Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
The definition of “sublime” goes through a subtle overhaul in Abbas Kiarostami’s latest “Like Someone in Love,” filmed in Tokyo and featuring an all-Japanese cast. To witness the movie is to experience a massive who-would-have-thought-moment. This is Kiarostami we’re talking about: one of the ...
Watching “Safe House” reminded me of something a savvy girlfriend once said to me: “When a guy tells you that his top-secret real job is working for the CIA, get out of the relationship as fast as you can.” Not because of the obvious ...
It’s often said that the Japanese are blissfully ignorant of race issues that occur in the West while being overly (sometimes absurdly) alert to those same issues at home, even as they have no idea how to deal with them. With this in mind, ...
The Grey” could be a welcome sight for those of us panting in summer’s dog days of heat and humidity: miles of ice and snow stretching way into a horizon that merges with a forbidding, indeterminate sky. But in the next second, you realize ...
Dogtooth” shows the kind of stark, nightmarish images that assail the senses during a fretful summer nap, when the body soaks the sheets and you’re disoriented for a while afterward. What just happened here? It’s not easy to say, except that the long procession ...
How are you looking vacationwise? Do you have a chunk of time set aside for genuine relaxation and that most wonderful of Western concepts: Fun? Personally speaking, it’s nearly impossible for me to enjoy summertime, as the season is fraught with traumatic memories. The ...
The memories of World War II grow dimmer in the Japanese collective consciousness, but, as the month in 1945 that the war ended, August is a time of remembrance and of sharing stories among family or in the media. Of these, love stories come ...
It’s the season of chaotic sensations and somber reflections. “Take This Waltz” feels so right at this time of year, if only to remind us of one of life’s basic facts: What starts off as something new and shiny will eventually get old and ...
