Every Japanese probably knows Godzilla, there is not only the Shōwa-Godzilla series (1954 - 1875), but also the Heisei series (1984 - 1995) and even the Millennium series (1999 - 2994). In Germany, there was a big boom of Japanese Godzilla movies in the 1960s and 70s, but today the Hollywood version is better known. In this post, our former colleague FUJINO Akiko introduces a director who loves Godzilla with all his heart.

Our colleague Dr. Phoebe Stella HOLDGRÜN asked Dr. Jan GROTHEER - a long-time cooperation partner of the JDZB - to write a contribution for this section.

This is a slighty different bridge walker article: Dr. SHINYO Takahiro, former Japanese Ambassador to Germany, has himself done a lot for German-Japanese relations. He sent us a very interesting article, which proves his profound knowledge of foreign policy.

The JDZB owns a treasure: an original work by the great painter HIGASHIYAMA Kaii, which he donated to the JDZB on the occasion of its foundation. In this article, the President of the Japanese-German Center Berlin, Ambassador (ret.) NAKANE Takeshi, introduces the great master.

UEDA Erina remembers her high school's "new principal," whom she meets again 25 years later as a "kind and strict German teacher."

Who can still remember the great Hokusai exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in 2011? Our then Deputy Secretary General Mr. SHIMIZU Yōichi and his assistant Ms. KIRIZUKI Emi had done a great job in organizing the exhibition. This article, in which Mr. SHIMIZU introduces a "unique connoisseur and advocate of Japanese art", was also written in cooperation with them.

In this article, Ms. KIYOTA Tokiko, Deputy Secretary General of the Japanese-German Center Berlin, tells how she first worked with "her role model, Mr. SIEVERNICH," who has made a great contribution to introducing Japanese culture in Berlin.

Today I would like to introduce MITANI Nobuhiro to you - a person who simply cannot go unmentioned when it comes to exchanges between young people from Japan and Germany in the capital of Berlin!

Mrs. NAGAI Junko, 87 years young, has lived in Germany for many years and has broadcast German reports to Japan mainly on radio. It is not easy to summarize her long and dramatic life in a compact article. As Ms. NAGAI likes to say, it could be a "nagai article" - nagai is a homonym of "long" in Japanese. Be that as it may, I will try anyway.

Finally to Japan! A big dream for many young adults in Germany. In addition to the Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB), the German-Japanese Youth Society (DJJG) also runs exchange programs. These are supported 100 percent voluntarily, take place annually in Germany and Japan and are aimed at 18- to 30-year-olds.