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The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
Showing approximately 100 noh masks and costumes drawn from the Mitsui Memorial Museum’s collections, this exhibition was curated to present the “profound and subtle beauty” of a uniquely Japanese art form. Master mask-carver Kazumichi Hashioka’s donation of eight masks and 100 volumes of Genna-uzuki-bon ...
Sleep in and you’ll miss it. Pilots are briefed at 6 a.m., and 30 minutes later, propane burners will blast and fabric will unfurl as hot-air-balloon teams soar above Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture this weekend. From Omi-Shirahama beach, the hot air balloons hope ...
There’s a folk-flavored feast for the ears happening this Sunday afternoon, with you — and your kids — invited. Husband-and-wife duo Nature Airliner (comprising Canadian musician Laurier Tiernan and Japanese vocalist Eiko Hosaka) will hold the latest in their “Presents” series at Crawfish, Akasaka, ...
A cappella group ALT48 have far fewer members than the teen-idol group from Tokyo, but they do have something extra. For unlike AKB48, they are eligible for Fukuoka Now magazine’s talent show for non-Japanese, and the assistant language teachers hope to win the ¥100,000 ...
Tokyo Wonder Site begins its “Emerging Master” series with Makoto Aida — the artist who famously goaded Disney lawyers with crazed and sexualized depictions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and who has garnered controversy as much as acclaim. But with his anti-establishment career and ...
With saucepans, a bowl, a wine-glass high-hat and some chopsticks to playfully clink them with, a cover version was born. Thinking it “too tricky to work out the chords to a Shiina Ringo song,” it was with a cover of Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki” that ...
Brazilian films enchant in a way Hollywood or other Asian movies cannot, according to the organizers of this year’s Festival Cinema Brazil. Into its seventh-annual installment, the festival has comedy, documentary and drama, aiming to showcase the unique culture of the country, and to ...
If you catch sight of The Invisible Salaryman, or rather his bandages, dark glasses and business suit, as he loops Tokyo by rail on the Yamanote Line this coming Sunday, you may want to follow him to the “abandoned” hospital hosting the latest ArtGig ...
I’m told Ryuto Miyake, the artist who sketched the portrait in front of me over hamburgers near his university in Tokyo, shares the same ideas about the music industry as the “real” Yoji Kido now sitting opposite me; mainly a desire to strip away ...
This weekend, musicians from home and abroad will take the stage at The Yokohama Jazz Promenade, aiming to solidify the Kanagawa port’s reputation as the city of jazz in Japan. Live music will be in the air at some of the city’s most prestigious ...
Steven Tanaka has a secret. The vibrant live-house scenes of Tokyo’s Koenji and Shimokitazawa neighborhoods hold a special place in his heart, and since last year he has been spending vast sums to take some of that energy to Canada — just don’t tell ...
In Nagasaki, the fireworks season is not quite over. This Saturday night, autumn will be kept at bay a little longer with the finale to a series of spectacular displays that constituted a summer-long contest. From heats in April when international teams from Germany, ...