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A sit-in by visa violators and their families entered its second day Tuesday in front of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau with protesters seeking government good will. The action at the bureau in Minato Ward is being organized by the Asian People’s Friendship Society, ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“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, ...
Takashi Miike's blood-soaked vengeance tale, one of two Japanese films being shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, draws the biggest boos so far, with critics savaging it as overacted and cliched.
Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile? That’s the feeling I’m getting about Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. With just over three months to go until the IOC ...
For Yung-hsiang Kao's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
PRELIMINARY RECONNAISSANCE REPORT OF THE 2011 TOHOKU-CHIHO TAIHEIYO-OKI EARTHQUAKE, edited by the Architectural Institute of Japan. Springer, 2012, 460 pp., $179 (hardcover) The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake was notable for the widespread damage caused by seismic activity, the tsunami devastation and ...
What do you get when the four young lovers from William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” become stranded on Prospero’s island from the Bard’s “The Tempest”? A lot of fun, mayhem and magic in The Metropolitan Opera’s original creation “The Enchanted Island,” which had ...
It is 3 p.m. in a quiet, residential neighborhood in Tokyo. A lady in a red dress stands by the side of a narrow street in front of a house, her hair held back and her face shielded from the sun by a woman ...
On Sept. 25, 2006, hundreds gathered in New York’s Times Square to watch the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” on a jumbo screen. The Met, one of the world’s most famous opera companies, was showing its opening night gala live ...
Some artists never want to experience their work once it’s made. U.S. film director Woody Allen famously never watches his own films; perhaps it’s because he does not dwell on the past that he has been able to make a new feature nearly every ...
For more than 30 years, the opening notes of the score for “Lupin The Third” have come to signify the anime and the music’s composer, pianist Yuji Ohno. Expect the theme song to pop up during the rollicking, up-tempo set by Yuji Ohno & ...
He just wants to be close to you, and to get close to Maxi Priest all you have to do is visit a couple of jazz clubs in Tokyo in early July. The British reggae singer, who scored hits in the late 1980s and ...
Traditional Japanese music is called wagaku; using the same Chinese characters, a new band calls itself the Waraku Ensemble, with the change in pronunciation signifying “ease” or “comfort.” Their first album, “Japanese Cafe Music,” released last month, features traditional instruments playing Japanese pop songs ...
Drawing upon the energy and enthusiasm of British guest conductor Rumon Gamba, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (TSO) thrilled the Suntory Hall audience during their last concert there: Before intermission, four beautifully harmonized French horns featured on Robert Schumann’s Konzertstuck; after, the orchestra created a ...
Picture a smooth-jazz pop icon like Kenny G playing trumpet like Miles Davis circa his “Kind of Blue” phase while looking like a heartthrob and you get Chris Botti. Not that the 47-year-old American is anything like either musician, with his penchant for pop ...
In a metropolis the size of Tokyo, it is no surprise that there are several large orchestras and a number of high-quality concert halls. But the number of orchestras performing daily can be hard to keep track of, particularly as some have very similar ...
In the center of a large practice room at Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo sits tenor saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu, instrument at his lips, legs crossed, playing along with four other saxophonists. It looks like a scene from a music class: the graying, 55-year-old teacher ...