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JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 24, 2012

100 years of Summer Games

When the 293 Japanese athletes compete in the London Games that start Friday, they will represent a century of the participation in the Summer Olympics, starting with marathoner Shiso Kanakuri and sprinter Yahiko Mishima in Stockholm in 1912.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 22, 2012

A century of Tokyo taxis

The year 1912 is recorded in Japan both as the 45th year of Meiji Era and the first year of the Taisho Era. After a protracted illness, Emperor Mutsuhito expired, age 61, on the night of July 29 (although the official announcement came the next day). Through the remainder of the summer, the front pages...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 17, 2012

Should Tepco customers foot bill for nuclear fiasco?

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is desperately trying to raise prices to cover the drastic rise in thermal fuel costs caused by its triple-meltdown disaster at the poorly protected Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 15, 2012

Better a ban on work drinks than a ban on workers drinking

On July 6, the president of Fuji TV, Ko Toyoda, held a press conference and apologized for a June 9 segment of the variety show "Mecha Mecha Iketeru!" in which a group of celebrities had a drinking contest. Three citizens organizations, including a group of parents of children killed in drunk-driving...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 15, 2012

Aging Village shows the way with switch to solar

Eighty kilometers from Oi, Fukui Prefecture, is the village of Sanno, Hyogo Prefecture — 11 households, population 42, average age 60 plus.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 10, 2012

Osprey deployment heightens safety worry

The United States last month announced that the MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft will be deployed to U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa as scheduled in October.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 8, 2012

Attitudes hardening toward the welfare state

Last March, the number of individuals receiving seikatsu hogo (financial assistance from the government) exceeded 2.1 million people, the first time the record had been surpassed since 1951. Payouts this year are likely to exceed ¥3.7 trillion.
Reader Mail
Jul 5, 2012

Immigration issue gets covered

Regarding Philip Brasor's Medix Mix column July 1, titled "Often-ignored immigration issue raised in new film": Immigrant labor and the education of the children of immigrants have NOT been ignored. There was substantial television and newspaper coverage of the issue following the 2008 financial crisis....
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 3, 2012

Health: It's in 'tokuho' label

Kirin Beverage Co.'s hit beverage Mets Cola has gained Consumer Affairs Agency recognition as "tokuho," which is short for "tokutei hokenyou shokuhin," or foods with special healthy qualities.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jun 28, 2012

Tattoos are forever, which is why they cost so much to remove

It costs 10 times more to remove a tattoo than it cost to apply it.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 26, 2012

Cremation finds favor even with royal clan

Cremation has been the norm for dealing with the deceased in modern-day Japan — where communities are crowded and land is scarce.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 24, 2012

Giants get back to basics in victory over Swallows

Tatsunori Hara's first game back at home since his scandal broke was uneventful.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 19, 2012

Net shopping means unending flow of counterfeit brand-name goods

Luxury-brand bags, watches and shoes can easily be purchased on the Internet along with their cheaper counterfeit counterparts, which are illegal but nonetheless widespread.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 17, 2012

Watanabe working to steer Lions in right directions

The Saitama Seibu Lions, often seen in the Pacific League Climax Series in recent years, are currently struggling to move out of the second division in the PL.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2012

Wife writes of divorcing radiation-scared Ozawa

The wife of Democratic Party of Japan kingpin Ichiro Ozawa has divorced him, saying he fled Tokyo soon after the Fukushima nuclear crisis started last March out of fear of radiation, according to the weekly Shukan Bunshun, citing a letter it says she wrote to his supporters in November.
EDITORIALS
Jun 14, 2012

Bottom line of welfare

A weekly magazine in April reported that the mother of an entertainer earning an annual income of ¥50 million has been receiving public livelihood assistance known as seikatsu hogo (literally livelihood protection). Through a blog of a Diet member and other media, the entertainer was identified as TV...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2012

The fax of life: Japan refuses to part with aging device

In Japan's businesses and bureaucracies, in home offices and hulking companies, the fax machine is thriving.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 12, 2012

Dormant accounts eyed for Tohoku

The government began in February looking into ways to make good use of billions of yen in so-called dormant bank accounts, particularly to help fund reconstruction of areas in the Tohoku region devastated by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 10, 2012

The public shame of crying poor

Public acts of contrition don't get any more dramatic than comedian Junichi Komoto's May 25 press conference, where he apologized for allowing his mother to collect government welfare payments even though he's made good money himself as a TV personality. Josei Seven, the women's weekly that broke the...
COMMENTARY
Jun 9, 2012

Jubilee a very British occasion

Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee is over. It was a very British occasion, including the weather.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 5, 2012

Medical tourism — a boat to be on

So-called medical tourism is a growing market worldwide and high-tech Japan hopes to get a piece of the action.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 4, 2012

A hot genpatsu-free summer threatens

Two things make a battered Japan cringe: genpatsu (原発, nuclear power) and fukeiki (不景気, economic stagnation). The nation has suffered deeply from both. As spring fades into a potentially sweltering, potentially stagnant summer, there arises an agonizing dilemma: Can the latter be avoided, or...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 3, 2012

Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name many of his works. Recently, indeed, I was amazed when...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 2, 2012

Japan's great outdoors becomes Oregonian's office-cum-playground

Gliding through powder across Mount Hakkoda in Aomori Prefecture or scanning the surfers at Shonan Beach in Kanagawa Prefecture, Gardner Robinson's life and work merge so completely that on the clock and on the slopes are one and the same.
JAPAN
May 29, 2012

Hashimoto school grads prep for run

With the first stage of Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's Ishin Seiji Juku school for aspiring politicians concluding Saturday, the 2,000 students who entered in March will be whittled down to between 800 and 1,000 by the end of June.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 29, 2012

New feed-in tariff system a rush to get renewables in play

On July 1, a new law takes effect requiring utilities to purchase electricity generated from five renewable energy sources at a fixed price for a set length of time, under what is known as a feed-in tariff system.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 27, 2012

For some, jail is the best place for aged care

So it's come to this: "Prison is heaven, freedom is hell." A country of which this can reasonably be said is in sad straits. Can it be reasonably said of Japan? It's the subhead of a recent article in Shukan Shincho magazine whose main title is "Happy prison life." Prison life is not happy, unless in...
JAPAN
May 26, 2012

Successful comedian apologizes for leaving his mom on welfare

Junichi Komoto, a member of the popular comedian duo Jicho Kacho, apologized Friday for letting his mother continue to receive welfare benefits after his career took off.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building