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Tomoko Otake

Tomoko Otake is a senior writer with a strong interest in health, medical and social issues. A native of Nara Prefecture, she obtained an M.A. in journalism from The University of Montana.

BUSINESS

Jul 19, 2005

Money -- the toughest hurdle in sport

Just as many professional athletes struggle to carve out a second career after they retire, amateur sports players are also confronting some really hard times.

Japan Times

Features / WEEK 3

Jul 17, 2005

Taking it easy in the urban jungle

These days, "relaxation" spots are as ubiquitous as Internet cafes and pachinko parlors. As people seek a quick fix for the stress of modern life, businesses offering anything remotely "therapeutic" or "healing" are springing up everywhere. Whether it's reflexology (foot massage) salons in office buildings,...

Japan Times

Features

Jul 10, 2005

Support groups to aid of all affected

When people become clinically depressed, it's not just they who suffer. Families of the depressed are deeply affected -- riding an emotional roller coaster -- and when a breadwinner is afflicted, as is often the case, financial struggles inevitably ensue. Worst of all, many families must live with the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jun 22, 2005

Sacred sounds of Ainu tonkori resurrected

Keeping traditions alive is not easy; it's even harder when there is no one to teach them. When Ainu musician Oki recently re-created traditional tunes on the tonkori, the stringed instrument of the Ainu people, his only guides were pre-1970s recordings of tonkori music collected by ethnomusicologists...

Japan Times

LIFE / Language

May 26, 2005

Parenting book gets princely praise

Parenting expert Dorothy Law Nolte enjoys a huge following worldwide; her 1998 book, "Children Learn What They Live," sold over 700,000 copies in her native U.S. and has been translated into 36 languages. The Japanese version was a steady seller -- until February this year, when the father of a certain...

Features

May 22, 2005

A growing trend

These are hard times for Japan's construction workers. The days when they were forever taking flak for digging up roads and causing traffic chaos, or teetering on the edge of scandals as they built yet more roads and bridges into the middle of nowhere are now long gone.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP

Apr 3, 2005

Ryu Murakami: Straight-talking wordsmith wields his pen like a sword

For nearly three decades since his seismic debut with "Almost Transparent Blue," which delved into the sex- and drug-fueled lives of Japanese youths in a town hosting a huge U.S. military base, author Ryu Murakami has often used his trademark explicit, offensive and guiltlessly cheerful language to dig...

Japan Times

Features / WEEK 3

Mar 20, 2005

Money makes money for savers of note

It's neither pretty nor fancy, and it's made of garbage. Yet a recent addition to the plethora of piggy banks available to the nation's would-be penny-pinchers is proving particularly popular with hard-core fans of the Japanese saying that goes: "Kane no aru tokoro ni kane wa nagareru (Money flows to...

Features / WEEK 3

Mar 20, 2005

On a wing and no fare

When Momoko Sasaki goes traveling, she literally "goes an extra mile" to enjoy perks that few of her peers have likely ever dreamed of.

Japan Times

Features

Feb 13, 2005

Go! Go! Kingyo!

If you go down to Roppongi tonight, you're sure of a few surprises. Not least, in Tokyo's favorite party zone renowned for its glitz and sleaze, you're guaranteed a world tour of ethnic restaurants, along with enough bars, dance clubs and strip joints to satisfy every taste.

Japan Times

Features

Feb 6, 2005

Drawing on experience

At age 82, Shigeru Mizuki (above) is undoubtedly among the most popular -- and certainly one of the longest-standing -- cartoon artists in Japan. There is probably no Japanese adult who is not familiar with his name, or who has not at least glanced at the voluminous comics/animation series "Ge-ge-ge...

Japan Times

Features / WEEK 3

Dec 19, 2004

Mannequin sculptor stars crafting heavenly bodies

Next time you spot a short, bespectacled old man closely examining a woman's curves as she climbs the station stairs, don't jump to conclusions. Instead of a would-be groper or pervert, that man could be Makoto Kakeda -- one of Japan's most respected mannequin sculptors.

JAPAN / BY THE NUMBERS

Dec 14, 2004

Sake trendy abroad but hard sell here to young

It has a deep, delicate and definitely cultural flavor. Yet sake does not appeal to many of today's Japanese, who would rather clink glasses of "shochu" liquor or wine.

JAPAN

Dec 10, 2004

Recipients of tainted blood products begin to fight back

Taking institutions like the central government and big corporations to court is no easy feat for ordinary Japanese citizens. It's even more daunting for mothers busy raising their children and not used to attending the bar.

JAPAN

Dec 10, 2004

State names hospitals in blood scandal

The health ministry on Thursday disclosed the names of 6,916 hospitals and 17 medical suppliers believed to have stocked a hepatitis C-tainted blood product that caused one of the largest medical disasters in Japan's postwar history.

JAPAN / BY THE NUMBERS

Nov 25, 2004

Why recycle PET bottles if China will buy them?

Every PET bottle bears a triangle of arrows with the message: "Yes! to recycling. No! to littering." But it doesn't show where the bottles go.

JAPAN

Nov 13, 2004

Lawyers go after reformist debt collector

An American businessman who tried to improve the way debts are collected in Japan from the oft yakuza-linked intimidation route was arrested last week amid growing pressure by lawyer groups to crack down on unauthorized parties encroaching on their turf.

Japan Times

Features

Oct 24, 2004

Kitty collector plans afterlife together as well

Some have ridiculed her taste. Others have called her infantile. Yet Asako Kanda, a 31-year-old receptionist at a crafts and culture school in Tokyo, has never had any qualms about her long-running love affair with Hello Kitty.

Japan Times

Features

Oct 24, 2004

The cat's whiskers of Kawaii

At 10 a.m. last Saturday, the moment the doors of the Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district were opened, a small scrum of people rushed in, headed straight to the escalators and then up to the fifth floor.

Japan Times

Features / WEEK 3

Oct 17, 2004

Drawing on love

She is a Japanese manga artist with a piercingly sharp eye for human traits and foibles. He is an American writer and language buff who can chat with equal ease in four languages. Together, they make for a magnetic -- not to say a "mangaetic" -- couple.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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