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September 15, 2025
 

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Philip Brasor
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 7, 2008
Mad about deke-deke-deke
The Ventures' 1962 trip to Japan sparked the "eleki boom." Thousands of young men bought electric guitars and taught themselves how to play. As a movement it worried their elders, who believed such distractions were an obstacle to schoolwork, or worse.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 7, 2008
The Ventures: Still rocking after 50 years
The Ventures have just finished playing 33 songs in the space of two hours in front of some enthusiastic, though seated, middle-aged fans at the Hokutopia concert hall in Tokyo. Kazushi Kojima, who calls himself a "philosopher," is there with his son. He's been attending Ventures shows for 30 years....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 3, 2008
The obsession over those dumbed down cute mascots
Japan is overrun with cute mascots. They represent everything from chain stores to police departments, and for the past decade or so there has been a marked increase in the popularity of one species of mascot called "yuru-kyara." The second half of this word stands for "character," while "yuru" is from...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 27, 2008
Cancerlike corruption thrives in heads of bureaucrats
The ongoing investigation into charges of bribery and employment-rigging in the Oita prefectural school system has occasioned more than the usual amount of harsh commentary you hear when public servants do bad things. That's probably because in this case it is believed that the minds of innocent youths...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 25, 2008
Cassandra Wilson
We're getting around to the realization that the 1990s saw the most innovation in popular music since the '60s — and that realization encompasses even staid subgenres such as vocal jazz, which most aficionados believe is just fine as long as it sticks to the pre-'60s canon. Cassandra Wilson probably...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2008
Jables steals the show
You could tell Jack Black was itching to act up. Sitting on the dais with four colleagues to promote their new animated film, "Kung Fu Panda," at a hotel in Shinjuku, the roly-poly actor looked — as he himself put it — like "the cat that ate the canary": face frozen in a self-satisfied grin except...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 20, 2008
All this fuss over just a little drink at a . . . love hotel
The big tabloid scoop last week was snagged by the woman's weekly Josei Seven, which caught celebrity/announcer Mona Yamamoto and Yomiuri Giants shortstop Tomohiro Nioka in a love-hotel tryst. The reason the incident hit such a big nerve in the media is that the night the tryst took place was also the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 13, 2008
When it's not quite convenient to protect the planet
"They work all day but still can't pay the price of gasoline and meat / Alas! Their lives are incomplete — Warren Zevon.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 6, 2008
Driving scams abound in the world of the bureaucrat
As long as I've lived in Tokyo, I've wondered why the city's public transportation system, maybe the best in the world, doesn't operate round the clock. One of the explanations I've heard is that taxi companies have successfully campaigned against any extension of train and bus services past midnight....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 29, 2008
Akihabara killer followed plot mapped by the media
After serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki was hanged on June 17, some death-penalty opponents wondered out loud if Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama had signed the execution order as a response to the indiscriminate murders of seven people on the streets of Akihabara nine days earlier. Of course, Hatoyama didn't...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 22, 2008
How can the press be free if it's used as a public-relations tool?
The Supreme Court's decision on June 12 to reverse a lower-court ruling that had found in favor of a women's group received a fair share of concerned media coverage. The suit involved a program NHK had produced about a 2001 citizens' tribunal, which prosecuted Japan's wartime leaders on behalf of sex...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 20, 2008
Children of Bodom
In the crowded world of Scandinavian hard rock, where dozens of subgenres vie for the attention of fans who just want power chords, the Finnish death-metal band Children of Bodom are iconoclasts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008
Santogold at Summer Sonic
Santogold has quickly eclipsed Vampire Weekend as the year's certified hippest new indie-rock act, and for good reason. Santi White's weird and wonderful vocal style — a sly mix of girl-group theatrics and new-wave experimentalism — complements her high-energy, ska-derived beats in such a natural...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008
Egberto Gismonti at Tokyo Summer Festival
The theme of the 24th annual Tokyo Summer Festival, which runs from July 3 to 31 at venues throughout the city, is Forest Echoes/Desert Voices. Representing the former is pianist and guitarist Egberto Gismonti, who studied classical music in Paris only to return to his native Brazil to live in the forest...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 15, 2008
Nationality ruling could affect Japanese who don't 'exist'
After the Supreme Court ruled on June 4 that 10 children born to Filipino women had the right to be granted Japanese nationality, every media outlet in the country called the verdict "epoch-making" because the court declared a provision of the Nationality Law unconstitutional.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 13, 2008
World Beat 2008
If New York City was the world, then the borough of Brooklyn would be Global Bohemia, the place where undiscovered international creative forces meet, get drunk together and make art. In terms of music, no Brooklyn indie band personifies this idea better than Gogol Bordello, the "gypsy punk" collective...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 8, 2008
It might be lousy, but political TV drama 'Change' lives up to its title
Pre-premiere hype is important for Japanese TV drama series since their broadcast runs tend to be limited to 13 weeks. They don't have time to build an audience the way more open-ended series do in the West. As many people as possible have to tune in right from the start.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 6, 2008
The Roots "Rising Down"
Who says hip-hop acts can't get better with age? Since they started working for The Man (i.e., Jay-Z) two albums ago, The Roots have hardened their sound; and whether or not you believe such a gambit translates as a commercial sellout, as some older boosters believe, the socially conscious content on...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 1, 2008
Generic drugs? Brand-name drugs? Any old drugs will do
On April 1, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare notified local governments that from now on welfare recipients entitled to free medical care must only use generic pharmaceuticals rather than more expensive brand-name drugs. Almost immediately the plan was attacked in the media, which implied that...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 25, 2008
The art of 'not being funny' drums up big laughs on TV
It was a year ago that comedian Yoshio Kojima got his big break, and Japanese TV hasn't been the same since. Kojima is the young man who wears the colorful bikini briefs and nothing else while happily dancing and declaiming in meter: "Sonna no kankei nai (I couldn't care less)." His only punch line is...
Is America ready for Japanese-style 7-Elevens?
Convenience stores are a fixture of Japanese life and 7-Eleven, a chain that began in the U.S. in 1927, opened its first store in Japan in 1974 — and then became wholly Japanese-owned in 2005 through parent company Seven & I Holdings.
Japan's cutting-edge railgun successfully strikes target vessel
The Defense Ministry’s Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) conducted a ship-board railgun shooting test from June to early July this year with the support of the Maritime Self-Defense Force.
‘Fairytale’ Shirakawago ranked one of the world’s most beautiful villages
Forbes and Unforgettable Travel Company have ranked Shirakawago in Gifu Prefecture as Asia's most beautiful village.
People rush to make furusato nozei donations ahead of tighter rules
A booth from the town of Betsukai in Hokkaido at an Amazon Japan furusato nо̄zei promotion event, on Sept. 5 in Tokyo's Minato Ward.
Why more hotels in Japan are offering room-only service
Nipponia Hotel Ise Kawasaki Merchant Town in Ise, Mie Prefecture
Strikes on Qatar and Poland shake U.S. sway among friend and foe
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington on Sept. 8. Israeli strikes in Qatar and Russian drone incursions into Poland have challenged the U.S. leaders claims of global respect.
Japan's major art events converge this fall
Shinji Ohmaki’s “Tokinokage” exhibited at Fuji Textile Week 2021 shows the use of fabric as art.
An aesthetic escape to Hakone’s art-drenched hills
Between traditional examples of fine art and sleek, modern exhibitions that blend with nature, Hakone offers a unique escape from Tokyo's urban sprawl.
Niinami’s ouster quick but not unusual as corporations protect reputation
Takeshi Niinami resigns as chairman and CEO of Suntory Holdings.
As Manila modernizes its military, new opportunities emerge for Tokyo
A Brahmos missile system is displayed during a rehearsal for a military parade in New Delhi in January. The Philippines will soon receive its second batch of the supersonic cruise missiles from India.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’
By Alex K.T. Martin

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