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 ...
For Shaun Mckenna's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
My Bloody Valentine bassist Debbie Googe manned the decks for a rare DJ set at a Tokyo Indie event in Tokyo on Friday. The acclaimed alt-rock band was in Japan to play sold-out shows in Osaka and Tokyo in support of its new album ...
The new year is starting out with a slew of potentially great gigs throughout the country. The most anticipated of these is probably Patti Smith and her Band’s seven-city tour, which starts in Sendai on Jan. 22 (Sendai Rensa; 7:30 p.m. start; ¥7,000 in ...
A crowd much smaller than solo-guitarist Miyavi is accustomed to has gathered to hear an intimate set at the 2.5D studio in Shibuya’s Parco Part 1 building. About a third of the 80 or so people have gathered around the stage so close that ...
Tokyo-based British DJ/producer Matt Lyne, aka A Taut Line, coruns the record label Diskotopia, with Brian Durr, aka BD1982. A Taut Line’s melodic broken house, garage and techno productions are just as influenced by the Chicago jazz and postrock scenes as by the 1980s ...
In times of trouble music can soothe the soul. And if anyone’s souls needed soothing, it would be the people of Sendai. The capital of Miyagi Prefecture is located 130 km east of the epicenter of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, and ...
In 1985, director Akira Kurosawa released “Ran,” a Japanese take on William Shakespear’s masterpiece “King Lear.” Kochi’s Meitoku International Players are taking a similar approach to Namiki Gohei’s 1840 kabuki piece “Kanjicho” by presenting it in an Italian setting and performed in English. Gohei’s ...
Yokohama’s Chinatown district is ready to get the party hopping. Feb. 3 marks the beginning of the new year according to the Chinese lunar calendar. This year, as the Japanese already know, is the year of the rabbit. Boasting one of the biggest Chinatowns ...
The grunting gets louder the further I walk down the path. It’s somewhat synchronized, and suddenly I hear a buzzer and everything is quiet — for 10 seconds. Four men of various body types — all soaked in sweat — have squeezed into a ...
As the setting for Sofia Coppola’s 2003 film “Lost In Translation,” Tokyo’s Park Hyatt Hotel was immortalized. The long takes of a jet-lagged Scarlett Johansson staring dreamily out onto a neon-lit metropolis lent themselves well to the shoegazer soundtrack. Nigo takes a different view ...
Mamiko Sato Japanese teacher, 31 I think it’s difficult to believe that humans are the only species curious enough to visit other planets. There has to be other species intelligent and curious enough to have visited Earth. Ben Tutcher Teacher, 34 (English) It’s possible ...
