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 ...
JAPANESE FOR TRAVELLERS: A Journey Through Modern Japan, by Katie Kitamura. Penguin, 258 pp., 2006, £7.99 (paper) When Katie Kitamura’s parents left Japan for the United States they left behind three different generations: Katie’s cousins, her aunts and uncles, and her grandparents. In “Japanese ...
PLASTIC CULTURE: How Japanese Toys Conquered the World, by Woodrow Phoenix. Kodansha International, 2006, 112 pp., fully illustrated, 3,150 yen (cloth). Plastic toys were once considered cheap, disposable and replaceable — bright and cheerful mass-manufactured dolls, model cars and trinkets that needed little care ...
SEEING JAPAN (three-volume boxed set), by Charles Whipple, Juliet W. Carpenter, Kaori Shoji. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, approx. 90 pp. per volume, 11,400 yen (cloth). “Seeing Japan,” the boxed set, presents three different visual journeys: Japan as a whole, plus the country’s two famous ...
