When a foreign-born contestant won Miss Japan last month, it sparked much wringing of hands from certain sections of the commentariat and internet, and a roughly equal amount of earnest gushing about how much Japan was changing. Karolina Shiino, who was born in Ukraine but has lived in Japan since the age of five and eventually naturalized as a Japanese citizen, was awarded the title of Miss Japan in a ceremony in January. The face of Japan was now officially a white woman. This was enough of a news story to make waves internationally. Now, as they say, the plot thickens. The 26-year-old ...

Do Japanese girls want to date Western guys? It's a question that many of our readers probably want to find out. Of course, the answer is: it depends on the girl. But such obvious points aside, what do Japanese women, especially young Japanese women, think about dating non-Japanese man, particularly from Western countries? Fortunately, instead of going out and doing a time-consuming survey ourselves, we found this nice video of street interviews from a few months ago. The interviewer, Takashii, manages to score comments from some fine-looking and very eligible ladies. We're not sure how ...