Bugs are popular pets in Japan, buzzing with lessons about ecology and species
By Yuri Kageyama
The pet of choice in Japan, as much as cuddly kitties and playful puppies, is the humble bug.
The bug has been a key part of Japanese culture from the Heian era classic 'The Tale of Genji' to popular modern-day manga and animation like 'Mushishi,' featuring insect-like supernatural creatures.
Japanese people appreciate the glitter of fireflies let loose in the garden or the gentle chirping of crickets kept in a little cage. You can feed the bug pets watermelon, but special jelly pet food for bugs is also available at stores. Naturally, bugs are on sale as well, with the more esoteric ones selling for 20,000 yen.
Here, crawly and buzzing critters are not just relegated to the scientific realm of the entomologist working on a taxidermy of pinned butterflies. Celebrities boast about their fascination with bug-hunting as their hobbies just like a western movie star might talk about his yacht or golf score.
The bug as companion is an essential part of what's observed, enjoyed and cared for in everyday life, reflecting a deeply rooted celebration of humankind's oneness with nature.
'They are so tiny. If you catch and study them, you're sure to discover something new,' says Munetoshi Maruyama, professor of bioenvironmental sciences at Kyushu University, whose fascination with bugs began as a child, like many Japanese.
'They are so beautiful in shape and form.'
One thrill that comes from studying insects is discovering a new species, simply because there are more than 1.2 million known kinds of insects, far more than mammals, which translates to a lot of undiscovered ones, said Maruyama, who has discovered 250 new insect species himself and shrugs that off as a relatively small number.
Japan differs from much of the West in encouraging interaction with bugs from childhood, with lots of books written for children, as well as classes and tours.
'In Japan, kids love bugs. You can even buy a net at a convenience store,' he said. 'It's fantastic that bugs can serve as a doorway to science.'
The fact some insects go through metamorphoses, transforming from a larva to a butterfly, for instance, adds to the excitement, allowing kids to observe the stages of a life span, Maruyama said.
Tracing the movement of bugs can be a way to study global warming, too, while so-called 'social insects,' like bees and ants show intelligence in how they communicate, remember routes to find their way back to their nests or burrow elaborate underground paths as colonies.
Because bugs carry out important functions in the ecosystem, such as pollinating crops and becoming food for birds and other wildlife, human life isn't ultimately sustainable if all bugs were to disappear from earth.
Children look at beetles at an exhibition devoted to insects in Tokyo on July 31.
Image: AP/Yuri Kageyama
The love affair with bugs was clear at an exhibit in Tokyo, aptly called 'The Great Insect Exhibition,' running through the end of this month at the Sky Tree Tower, where crowds of children gathered around trees inside indoor cages so they could observe and touch the various beetles.
One kind of rhinoceros beetle known as Hercules, which originated in the Caribbean but is now also found in Japan, is reputed to be the biggest beetle on record, although it's just several inches in length. Its back coat is a shiny khaki color, though such shades change depending on the season. The other parts, like its horn and delicate but spiky legs, are dark.
'We want the kids to feel the emotions and joy of actually touching the insects here. That's really positive for the workings of a child's brain,' said Toyoji Suzuki, one of the event's organizers, who insisted everyone, including adults, touch the bottom of the beetles' horns and wings to feel how surprisingly soft and fluffy they are.
Four-year-old Asahi Yamauchi, who was at the exhibit with his grandmother and getting his photo taken inside a special installation that made it look like he was inside a beetle, loves bugs as much as he loves dinosaurs and has what he called a cute beetle as a pet at home.
'My friend had one so I wanted one,' he said.
© 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
a minute ago
- Japan Today
4 arrests after home reportedly owned by Brad Pitt was ransacked by burglars, police say
FILE - Brad Pitt poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'F1 The Movie' on Monday, June 23, 2025, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, file) Four people have been arrested in connection with a burglary earlier this summer at a Los Angeles home reportedly owned by actor Brad Pitt, police said Tuesday. Officers responded June 25 to a break-in at the house in LA's Los Feliz neighborhood. Police said at the time that suspects broke in through the front window, ransacked the home and fled with miscellaneous property. Detectives have made four arrests, Officer Drake Madison said Tuesday. He said the suspects' names could be released later in the day. Officials could not identify who owned or lived in the home, and no information was available on what was stolen. Pitt reportedly bought the property for $5.5 million in April 2023, according to Traded, a commercial real estate website. A representative for Pitt declined to comment Tuesday. Pitt had been out of the country in June on a globe-spanning promotional tour for his new movie, 'F1.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
a minute ago
- Japan Today
Taylor Swift announces 12th studio album, 'The Life of a Showgirl'
FILE - Taylor Swift performs at Wembley Stadium as part of her Eras Tour June 21, 2024, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File) By MARIA SHERMAN Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album, 'The Life of a Showgirl.' Swift announced the album on her website shortly after a countdown timer expired at 12:12 a.m. Tuesday. No release date was announced, but her site said vinyl editions of the album would ship before Oct. 13. Fans have long theorized that Swift's 12th album would soon arrive. On Monday, Taylor Nation — an official branch of the pop superstar's marketing team — posted a TikTok slide show of 12 images with the caption 'Thinking about when she said 'See you next era…'' Swift is seen wearing orange in every image. A special limited vinyl edition of the album will be released in 'Portofino orange glitter," according to a pre-order page on her site. A special cassette edition is also available for pre-order. Sensing a pattern, eagle-eyed fans noticed that 12 minutes earlier, the popular 'New Heights' podcast posted a tease for Wednesday. The show, hosted by Swift's boyfriend and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce alongside his brother, former Eagles center Jason Kelce, posted an orange image on social media with a mysterious silhouette, many believing to be Swift. The podcast announced early Tuesday that Swift would would appear on 'New Heights' and a teaser video posted about her appearance showed her pulling the album from a briefcase. The actual album artwork, just as it is on her website, is blurred. 'The Life of a Showgirl' follows last year's 'The Tortured Poets Department,' announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her record-breaking tour, which raked in over $2.2 billion across two years and five continents, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time. The album is also her first release since Swift regained control over her entire body of work. In May, that pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount. In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music. The project was instigated by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun's purchase and sale of her early catalog and represents Swift's effort to control her own songs and how they're used. Previous 'Taylor's Version' releases have been more than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new 'from the vault' music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work. So far, there have been four rerecorded albums, beginning with 'Fearless (Taylor's Version)' and 'Red (Taylor's Version)' in 2021. All four have been massive commercial and cultural successes, each one debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Swift's last rerecording, '1989 (Taylor's Version),' arrived in October 2023, just four months after the release of 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version).' That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman with the most No. 1 albums in history. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
an hour ago
- Japan Today
Kinky knots: Japanese bondage becomes art
"Sen" (L) winds rope on a model during a test to become a "shibari" instructor, at the Tokyo studio of Hajime Kinoko, one of Japan's best-known rope artists By Caroline GARDIN In Tokyo, a man watches a woman slowly bind another with ropes attached to chains hanging from the ceiling. But this is no S&M bar, it's a workshop led by shibari master Hajime Kinoko. Kinoko teaches the knot-tying techniques of Japanese bondage, untangling the practice from its associations with kink and emphasizing instead art and aesthetics. "I see attaching not only people, but also objects or spaces... as a form of painting on canvas," the 48-year-old told AFP at his studio in central Tokyo. "It's simply another type of expression." Kinoko discovered shibari -- the art of ropes -- in the 2000s while managing an S&M joint in Roppongi, an area of Tokyo known for its nightclubs and bars. "I wasn't particularly drawn to fetishism at first," he said. "At the time, the focus of BDSM was often on the dirty or degrading side, but I didn't see that part of it as necessary." Kinoko learned how to tie a woman's body by watching others before establishing his own style "based on beauty". He started staging performances with a more artistic perspective, and attracted a growing audience. "My goal is not to hurt ... I don't place myself in a hierarchical relationship," he said. Criminal beginnings The roots of shibari date back to the Edo period (1603-1868) when feudal lords used hojojutsu to tie up criminals. The practice took an erotic turn in the 20th century through Ito Seiu's illustrations and books by Dan Oniroku, many of which became -- like "Double Rope Torture" (1985) -- pornographic movies. Another word for this in Japanese is kinbaku but this "refers to precise and restrictive techniques, such as wrists tied behind the back", Kinoko explained. "Shibari is a broader, freer term. There is no single definition," he said. The artist enjoys marrying the traditional heritage with an avant-garde approach and employing it in novel settings. In Tokyo's Shibuya district, he enveloped an egg-shaped house called the "Natural Eclipse" in blue rope like a spider's web, transforming it into a living sculpture. "It was the missing piece," the owner of the building, who agreed to the project after seeing another of Kinoko's works, told AFP. "Today, passersby stop to photograph it. It has become a place of interaction," he told AFP, declining to give his name. Kinoko installed large cubes of red rope on top of a Tokyo shopping mall and erected a "shibari sanctuary" at the Burning Man festival in the United States in 2017. "Why not stretch networks of ropes around the Eiffel Tower?" he said with a smile. Create connections Kinoko began offering workshops in London 20 years ago, before inviting fellow Japanese shibari masters to introduce their art to the European public. "Shibari then spread very quickly," he says. But international success has not been without risk. "When I saw people tying without knowing what they were doing, I realized it was necessary to teach. Shibari can be dangerous," he said. Reputed to be a hard taskmaster, he founded his own shibari school, Ichinawakai, where he trains a new generation of students, around 40 percent of them women. One of them, Sen, travelled from France to learn the techniques. "I discovered him in Paris during a performance... He has freed himself from the original dynamics," the 25-year-old told AFP. Kinoko offers "certification", although this is not an official license. Students must pass a 10-stage course, master a variety of knots and guarantee the safety of those they are tying up. "You have to know how to communicate, make things beautiful and not hurt. That's what I try to convey. I feel responsible," Kinoko said. "I want shibari to transform society," he said. "Because, deep down, shibari is a way to create connections." © 2025 AFP
