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DRIZZLE/RAIN
Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
Sakubei Yamamoto (1892-1984) grew up in Fukuoka Prefecture’s Chikuho region, which was once one of Japan’s most prolific coal-mining areas. He devoted his life to the mining industry, and when he retired he took up painting as a way to memorialize his experience, just ...
The Vision of Contemporary Art annual competition, which has run for 20 years, aims to nurture young Japanese artists and help promote their work internationally. This year’s overall winner, Sayaka Suzuki from Tama University of Art, caught the attention of the judges with her ...
Often compared to Picasso, Francis Bacon is one of the most popular and iconic artists of the 20th century. This exhibition is the first solo show of Bacon’s work to be shown in Japan in 30 years, and it commemorates the 20th anniversary of ...
Yae Niijima (1845-1932) is one of the most unconventional women in Japan’s history. Born into a family of artillery experts, Yae spent her childhood working on her marksmanship. In 1868, when the Boshin War started, she joined male soldiers to help protect the Aizu ...
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) spent the better part of his childhood in Antwerp, Belgium, but left for Italy at age 20 to learn the history of classical Italian painting. After returning to his native country, he was appointed in 1609 as court painter to ...
German-born fashion photographer Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) was particularly renowned for his cover shoots for fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Although his extant works are highly acclaimed by art critics worldwide, they are rarely shown in Japan — mainly because they are ...
During the late 19th century, Czech decorative designer and painter Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) became popular for his detailed and ornate designs that often depicted beautiful women in neoclassical attire. His style stood out from his contemporaries and later became known as Art Nouveau, establishing ...
“Madonna del Granduca” is a beloved masterpiece by Italian painter Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520), known by most as simply Raphael. Described by critics as one of the great Madonna and child paintings, it was a source of inspiration for many generations of painters. As one ...
Architect Shigeru Ban is renowned for involving himself in unusual projects, and he has become particularly well-known for his experiments with paper as a cheap and sustainable building material. In response to the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, Ban designed paper temporary shelters for victims. ...
The city of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, is a popular tourist destination that attracts around 19 million visitors a year, many of whom visit from nearby Tokyo. It became increasingly popular during the Edo Period (1603-1867), when pilgrimages to its Buddhist sites became a fashionable ...
The 1964 Summer Olympics will forever be remembered as one of the most important events in Japan’s postwar history. To Japan, hosting the Olympics was the nation’s opportunity to prove to the world that it had strength and power to recover and progress from ...
When Naojiro Kobayashi outlived a diagnosis that a lung disease he was suffering from would kill him by the age of 25, his favorite phrase became: “I’m so embarrassed I have lived this long.” But he continued to defy the disease, finally living to ...