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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, resolved to end nearly two decades of deflation and revive the economy, explains his economic and fiscal policies to his fellow G-8 chiefs, turning "Abenomics" into an international commitment in the process.
About 45 minutes from Tokyo’s skyscrapers, resting in the hinterlands of Tachikawa there is a land of mist and dragons. It’s a place where rolling hills tumble toward an Aztec pyramid, and children bounce on clouds. The place is called Showa Kinen Koen, and ...
Edward Snowden, the fugitive former CIA employee and NSA contractor who leaked secrets about America’s spying operations, often hung out online with foreigners in Japan who shared his interests in anime, video games, martial arts, the stock market and the expat lifestyle. Snowden, who ...
Across the colorful show floor at last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, there were games on display where players could become all manner of things, like a throat-slashing 18th-century pirate, zombie killer, a guardian of the last city on Earth, music-making sorcerer, ruthless Roman general, ...
Manu Ginobili ran onto the floor as fans stood and screamed. He went to the bench, and they chanted his name. The sights and sounds of so many San Antonio spring nights were back Sunday — and the real party might be just a ...
Marc Chagall lived through the hardships of both world wars. Because of this life and his Belarusian-Russian-French roots, he moved many times — from Vitebsk in Belarus, where he grew up, to traveling between St. Petersburg, Berlin and Paris — until he was forced ...
The hugely popular Japanese “Taiga Drama” on NHK TV, has turned 50 this year, and for the past half a century it has focused on a different historical character each year. This year, it follows Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181), a military leader who survived ...
The Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo, which opened in 2005, has collected roughly 1,500 ceramic works that run the gamut from domestic to foreign and ancient to modern. Kenkichi Tomimoto and Bernard Howell Leach are just a couple of the well-known artists whose works ...
As the oldest of the French Impressionist group, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was seen by many artists as a role model. He was also the only artist whose work was featured in all eight “official” Impressionist exhibitions in Paris — a testament to his dedication ...
What makes the work of Hyogo-native Keiji Uematsu unique is the way the sculptor takes everyday materials such as stone and wood, and fashions them in the most surreal way imaginable. His sculptures command attention and yet are aesthetically pleasing, making the artist’s pieces ...
Shoen Uemura (1875-1949) was the first woman in the history of Japan to win the Order of Culture for her contribution to nihonga (Japanese painting). She is particularly famous for her depictions of elegant Japanese women. Her successful career was built on persistent hard ...
These days, Togo Murano (1891-1984) may not be a household name, however for architecture fans, he is renowned for his modernist designs of several prestigious buildings, including the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace in Hiroshima. Held in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, this exhibition reassesses Murano’s ...
It has been six years since Shoichi Ida passed away. As a prominent woodblock print artist, Ida produced outstanding works throughout his career and is considered a significant contributor to the development of Japanese print art. Ida taught himself printmaking while still a college ...
Ichizo Kobayashi, also known by his pseudonym Itsuo, was an industrialist who first encountered the world of sado — the Japanese Tea Ceremony — while still a banker in his 20s. In his 40s, he founded what later became known as the Hankyu Railway ...
This long-term collaborative project aims to combine art and music by bringing together San José-based artist Federico Herrero and Japanese ukulele player Kazuyuki Sekiguchi. Designed by Herrero, the exhibition involves the participation of the public who have the opportunity to work with both artists. ...
Traditional Japanese crafts are often considered as old-fashioned, especially when compared with the nation’s increasingly popular art forms of animation, manga and design. The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, aims to shake up the public’s perception of crafts with an exhibition presenting ...
Kana is a collective term for all the characters used in the Japanese language —hiragana, katakana and kanji. This show focuses on what is often considered the gentlest form of expressing kana — the art of calligraphy, which was originally developed in Japan during ...