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The consumption tax increase next April will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people's financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the impact of the hike, experts say.
Every parent is all too familiar with The Tantrum. The screaming, the flailing arms, the angry head butting — and the timing (normally in the most inconvenient public place possible).
International events undermine Japan's democracy. Shame on the International Olympic Committee for being a party to it.
Tucked away behind the main museums in Ueno, the Tokyo University Art Museum may not be on most people’s radar, but it is definitely one of the city’s top museums in terms of curatorial quality. Whenever I go there, I am always delighted by ...
Francisco Liriano showed up at PNC Park on Tuesday afternoon in a suit with his suitcase packed for a trip St. Louis. The message reverberated through the Pittsburgh Pirates clubhouse. After 21 years away from the playoffs, it was time for the best story ...
As the saying goes, behind every great man is a woman, and this week’s installment of the variety show “Bakuho! The Friday” (“Explosive Information! The Friday”; TBS, Fri., 7 p.m.) looks at wives of prominent professional athletes. The first is the proprietress of a ...
Monday is Marine Day, a national holiday, and as has been its tradition for a decade, Nippon TV will air a 90-minute afternoon special about sustainability hosted by Osaka-based announcer Seiji Miyane. “Nippon no Shoku no Mirai” (“The Future of Food in Japan,” 2:55 ...
Kotaro Koizumi, the son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, plays against type in the new mystery series “Namonaki Doku” (“Unnamed Poison”; TBS, Mon., 8 p.m.), based on a story by Miyuki Miyabe. Saburo (Koizumi) rescues Nahoko (Ryoko Kuninaka) from a molester and they ...
The welfare ministry estimates there are more than 1 million single mothers in Japan whose individual annual incomes are less than ¥2 million. A new drama series titled simply “Woman” (Nippon TV, Wed., 10 p.m.) is about one such single mother. Koharu (Hikari Mitsushima) ...
The eight-part NHK suspense drama “Gekiryu: Watashi Oboete Imasu ka?” (“Wild Current: Do You Remember Me?”; NHK-G, Tues., 10 p.m.) is about five former classmates struggling with personal and professional problems 20 years after a friend of theirs disappeared during a junior high school ...
The Takashimas were once the first family of Japanese show business. Tadao Takashima was a popular stage musical actor in the 1960s and Hanayo Sumi a star in the Takarazuka all-female musical revue company. They married and were celebrated as a “sweet couple,” producing ...
Though everyone is fretting about Japan’s economic future, the young people who are destined to become tomorrow’s leaders have had little opportunity to share their own ideas on the topic. NHK’s new information program, “Oikonomia” (NHK-E, Tues., 11:30 p.m.), a madeup term based on ...
On the variety show “Shiawase Bonbi Garu” (“Happy Poor Girls”; Nippon TV, Tues., 10 p.m.), celebrities look at how much fun it is to live the impoverished life. The women who are the subjects of the show grew up during the recession, so saving ...
These days a college education doesn’t get you as far as it used to, though it comes in handy for solving crimes, apparently. The hero of the two-hour suspense drama “Katei Kyoshi ga Toku” (“Private Tutor Solves the Case”; TBS, Mon., 9 p.m.) is ...
Everybody on TV knows their place and what’s expected of them, so the “women’s pride battle” on the variety show “London Hearts” (TV Asahi, Tues., 9 p.m.) needs to be qualified. What kind of women? Pride in what? The subtitle of this week’s contest ...
The life of a pro athlete can be grueling, but 37-year-old soccer player Dan Ito has a perverse determination to make his even more so.
Aki Yashiro is known as the Queen of Enka, or “Japanese ballads,” according to the standard translation. However, Yashiro started out singing jazz in hostess clubs and didn’t make her enka debut until 1971, when she was 21 years old. Last year she finally ...