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 ...
Mieko Sasaki Housewife, 72 From the start nothing was managed properly. I’m upset that nothing has been resolved, even though I am 50-60 km away from (radiation) hot spots. I’m worried for the next generation but I want to say thank you to people ...
When the Aki-basho starts today, all eyes will be on one man, and this time it is not yokozuna grand champion Hakuho. Rather the focus of sumo fans throughout Japan and around the world will be on ozeki Harumafuji. Looking to secure a second ...
Chiharu Matsui Housewife, 31 (Japanese) The women, as it will be impossible for the men to win considering the strength of the other nations they will be playing against. Ian Yates Teacher/translator, 31 (Canadian) The women’s team, because it would be something I could ...
Five, 10, 20 years from now, whenever we look back at the career of the current yokozuna Hakuho, it will be hard to avoid a particular black mark against the name of one of the sport’s most successful of grand champions. That resume stain ...
For the past 20 years amateur sumo has been bidding for full and formal IOC recognition. Making its way through the IOC’s various levels of acceptance, it was, according to many, doing rather well. Its governing body, the International Sumo Federation (IFS), initially served ...
For the first time since March of 2010, the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium played host to a sumo tournament. Things started off slow and somber on the opening day as the tournament, as the entire nation paused to remember the victims of the 2011 earthquake ...
Last month the sumo association, while supposedly seeing 2012 as the year to move forward and clear their sullied name, took a massive step backward. During the most recent reshuffle of bigwigs running the game, former chairman Kitanoumi was re-elected Rijicho. Under the latter ...
Before the New Year’s Grand Sumo Tournament, most fans would have predicted that Hakuho, the reigning yokozuna, would claim his third successive Emperor’s Cup, and 22nd title overall. It was not to be. In what was perhaps the most interesting basho for sumo fans ...
For around a decade much has been made of the lack of domestic born talent in professional sumo. No Japanese sekitori has won a yusho now for six full years — the last local winner being then ozeki Tochiazuma back in January of 2006. ...
