smash hit Ghost in the Shell its spin-off TV series' and its visually spectacular sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Although still better known abroad than it is in Japan, there's still a lot of pressure on Oshi to pull something magic out of the bag to prove there's life beyond the Major's leotard. Based on Hiroshi Mori's novel of the same name, The Sky Crawlers (スカイクローラー) is making a splash at the Venice Film Festival where it has garnered a great deal of attention and will compete for the Golden Lion award. The reasons for this go further than the fact Oshii deliberately pushed the movie to European critics and hoped for it to be taken seriously as a work of art. The movie itself is largely Western in set design and plays out with Bergman-esque European art film sensibilities. The dialogue is sparse to the point of discomfort and a constant howling wind adds to the existentialist angst. One would imagine that if Mamoru was to read Jean-Paul Sartre and accounts of the battle of Britain for a straight year, The Sky Crawlers is exactly the ...

Miyazaki Hayao is a visionary filmmaker whose movies are filled with enough imagination, child-like innocence and heart to almost balance out the overwhelming excess of cynical and unoriginal tat being churned out by the movie and anime culture industry. On paper, his latest effort sounds like a disaster, but what is it like on the big screen? Well, allow Of Rice and Zen to skip the foreplay and ruin the ending for you. Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (崖の上のポニョ)is incredible. Brilliant. Spectacularly successful and a more than worthy addition to Miyazaki's growing cannon of fried gold classics. If viewers go into this movie expecting Mononoke Hime or Gundam they will be disappointed. But those who are able to go in with an open mind and allow Miyazaki to usher them gently into his lyrical and beautiful worlds will find a movie that succeeds in areas that most filmmakers don't even try to. In tone Ponyo is perhaps closest to となりのトトロ (My Neighbour Totoro), which is no bad thing when you consider that this 80s classic is the closest to the heart of the majority of Japanese children and their parents. A fish that becomes a girl? Really? Sound like it ...