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August 20, 2025
 

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Philip Brasor
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 24, 2001
Natural urban chaos in the worst-case scenario
Last Sunday night I settled down to watch one of my favorite TV shows, "Tokumei Research 200X" (NTV, 7:58 p.m.), quite unprepared for what I was about to learn. If you've never seen this particular information program, it is built around the fictional Far East Research Center, a shiny mission control...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 20, 2001
'Miss E . . . So Addictive': Missy Misdemeanor Elliott
Picking up on the drug reference in the title of the former Hefty Bag Queen's third album, we can easily wonder if Missy Misdemeanor Elliott hasn't lately been feeding her head as much as she'd previously fed every other part of her body. "I looked down at my stomach," she deadpans in the liner noters,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 17, 2001
Take me out to the big league
As U.S. President George W. Bush makes the rounds in Europe, taking flak and talking trash, it seems like a good opportunity to address what his father would refer to as the "cultural hegemony thing." South Korea and France deal with it by subsidizing their movie industries. China screens everything...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 17, 2001
Flying postpunk first class
Time is the nemesis of originality. The greater the number of artists who explore a particular discipline over time, the less likely it is that one of them will come up with something fresh.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jun 13, 2001
'Poses': Rufus Wainwright
'Everything I like is a little bit stronger, a little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me." So croons Rufus Wainwright on "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," the opening cut from his new album, "Poses."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 10, 2001
There's a fine line between parody and larceny
There is an unspoken belief among music critics that had George Harrison not been a Beatle, he wouldn't have lasted more than a minute in the pop business. This belief has nothing to do with Harrison's talent and everything to do with his professional judgment. First, he released all his good songs on...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 6, 2001
Music for the masses
Lord knows, it ain't easy Call it the Happy Meal effect, but what used to be considered "bonus" is now taken for granted. The multiple-stage gimmick offers more of a festival atmosphere, but if you go for the music you will eventually have to choose, and sometimes it ain't easy.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 3, 2001
It's all about manners (cough, gasp), not health
It's not surprising that the local media glossed over the World Health Organization's 14th annual World No Tobacco Day last Thursday. The government, a member in good standing of the United Nations and a conscientious contributor to its causes, didn't start preparing a seminar to mark the occasion until...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 30, 2001
'Lovers Leap': Dan Bryk
In art, confession treads a fine line between catharsis and showing off. A subset of current punk bands like Wheatus and Blink 182 utilizes the geek mode to comment on classic macho-rock poses, but since they have nothing original to say (girls ignore you at school? figure it out), geekiness turns out...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 27, 2001
Cosmetics companies give themselves a makeover
Truth in advertising has never been a strong concept in Japan, but no one flouts it as boldly as the cosmetics industry, which is understandable, since makeup itself is a form of deception. One company's antiwrinkle cream is said to "prevent aging," an obvious impossibility, while the manufacturer of...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 23, 2001
'Cassidy': Luke Sutherland
The fringes of hip-hop that line the frayed fabric of British club music have lately become tangled up in the nascent European postrock scene, a development that has resulted in an expanded instrumental pallette taking over where machines previously ruled. Luke Sutherland, the restless, thoughtful multi-instrumentalist...
CULTURE / Music
May 20, 2001
Is you is or is you ain't . . . ?
Stephen Malkmus, formally known as SM, formally known as that tall, skinny guy who knows more neat metal guitar riffs than anyone in Stockton, Calif., was the leader by default of Amerindie's greatest band, Pavement, which called it quits last fall after a year of waffling.
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2001
The Sonig circuit
Back in 1960 when he was a strapping egghead of 31, Karlheinz Stockhausen, the father of taped electronic music, had a vision: Every major city in the world would build an auditorium for the appreciation of "space music." Stockhausen's prediction was simply the optimistic ramblings of an intellectual...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 16, 2001
'Gainsbourg Forever': Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg died on March 2, 1991, a month shy of his 63rd birthday. Though characterized as a womanizing alcoholic, the iconoclastic Frenchman always thought of himself as a homely little Jewish piano player who never asked to be a star, but as long as he was one then you had to accept him for...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 13, 2001
Public participation aids media more than police
Prior to Thursday's arrest of a suspect in the April 30 murder of a 19-year-old woman in Asakusa, hundreds of people had called the police with information. The majority of these calls were not made until several days after the murder, when police found some items that they believe the killer discarded...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 9, 2001
'Movimento': Madredeus
The musical form fado takes off from the Portuguese concept of saudade, or "yearning," which dwells on things that are lost: a mother, a sweetheart, home. However, the music of Madredeus, Portugal's most popular group, has always contained an element of hopefulness, a yearning for things still possible....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 6, 2001
Funny hair beats dark blue suits and bad teeth
One can gauge the emotions now churning through certain portions of the Liberal Democratic Party by a tearful comment made by a member of the Hashimoto faction following the unveiling of a memorial statue of the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in Okinawa last week. The politician was not crying over...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 2, 2001
'The Facts of Life': Black Box Recorder
Artists who harbor ambitions that outstrip their talent often try to pre-empt accusations of pretentiousness by hiding behind surface ironies. Luke Haines called his first rock band the Auteurs, thus placing quotation marks around whatever they produced, which was mostly literary-minded rock descended...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 29, 2001
No frills, no thrills: the hottest trend in retailing
The news that the discount department store chain Jusco made money last year while its two perennial competitors sank deeper into the red was met with surprise by the media. One can get a handle on how the press views the former underdog by reading this week's Aera, in which it describes the three-way...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 25, 2001
Hidden Gems
'Straight-to-video" is a term that carries a stigma, and deservedly so. So much of what emerges without theatrical release is either slasher, sleaze or sly made-for-TV imitations of a bigger-budgeted film (e.g., "Asteroid," released just prior to "Armageddon"). But here in Japan there is a surprisingly...
JICA to designate four Japanese cities as 'hometowns' for African nations
The Japanese flag (left) with the flag of the African Union
Osaka fire kills two firefighters and leaves four injured
Firefighters work at the scene of a fire in the Dotonbori district in the city of Osaka on Monday.
Winning warship bid gives Japan confidence boost as Tokyo eyes more exports
Australia’s decision to select Japan's upgraded Mogami-class warship, seen in this computer-generated image, has been “well received across Japanese industry," a Defense Ministry official said.
Two Japanese nationals shot dead in Manila
Commuters cross the street through traffic in Manila.
A factory town in crisis shows Japan’s fading manufacturing era
Nissan workers walk outside its Oppama plant in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. Nissan plans to shut the plant by the end of fiscal 2027.
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.
Candidates preparing to make final pitches for Sawamura Award
Hawks pitcher Livan Moinelo has a 1.13 ERA in 19 starts this season.
Winning warship bid gives Japan confidence boost as Tokyo eyes more exports
Australia’s decision to select Japan's upgraded Mogami-class warship, seen in this computer-generated image, has been “well received across Japanese industry," a Defense Ministry official said.
In Paris, chefs Chizuko Kimura and Kei Kobayashi make their mark
Chef Kei Kobayashi is France's only Japanese chef with three Michelin stars.
In preserving Japanese hospitality, ‘details are everything’
Beniya Mukayu, a traditional "ryokan" inn located in Ishikawa Prefecture, considers itself at "the heart of onsen towns, local residents, farmers, fishermen, sake brewers and artisans" — all of which need new, sustainable methods of serving visitors to survive into the future.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers
By Tomoko Otake

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