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May 12, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2013

'Life of Pi'

Director Ang Lee's adaptation of author Yann Martel's Man Booker Prize-winning "Life of Pi" feels almost like two films sandwiched into one. In the core, you have the succulent special-effects-driven story of a young Indian survivor of a shipwreck who's adrift in a lifeboat with a man-eating Bengal tiger....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Sep 4, 2016

JBC marks 100 columns and a million page views

Column has been shining a critical light on issues affecting Japan's foreign residents since 2008.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 15, 2005

For better or worse: the 400th column

Welcome to the 400th Japan Lite column! If you have been reading this column since 1997, then congratulations on our 400th anniversary. Four hundred weekend dates is longer than most unmarried couples make it. How does it feel to be 400?
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 9, 2002

Welcome to a new page, welcome to a new column

Welcome to a brand new new weekly column that will provide a forum for readers to help one another, and for myself and Ken Joseph, of Japan Helpline, to help you. We will be printing your letters, offering personal input and bringing in experts on a regular basis to help answer your queries on living...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 1, 2007

Kotaro Sawaki: Writer on the road of life

Kotaro Sawaki is one of the most popular nonfiction writers in Japan. He made his name with "Shinya Tokkyu (Midnight Express)," a reportage of a yearlong overland trip through Asia and Europe he took when he was in his mid-20s. Those stories — whose title refers to a euphemism for "prison break" used...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Feb 19, 2014

Nasty, brutish and short?: The brief life and times of 'Happy Bob'

March 1984: Ronald Reagan was U.S. president, Yasuhiro Nakasone Japan's prime minister. Afghan rebels were struggling to rid their country of foreign invaders (deja vu!). Break-dancing was a global craze. Tokyo Disneyland was so new it hadn't even been visited by Michael Jackson yet. Pay telephones were...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 17, 2012

Employees should work toward a life of leisure, not live to work

Some readers' responses to Hifumi Okunuki's June 19 Labor Pains column, "In 'right-to-work' Japan, employees should also have the right to rest":
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 13, 2012

A day in the life of an Olympic reporter

Woke up, got out of bed. . .
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 20, 2009

Real Escape Game brings its creator's wonderment to life

Code-like messages on the walls grabbed my attention first: "g=circle, square, triangle"; "42, 23, 16 . . . " Then I saw the padlocked safe and the six candy dispensers — the latter for sustenance, I guessed, in case we intrepid 18 gamesters locked in this mysterious room should malinger in accomplishing...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jul 14, 2009

Wit, humor help longtime columnist come to grips with life in Japan

Freelance journalist and longtime Japan resident Thomas Dillon was at first shy of being on the receiving end of questions.
BUSINESS
Nov 27, 2004

Major life insurers post declines in new contracts

Japan's major life insurers continued to post declines in individual life insurance and annuity contracts for the six months to Sept. 30, reflecting consumer reluctance to increase spending amid persistent deflation, according to their earnings reports released as of Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 14, 2019

Laughing at life's trials and tribulations in Japan

Life is tragic, life is comic; the glass is half-empty — no, half full. Point of view is all. Two magazines — President and Spa — represent the opposite poles of optimism and pessimism. For President, bad luck and good luck are all in the mind. The former is a failure of will, the latter always...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 3, 2019

Hanami a reminder of life's fleeting nature

As cherry blossoms remind us each year, life is too short to waste.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / B. League / HOOP SCOOP
Jan 5, 2018

Tyler Smith pleased by reaction to new book on hoop life

Tyler Smith, whose pro basketball career included stints with the Hitachi Sunrockers and Link Tochigi Brex in the now-disbanded JBL, has published his first book, "Called for Traveling: My Nomadic Life Playing Pro Basketball around the World."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 2, 2015

Life after work in Japan: tackling readers' pension questions

Among the questions that Japan Times readers send to the Lifelines column, a perennial topic is navigating the Japanese pension system. Here are some answers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2015

Frida Kahlo and the secret life of women's objects

Miyako Ishiuchi is one of Japan's most formidable photographers — a woman who has been passionately interested in women and their bodies for the whole of her 50-year career. At 68 years old, her fascination with the female physique remains intact, but over the past six years she has added two subtexts...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 30, 2011

Winning: 'The Alien': readers remember life in '90s Japan

The following are a selection of the winning submissions in response to last month's Zeit Gist competition to win copies of "The Very Best of Neil Garscadden's Alien Humor," a collection of many of the pieces Garscadden wrote while editor of the humor section of The Alien magazine.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 1, 2010

Japanese quotes cast country's life and culture in disparate lights

SECOND IN A THREE-PART SERIES — In its current issue, the popular monthly magazine Bungei Shunju has a long feature titled "Tekichushita yogen 50," meaning "50 predictions that hit the mark."
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Dec 2, 2001

The life of the party

The yearend holiday season brings a flurry of parties, rich dinners and the popping of corks. For those of us who love wine, this time of year presents a few dilemmas as well. There's the torture of finding the right bottle to give the boss or a gourmand in-law who has tried everything. Then we mull...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 12, 2001

The life of spice in the big city

Our column last month on looking for laksa in Tokyo generated a good number of comments and recommendations. One correspondent felt we had not properly pointed out that these spicy noodles are also hugely popular in Singapore, not just in Malaysia. It was certainly not our intention to ignore or slight...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 2, 2010

Living green, Venetia truly is at home in Kyoto

Venetia Stanley-Smith Kajiyama, or Venetia to her many fans, personifies natural, country living in her popular NHK program "Neko no Shippo, Kaeru no Te," but her first two months in Tokyo exemplified neon lights and city swing as a go-go dancer at a Shinjuku disco.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2009

Che Guevara revived for a movie revolution

As the Cuban revolution celebrates its 50th anniversary, it's hard to recall the enmity that led the United States to threaten and embargo its small neighbor for all these decades. Oh, right, Cuba is a communist regime, so we can't trade with them, just like, uh, China?
Characters from the Super Mario Bros. franchise adorn the front of Super Potato, a well-known retro game shop in Akihabara.
LIFE / Digital
Sep 20, 2023

Let the gaming begin: A guide to Tokyo's video game landmarks

Whether it's arcades, retro finds or chip-tune nightclubs, Japan's capital won't disappoint gamers wanting to geek out.
If you've ever dined on fresh fish, either within Japan or anywhere else in the world, there's a healthy chance it was processed via ikejime, a Japanese technique for preserving freshness in line-caught fish.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 30, 2023

How the world got hooked on ikejime-caught fish

Roughly rendered in English as “locking in life,” this technique delivers a quick death to ensure freshness.
Japan’s public bathhouses have been in decline for decades, with the number of such facilities in Tokyo alone dropping by nearly half in the last 15 years.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 14, 2023

Japan seeks digital detox with return to ‘way of the sauna’

Public bathhouses have been in decline for decades, with the number of sentō baths in Tokyo dropping by nearly half in the last 15 years.
The “dogeza” position is used for the sincerest of apologies and it was deployed by the man who mistakenly ruined an attempt at a Guinness world record on live television.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 9, 2024

The year so far has been marked by some good and bad apologies

A social norm seems to persist in Japan that one should apologize first and explain later. That goes for companies as well.
A couple looks out onto the Fukuoka nightscape. Due to its distance from Tokyo and its close proximity to South Korea and China, professor Tomoya Mori believes that Fukuoka is one of the few metropolitan regions of Japan that will see some form of growth in the decades to come.
JAPAN / Society / Perspectives
May 20, 2024

Why half of Japan's cities are at risk of disappearing in 100 years

Professor Tomoya Mori believes depopulation will alter the urban landscape of Japan in an unexpected way.
Incorporating modern technologies into your Japanese classes might be a way to connect with younger students.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 3, 2025

Start the new year with a fresh approach to teaching Japanese

It’s important for language instructors to update their methods to best appeal to their younger students.
Tatsumi Onose (right), who plays the part of Commodore Matthew Perry in Shimoda's Black Ship Festival, says the historical episode the event is based on should be remembered for its positives more than its negatives.
LIFE / Travel
May 8, 2025

Celebrating Japan’s defeat at Shimoda’s Black Ship Festival

Held this year from May 16 to 18, an event to the south of Tokyo turns a historical episode of national humiliation into a plain old good time.
Global militaries to study India-Pakistan fighter jet battle
The Indian Air Force's Rafale fighter jets. India and Pakistan aircraft engaged in a dogfight on Wednesday.
Escalation fears rise in Japan following Chinese moves near Senkakus
A Japan Coast Guard vessel sails in front of Uotsuri island, one of the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands. Concerns are growing in Tokyo after a Chinese government helicopter violated Japan's airspace around the uninhabited islets.
Ishiba vows Japan will stand its ground, demanding U.S. lift auto tariffs
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a Lower House committee meeting on Friday.
As prices soar, Zen-Noh ships just 32% of government-stockpiled rice
A customer walks past a display of rice, with a sign apologizing to shoppers they must be limited to one bag each due to market conditions, at a branch of Japanese discount retailer Don Quijote in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on April 21.
Emperor emeritus diagnosed with silent myocardial ischemia
Emperor Emeritus Akihito, 91, rides in a car with Empress Emerita Michiko, 90, after he was discharged from the University of Tokyo Hospital on Saturday following an examination for suspected myocardial ischemia.
Who could become Japan's next prime minister?
Clockwise from top left: Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi, former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi
With a new Shibuya studio, Apple Music bets big on Japan
Apple Music personalities (from left) Ebro Darden, Kentaro Ochiai, Zane Lowe and Mino came together for a special recording in late April to discuss music and celebrate the newly opened Apple Music studio in Tokyo.
Kazuki Nagasawa's sustainable designs are rooted in tradition
For centuries, artisans have unraveled strands of the fibrous bark of "shuro" trees to create a medley of everyday objects. Designer Kazuki Nagasawa is now transforming the traditional material into ethereal contemporary pieces.
SusHi Tech Tokyo 2025 expands to become one of Asia's largest startup events
SusHi Tech Tokyo 2025 was bustling with participants of various nationalities Thursday, and multiple languages could be heard around the room as many engaged in conversations throughout the day.
Celebrating Japan’s defeat at Shimoda’s Black Ship Festival
Tatsumi Onose (right), who plays the part of Commodore Matthew Perry in Shimoda's Black Ship Festival, says the historical episode the event is based on should be remembered for its positives more than its negatives.

Podcast

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

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan
By Hanako Lowry

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society
Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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