A literary wave from Japan washes over Britain
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Japan Times
5 days ago
- Japan Times
In Paris, chefs Chizuko Kimura and Kei Kobayashi make their mark
Japanese chefs making a name for themselves in Paris is not a new phenomenon. The city is filled with such talents plying their trade in everything from sushi bars to French fine dining. But two chefs have been in the spotlight recently after earning Michelin accolades and making history: Chizuko Kimura and Kei Kobayashi. The 55-year-old Kimura, who runs the 10-seater Sushi Shunei, is the first female sushi chef in the world to earn a Michelin star. Her achievement, which she earned in March, comes on the back of a challenging journey to maintain the legacy of her late husband, Shunei Kimura, who opened the restaurant in 2021. He earned a Michelin star after only nine months of operation but passed away from cancer in June 2022 at the age of 65. What's more impressive is Kimura had no professional training as a chef before she joined her husband at Sushi Shunei: She was working as a Tokyo-based outbound tour guide and met Shunei in 2004 in Paris, who was working as a chef in a sushi restaurant. They married in 2005 and she moved to the French capital in 2008. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Japanese tourists stopped arriving and her work dried up, prompting her to help her husband open his own restaurant. The 47-year-old Kobayashi's career, on the other hand, follows a more conventional route. The Nagano-born son of a chef moved to France at the age of 21, determined to break into the top ranks of the culinary world. After four years at the then two-Michelin-starred L'Auberge du Vieux Puits in Loire Valley, Kobayashi joined Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee, where he worked for seven years before opening his eponymous restaurant, Kei, in 2011. In 2020, Kei was awarded three Michelin stars, making Kobayashi the only Japanese chef to earn such a distinction in Paris, an achievement he has maintained till this day. The two chefs spoke to The Japan Times on their achievements, culinary styles and future ambitions. With no professional background as a chef, Chizuko Kimura of Sushi Shunei had much to prove when she took over the restaurant set up by her late husband. | ©11H45 Chizuko Kimura You didn't come from a culinary background. How did you train to be a sushi chef? When Shunei was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, he didn't tell anyone and continued to work because he didn't want people to be worried. I was helping him with some fish preparation but I didn't learn how to make sushi then, as I was hoping he could recover. But once he could not walk anymore and had to be hospitalized, it was clear that I needed to become a sushi chef to take over his role and keep the restaurant running. In the daytime (before we opened for dinner), I trained with Tomoyuki Yoshinaga of Sushi Yoshinaga, another sushi chef in Paris. In April 2023, we hired Takeshi Morooka, former sushi chef of Sushi Ginza Onodera Paris, to help me. Today we work alongside each other in front of our guests. Is it easier for a woman to be a head chef in France than Japan? Yes, if this was Japan, I don't think it would have happened. Maybe there is a 'ladies first' culture here, but French people in general tend to be nicer to women, children and the elderly. They know the sushi world is male-dominated, so when I make sushi, most people give me a positive reaction. I don't think there are any disadvantages to being a female sushi chef, although a short person like me sometimes has difficulty cutting a huge fish like tuna or salmon. I've been learning many skills from Morooka, such as cutting big fish. The 10-seater Sushi Shunei offers Michelin-starred "omakase" (chef's choice) to diners. | ©11H45 Sushi Shunei lost its Michelin star in 2023 but regained it this March. Tell us more about this journey. When we lost the star, we knew we were not ready but we didn't close the restaurant. Last year, we changed the dining counter, from white birch to traditional hinoki cypress, and also hired a sommelier to increase the variety of sake on our menu and improve the food pairings. We wanted to focus not only on the sushi but the whole dining experience. I'm sure Shunei watched us from above and was happy (at us regaining our star). Is your culinary approach any different from your late husband's? Shunei was very traditional. He didn't accept guests who were vegan or vegetarian, but I'm happy to serve such customers — I'm the one who will be making sushi for such diners throughout the course. What are your goals in the near future? To be consistent and get the star again (next year). One day, I hope to be good enough to use Shunei's knife and say to him, 'I've overtaken you.' The son of a chef, Kobayashi knew from a young age that he wanted to be one of the top culinary talents in the world. | RESTAURANT KEI Kei Kobayashi How has your culinary style evolved since you opened Kei in 2011? I received my first Michelin star in 2012, and when I couldn't get the second one, I struggled to understand why — it was the toughest period for me. I tried many culinary styles but nothing was working. So I solicited advice from someone who visits fine dining restaurants often. He told me, 'Your dishes are too complicated.' Since then, the style of my cuisine has changed: I realized the most important thing is to simply enhance the beauty of the ingredients in my own way. That being said, I don't want to categorize or describe my cuisine. I leave that to the diners who taste my food. You earned your third Michelin star in 2020. What was it like trying to maintain this level of excellence during the pandemic? Even before I got the three stars, I was planning to renovate Kei. So we closed the restaurant for more than a year to do its refurbishment while I used the time to do research and development in the kitchen. I was also thinking of ways to enhance the brand by launching different variations of it, just like how a fashion brand would have different lines. This gave me the opportunity to work with a 500-year-old wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) producer, Toraya, to open my very first restaurant in Japan, Maison Kei, in 2021 in Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture. Did you introduce any Japanese culinary techniques to your cooking? Yes — charcoal-grilling, inspired by my experience dining at kaiseki (multicourse Japanese haute cuisine) restaurants in Kyoto. I recently brought back several beautiful portable charcoal grills, which we may use for tableside service. Kobayashi's eponymous restaurant is known for its beautifully plated dishes that flaunt the nuanced textures and colors of ingredients, such as this langoustine with hibiscus flowers. | RICHARD HAUGHTON How has French fine dining evolved in Paris in recent years? Just like fashion, the trend cycle of French cuisine lasts 10 to 15 years. It is now returning to classic fare, where the sauce is ever so important. But it's not going back to the same exact place where it last left: The sauce of choice — its popularity in French cuisine — has evolved, for example, from demi-glace to fond de veau (brown stock) and now, jus. The fine dining market is also more competitive. You need to think about what diners want and not have an attitude like, "I'm the chef so you will eat what I make.' What is your ultimate culinary goal? What I would like to achieve is simple and clear: To create a dish that will be called a classic 100 years from now. It's not necessary that my name be remembered — I want to be a drop of water in the great river of classic French cuisine. What life advice do you have for the younger generation today? I feel that Japanese people are not working hard enough these days. Of course, we now live in a different era, but I want younger Japanese to be hardworking and sincere, like the generation before them. (If you work in France), then you should ask yourself, 'What is the benefit to the employer for hiring me instead of a local?' We are evaluated by the virtue of our Japanese predecessors who have worked here. Not only must we appreciate this quality, we need it for the next generation to succeed.
Japan Times
01-08-2025
- Japan Times
Voice actors push back as AI threatens dubbing industry
Boris Rehlinger may not turn heads on the streets of Paris, but his voice is instantly recognizable to millions of French filmgoers. As the French voice of Ben Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix, and even Puss in Boots, Rehlinger is a star behind the scenes — and now he is fighting to keep his craft alive in the age of AI. "I feel threatened even though my voice hasn't been replaced by AI yet," said the actor, who is part of a French initiative, TouchePasMaVF, to protect human-created dubbing from artificial intelligence. He said there was a team of professionals, including actors, translators, production directors, dialog adapters and sound engineers, to ensure audiences barely notice that the actor on screen is speaking a different language than they hear. The rise of global streaming platforms such as Netflix, which relies heavily on dubbing to make global hits such as "Squid Game" and "Lupin," has amplified demand. Consumer research firm GWI says 43% of viewers in Germany, France, Italy and Britain prefer dubbed content over subtitles. The market is expected to grow to $4.3 billion in 2025, reaching $7.6 billion by 2033, according to Business Research Insights. That growth could also amplify demand for the so-far nascent technology-based solutions, with platforms competing for subscribers and revenue, and seeking to win over advertisers from their rivals by emphasising their increasing reach. But as AI-generated voices become more sophisticated and cost-effective, voice actor industry associations across Europe are calling on the EU to tighten regulations to protect quality, jobs and artists' back catalogs from being used to create future dubbed work. "We need legislation," Rehlinger said. Just as after the car, which replaced the horse-drawn carriage, we need a highway code." A sound engineer in a dubbing studio in Munich | REUTERS Worries over technology in the movie industry and whether it will replace the work of humans are not new. AI has been a flashpoint in Hollywood since the labor unrest of 2023, which resulted in new guidelines for the use of the technology. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said this month that the company used generative AI to produce visual effects for the first time on screen in the original series "The Eternaut." It has also tested generative AI to synchronize actors' lip movements with dubbed dialogue to improve the viewing experience, according to three sources familiar with the work. These experiments rely on local voice actors to deliver the lines, rather than use AI to synthetically translate the on-screen performer's voice into another language. Such use of AI for dubbing is permitted under the new SAG-AFTRA actors' union contract, which covers voiceover dubbing from foreign languages into English. It also requires that the actor rendering the dubbing service be paid. Netflix declined to comment on its use of AI in dubbing. Intellectual property Such test runs by an industry giant will do little to allay the fears of dubbing actors. In Germany, 12 well-known voice actors went viral on TikTok in March, garnering 8.7 million views, for their campaign saying "Let's protect artistic, not artificial, intelligence". A petition from the VDS voice actors' association calling on German and EU lawmakers to push AI companies to obtain explicit consent when training the technology on artists' voices and fairly compensate them, as well as transparently label AI-generated content, gained more than 75,500 signatures. When intellectual property is no longer protected, no one will produce anything anymore "because they think 'tomorrow it will be stolen from me anyway'," said Cedric Cavatore, a VDS member who has dubbed films and video games including the PlayStation game "Final Fantasy VII Remake." VDS collaborates with United Voice Artists, a global network of over 20,000 voice actors advocating for ethical AI use and fair contracts. In the United States, Hollywood video game voice and motion capture actors this month signed a new contract with video game studios focused on AI that SAG-AFTRA said represented important progress on protections against the tech. Studios experiment Some studios are already cautiously exploring AI. Eberhard Weckerle, managing director of the Neue Tonfilm Muenchen studio, hopes AI and human dubbing can one day coexist. "The fear is that AI will be used to make something as cheap as possible and then people will say, 'Okay, I'll accept that I'll have poorer quality.' And that would actually be the worst thing that could happen to us," said the sound engineer whose studio worked on the German version of "Conclave" and is currently dubbing Guy Ritchie's new film. A synchronous speaker stands in a dubbing studio in Munich. | REUTERS Earlier this year, the German-dubbed version of streaming service Viaplay's Polish crime series "Murderesses" was removed after criticism from viewers about the monotony of its AI-generated dialog. The streamer had decided to look into alternative dubbing options due to how prohibitively expensive going through the traditional channels can be in Germany. The hybrid dubbing, created with Israeli startup DeepDub, used a mix of human and AI voices. DeepDub did not respond to an emailed request for comment. "We'll continue offering subtitles and reserve dubbing for select content," said Vanda Rapti, the executive vice president of ViaPlay Group, ViaPlay Select & Content distribution. Despite the disquiet over that series, other potential viewers seem more sanguine. According to GWI, nearly half of viewers said their opinion would not change if they learned that the content they liked was generated by AI. Some 25% said they would like it slightly less, and only 3% said they would like it much more. 'Interest is huge' Stefan Sporn, CEO of Audio Innovation Lab, which used AI to dub the Cannes Film Festival entry "Black Dog" from Chinese to German, believes AI will reshape, but not replace, voice work. Humans will always be needed for emotion, scripting, and language nuance, he said, "just not to the same extent". Audio Innovation Lab's technology alters the original actor's voice to match the target language, aiming for authenticity and efficiency. "Interest is huge," said Sporn, adding that producers, studios and advertisers all want to know how well it works. Another startup, Flawless AI, bills itself as an ethical AI company that works with local voice actors and uses its technology to match the on-screen actor's lip movements to the different languages. "When AI technologies are used in the right way, they are a silver bullet to change how we can film-make in a new way," co-CEO Scott Mann said.
Japan Today
24-07-2025
- Japan Today
Wax lyrical: Taylor Swift gets lucky 13 Madame Tussauds statues
The museum said the 13 statues were to honour Taylor's lucky number US pop megastar Taylor Swift will be honoured with 13 waxworks of her at Madame Tussauds venues around the globe, the museum said on Wednesday. In honour of Swift's lucky number, 13 of the waxwork museum's 22 branches will each receive a statue of the "Love Story" and "Blank Space" singer, in what it called the "most ambitious project" of its 250-year history. The statues were inspired by some of the 35-year-old songwriting sensation's looks from her record-shattering "Eras Tour" from 2023 to 2024. With 149 shows across the world over nearly two years, the tour raked in $2 billion, making it the most lucrative in music history to date. More than 40 artists worked for more than a year on the statues of Swift, one of the most acclaimed artists of her generation with 14 Grammy Awards. "This is the most ambitious project in Madame Tussauds' 250-year history, which only feels right to reflect the stratospheric status of Taylor Swift," said Danielle Cullen, the museum's senior figure stylist. UK-based Swifties are well served, with one waxwork slated for London and another for the northern seaside resort town of Blackpool. Another 10 will find a permanent home at the branches of Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Nashville, New York, Orlando and Sydney. The thirteenth statue, which will travel around the remaining museums, will begin its worldwide walkabout with a residency at Madame Tussauds Shanghai. © 2025 AFP
