PingMag interviews artist/designer Sven Ingmar Thies about his book Japanese Rooms, which I mentioned a while back.

Dezeen covers the Kuro house in the city of Fukui, by architects Takuya Hosokai and Hiromasa Mori.

Ping Tentacle reports on the Astro Boy pictured above, made up of 138,000 recycled subway tickets, on display at the Shinjuku Takashimaya department store.

Dezeen posts a few images of the Phillip Lim boutique in Aoyama, designed by Jamo Associates.

As I was walking down Azuma street in Ikebukuro yesterday, near my place, I saw this poster inside a moving truck.

Tokyo-based Item Idem contribute three pieces to the latest issue of great indie mag 032c. You’ll find a little preview here.

The Art Space Tokyo site has put up another one of their art maps, this time for the Ghibli Museum and surrounding area (Kichijoji). It’s available as a downloadable PDF.

A lot of you probably remember Matt Alt — I already pointed you to the superfun book he wrote last year with his wife, Hiroko Yoda: Hello, Please! Very Helpful Super Kawaii Characters from Japan. Matt has teamed up with Hiroko again for a book that has just come out from Kodansha International. Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide offers up a tour of Japan’s mythic and legendary monsters.

I love this book. I mean, just take a look at the page above, which gives you a good idea of what to expect. Manga creator Tatsuya Morino illustrated the entire thing, and his style seems perfect for the subject matter. The book’s art director, Andrew Lee, deserves some props too for his amazing work, and since he’s also art directing the book I’ve been working on, you can see why I’m so happy.

Yokai Attack! is out now in Japan, and should be available in most books stores — it’s on Amazon Japan too, which of course offers international shipping options. The book comes out in North American and Europe in the fall, just in time for Halloween. Matt offers up more info about the book in this post on his blog.

OK Fred is having its second “Gorilla Store” temporary shop at OK Fred HQ, this time with goods from Assistant and PMKFA on sale. The shop is open from 14:00 to 19:00. The photos are from a preview I attended Friday night.

Dezeen posts a few photos of the TOO49 housing complex, from architects 16A. The complex is located near Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

Curtis Christophersen has a rather nice photoset of the Fukutoshin line under construction, but over and underground. For more info on the new line, see my previous post.

My weekly Tokyo for MoCo Loco is up, this time covering the “Interior Lifestyle” show (at Tokyo Big Sight until today), Takafumi Nemoto‘s Lessev, and the Plusminuszero Umbrella.

PingMag offers up a tour of LED signage in Tokyo.

Neojaponisme posts an interview with New York-based artist and curator Hanna Fushihara Aron.

Max writes a rather interesting post on the “extreme” moderation he’s encountered in the comment threads of Japan Today. Max had one of his photos featured on the site this week, and was told that he must stop commenting in that very thread.