Asahi Ramen coming to Brookline in mid-March, in former Oak Hill Post spot.

Photo via Brookline Today Facebook group.

Work continues on Asahi Ramen, the Japanese-style ramen place be coming to Brookline in the spot most recently occupied by Oak Hill Post (map). Ownership says they are aimning for a mid-March opening.

2025 movie Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (劇場版「鬼滅の刃」無限城編) returns to Pittsburgh, from March 6.

The 2025 movie Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle (劇場版「鬼滅の刃」無限城編), which played in Pittsburgh from September 11 through November 5, will return from March 6.

The Demon Slayer Corps plunge into Infinity Castle to defeat Muzan. However, the remaining Hashiras and the Demon Slayers who survived Tanjiro's Final Selection are pitted against the remaining members of the Twelve Kizuki first.

It will play locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark theater in Robinson, and tickets are available online.

New Chinese movie Pegasus 3 (飞驰人生3) in Pittsburgh, from February 27.

The 2026 Chinese movie Pegasus 3 (飞驰人生3) will play in Pittsburgh from February 27.

After the final stage at Bayanbulak, Zhang Chi (played by Shen Teng) is invited to compete in a brand-new event, the “Muchen 100 Rally,” as the head coach of the team. The once “wild” racer now steps onto the international stage. Facing a completely new course filled with top-tier competitors, Sun Yuqiang (played by Yin Zheng) and Ji Xing (played by Zhang Benyu) once again fight side by side with Zhang Chi. Powerful drivers such as Lin Zhendong (played by Huang Jingyu) are also invited to join, and a team built on top-level speed and shared belief is formed. However, Zhang Chi soon realizes that the true challenge does not seem to come from the race itself. Beneath the surface, tensions are rising beyond the track, casting uncertainty over their high-speed journey ahead.

It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and tickets are available online.

2024 Japanese animated movie Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Beginning of a New Era (ウマ娘 プリティーダービー 新時代の扉) in Pittsburgh, from February 26.

The 2024 Japanese animated movie Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Beginning of a New Era (ウマ娘 プリティーダービー 新時代の扉) will play in Pittsburgh from February 26.

After witnessing Fuji Kiseki win a race, young Jungle Pocket is inspired to become the fastest horse girl alive. Training alongside Fuji and her veteran trainer, Pocket's goal looks to be within reach—right up until she encounters Agnes Tachyon. In the face of Tachyon's impossible speed and polar opposite personality, beating Tachyon becomes an obsession. But all too soon, that obsession becomes a looming specter—the final barrier that stands between Pocket and her dream.

It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and AMC Westmoreland in Greensburg, and tickets are available online.

Squirrel Hill's Viet Nom Nom closing February 28.

Squirrel Hill's Viet Nom Nom will close its doors on February 28. From its Instagram story:

There's a little sadness in letting go but there's plenty of beauty in starting over. Squirrel Hill was home to 2 of my businesses the last 14 years. This community has welcomed me with open arms as I introduced Vietnamese cuisine to the neighborhood with the opening of Tan Lac Vien in 2012. It was my first dine-in restaurant where i Offered more unique and authentic dishes. I had a great run. In 2023 I decided to down size to what is currently Viet Nom Nom. It was a fun, quirky and cozy spot. I offered quick and casual dine-in where I served no fuss dishes. I will forever be grateful for the patronage and friendships that I have created here over the years. I am honored to have served the Squirrel Hill community. Life is filled with changes and I have to allow my new priorities to align with my home and work balance. A reset is deeply desired, but Please don't worry because if any of you know me, you'll know that I am a "serial entrepreneur " - to be continued...

It opened January 2023 at 1711 Murray Ave (map).

In a Bind: Bookbinding Workshop with Brent Nakamoto, March 21 at Bunker Projects.

Brent Nakamoto, curator of the Stuck in Saṃsāra< exhibition at Bunker Projects, is hosting "In a Bind: Bookbinding Workshop" on March 21.

Stop by any time during this drop-in bookbinding workshop to make and take home an exclusive chapbook featuring images and writing about the exhibition. No experience necessary. Please register so we can plan materials accordingly.

The event runs from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Registration is required. Bunker Projects is an art gallery located at 5106 Penn Ave. in Bloomfield (map).

1975's Wolf Guy (ウルフガイ 燃えろ狼男), 1968's The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (蛇娘と白髪魔) comprise Cult-O-Rama: Japan-O-Rama!, March 6 at Row House Cinema.

The Row House Cinema in Lawrenceville will host Cult-O-Rama: Japan-O-Rama! on March 6, a week before the start of its annual Pittsburgh Japanese Film Festival. Japan-O-Rama! will feature 1975's Wolf Guy (ウルフガイ 燃えろ狼男) and 1968's The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch  (蛇娘と白髪魔).

Your Cult-O-Rama hosts are priming you for the upcoming 10th Annual Japanese Film Festival with the first-ever all foreign language double feature! In the history of this program, we’ve never asked you to read; now there’s subtitles, but the same amount of wild stuff happening on the screen above it.

Wolf Guy (1975) – The legendary Sonny Chiba plays a private detective who gets mixed up in gritty city yakuza nonsense. This could be a lot more challenging if he wasn’t also the last-remaining descendant in a long line of lycanthropes who can use his paranormal powers to solve crimes and do other neat stuff (like use his mind to remove his own disembowelment). But will he be able to stop the CIA from harvesting his blood to steal his werewolf juice? You’re just gonna have to watch to find out! (Please note that Wolf Guy contains a scene of sexual assault.)

The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968) – While American audiences were distracted by Romero’s introduction of zombies and what was going on with Rosemary’s kid, Japanese horror was firing on all cylinders. One of their offerings was this weird tale of a girl who gets reunited with her family after living at an orphanage for most of her life! It sounds heartwarming, right? It could be, but her mom seems to have a bad case of the forgets and her sister seems… reptilian.

The double-feature starts at 9:00 pm and runs for 200 minutes. Tickets are available online.  The Row House Cinema is a single-screen theater located at 4115 Butler St. in Lawrenceville (map)

Toshiko Akiyoshi’s ‘Kogun’: Narrating a Lone Soldier’s Experience in Nō Jazz, February 24 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host E. Taylor Atkins and his talk "Toshiko Akiyoshi’s ‘Kogun’: Narrating a Lone Soldier’s Experience in Nō Jazz" on February 24.

In March 1974, Lt. Onoda Hiroo emerged from the jungle on the Philippine island of Lubang, where he had been hiding for almost three decades after the end of the Pacific War. He immediately became a worldwide media sensation as an exemplar of samurai-like devotion to duty. Moved by his story and the tragedy of a life wasted for a fruitless war, jazz composer Toshiko Akiyoshi dedicated a composition to him. Entitled “Kogun” (lone soldier), the piece drew on thematic and narrative elements of medieval nō theater, situated within a jazz orchestral setting, to highlight this tragedy, thereby bringing to fruition her desire to create a seamless “blend” (yūgō) of Japanese music and the jazz idiom. This presentation also blends conventional cultural historical and musical analysis to argue for the landmark status of “Kogun” within jazz history.

E. Taylor Atkins is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. His major publications include Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band’s Kogun (2024); A History of Popular Culture in Japan, From the Seventeenth Century to the Present (second edition, 2022); Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945 (2010); Jazz Planet (editor, 2003); and Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (2001), winner of the Association for Asian Studies’ John Whitney Hall Prize. He also plays bass for the Jazz in Progress Big Band and the Wild Blue Ukulele Orchestra and produces and hosts House of Funk on Hot Rocks Radio.

The talk runs from 2:00 to 3:00 pm in 4130 Posvar Hall (map).

SILENT: Asia presents 1926 Japanese silent film A Page of Madness (狂った一頁), April 14 at Pitt.

SILENT: Asia, part of the University of Pittsburgh's SCREENSHOT: ASIA film festival and programming, will present the 1926 Japanese silent film A Page of Madness (狂った一頁) on April 14. A synopsis from the Row House Cinema, where the film played in 2021:

Set within the walls of a mental asylum in Japan, the film follows the story of a janitor (Masao Inoue) who takes a job at the institution in order to be closer to his wife (Yoshie Nakagawa), a former performer who has been institutionalized after suffering a mental breakdown. As the janitor navigates the eerie corridors of the asylum, he encounters a cast of characters haunted by their own inner demons, including patients, doctors, and nurses.

It will play at 6:30 pm in Frick Fine Arts (map) and is free and open to the public.

Sushi restaurant Sokoya coming to former Patron spot in East Liberty.

A sushi restaurant called Sokoya is coming to the former Patron spot in East Liberty, located at 135 S. Highland Ave. (map). Patron closed in November 2025. Beyond new signage, no changes are expected to the exterior, but permitting paperwork is still pending for the sushi bar and other interior changes.