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 ...
It’s debatable whether or not a team needs to play “perfect defensively” to beat Japan as Australia manager Jon Deeble lamented after his team’s 10-3 loss on Sunday night. First, it helps to not commit four errors or allow five unearned runs the way ...
Tomoya Yagi will be attempting to revive his career when the 2013 NPB season begins. So will Shun Tono, Takahiro Mahara, and Kei Igawa.
Victor Starffin was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1960. Wally Yonamine was enshrined in 1994. Despite the long and rich history of foreign players in Japan, it only takes those two sentences to sum up the non-Japanese wing of the ...
In 2001 Ichiro Suzuki shattered expectations about what Japanese players could and could not do in Major League Baseball. Except when it came to hitting for power. Back then, even with Ichiro tearing it up for the Seattle Mariners, Japanese hitters were looked upon ...
The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles’ official announcement of the signing of former MLB star Andruw Jones signals the start of a period that will be remembered either for its great success or abject failure. This isn’t the deep-pocketed Yomiuri Giants or Fukuoka Softbank Hawks ...
Hideki Kuriyama is a man who thought it was good luck that he happened to see a fox on his way home from Sapporo Dome after Game 3 of the Japan Series, although maybe it was, the Fighters won 1-0 on a sayonara single ...
The Japan Professional Baseball Players Association showed rare backbone two years ago when, in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the players banded together and succeeded in getting the start of the season pushed back as the nation dealt with the disaster. ...
Koji Yamamoto made it through his first two games in charge of the Japan national team with a pair of victories against Cuba, the world’s top-ranked baseball team. Now comes the hard part. Yamamoto made a succcessful return to the dugout after seven years ...
Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki and Texas Rangers reliever Akinori Otsuka were the lone major leaguers on the roster when Japan won the 2006 World Baseball Classic. There were five MLB players on the team when Japan retained the title in 2009. Japan will ...
Good luck beating these Giants next year. The new NPB champions had only been crowned for a few minutes Saturday when manager Tatsunori Hara proclaimed his team good enough to repeat. Japan Series MVP Tetsuya Utsumi agreed, and really, who could blame him? A ...
For three consecutive nights, the Yomiuri Giants lived life on the edge. Shell-shocked by three straight losses in the Central League Climax Series final stage against a Chunichi Dragons squad that swept into Tokyo Dome, caught fire, and threatened to burn the joint down ...
Seibu Lions fans weren’t happy Saturday afternoon and they were letting Chiba Lotte Marines rookie pitcher Takahiro Fujioka feel the brunt of their vitriol. Fujioka wasn’t giving Hiroyuki Nakajima anything to hit, or anything even remotely close to the plate, and each ball he ...
