Psychiatrist Rika Kayama is an outspoken doctor specializing in mental illness, a best-selling writer and a popular social commentator. Her latest book, “Shigamitsukanai Ikikata” (“A Way of Life in Which You Don’t Cling to Anything”), has sold 422,000 copies since it was published in ...

Bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas can be used to reduce food waste to less than 10 percent of its original mass. For making this stunning — and potentially invaluable — scientific discovery, Fumiaki Taguchi, Professor Emeritus of Kitasato University in Kanagawa ...

One of the biggest festivals for dogs in Japan will be held at Seibu Dome in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, on Nov. 14-15. Super Dogs Carnival 2009 will feature events involving dogs, dog owners and dog lovers. Last year the annual fair attracted 70,000 people ...

The China National Peking Opera Company (CNPOC) is performing “The Water Margin — The Vows of Song Jiang and the Heroes of Mount Liang Shan Po” across Japan until Dec. 10. The style of Peking opera, which is also known as Beijing opera, has ...

Halloween events are taking place in many cities in Japan. Tokyo’s Omotesando will hold a parade titled “Hello Halloween Pumpkin Parade 2009.” In the parade, 1,000 children in various costumes will march and show off their fancy outfits. Passes for joining the parade have ...

Rearing up 27 meters on Nakanoshima in the center of Osaka, the huge blue-and-white striped tent looked like a spaceship that had landed among all the concrete buildings. But the massive marquee is actually the current home of Cirque du Soleil’s “Corteo” spectacular, the ...

A countryside exhibit of more than 200 modern-art works aims to harmonize art and nature. The “Echigo-Tsumari Art Festival of the Earth” is being held in the vast Echigo-Tsumari region in Niigata Pref., until Nov. 23. Works and installations by artists from around the ...

Eight museums run by the city of Osaka are displaying exhibits related to water this week, as part of the “Museum Weeks Osaka 2009″ campaign. The city is also in the midst of “Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009,” a festival on the waterfront, and the ...

Thinking of traveling from Tokyo to Osaka? Take a shinkansen bullet train or fly and it will set you back around ¥14,000. But if you share the costs of making the trip by car, you’ll likely pay half that or less. Called “car-sharing,” the ...

Rivers, fountains, roses and art; they’re all there on Nakanoshima Island in Osaka, just a stone’s throw away but a world apart from the flashy neon and garish glitz of the city’s bustling Dotonbori dining and entertainment hub. Nestled between the Dojima and Tosabori ...

Donald Keene is one of the greatest scholars of Japanese literature and has been highly influential in the establishment of Japanese studies in the West. Now aged 87, the Professor Emeritus of Columbia University in New York has published around 25 books in English, ...