NHK reported that the culture ministers from Japan, South Korea, and China met in person for the first time in four years in Jeonju, South Korea, today and agreed to strengthen cultural exchanges among youth and cooperate in developing tourism content utilizing the arts. The network said the meeting was attended by Culture Minister Nagaoka and her Chinese and South….Read more

NOBUYUKI GOHARA, Nikkei staff writer   TOKYO — Tokyo National Museum’s Toyokan (Asian Gallery) has a section dedicated to cultural properties from the Korean Peninsula, including an extensive collection of ceramics, ancient ornaments and accessories neatly exhibited on display shelves.   The Ogura Collection of the Toyokan Room 10 embodies the rich tradition of Japanese archaeological research and the history….Read more

Artificial intelligence (AI) can now be used to generate content including images, text and audio, and those in the arts and culture sector are becoming increasingly worried that it poses a threat to their creative work.   The main concern is copyright infringement. To generate images and text, the machine learning process needs a very large data set to train….Read more

Producers of Japanese anime and manga are seeing more of their work being copied illegally. Operators of piracy sites have been moving out of the country to try to evade the law. Now authorities in Brazil have joined the fight against piracy by taking such sites down.   NHK has learned Brazilian officials conducted raids in February based on information….Read more

The Cultural Affairs Agency has relocated to Kyoto City. The question is whether the agency will be able to take advantage of Kyoto’s name recognition to strengthen its ability to disseminate information and enhance its functions, without reducing the efficiency of its operations.   Commissioner Shunichi Tokura and his team began work at the agency building near the Kyoto Imperial….Read more

Tokyo, Nov. 30 (Jiji Press)–An intergovernmental committee of UNESCO on Wednesday approved the inscription of Japanese “furyu-odori” ritual dances imbued with people’s hopes and prayers on the U.N. body’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.   The inscription of the 41 dances in 24 prefectures is the first addition to the list for Japan since 2020 when craftspeople’s techniques for repairing….Read more