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BUSINESS
Jun 28, 2001

Taiyo-Daido team wins insurer bid

The court-appointed trustee for the defunct Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. has selected the alliance of Taiyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Daido Life Insurance Co. as the potential buyer for Tokyo Mutual.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 3, 2001

Lessons in crisis mismanagement

All my life I have been behind the times. I wore my bell-bottoms for years after the fashion had died, and in fact only abandoned them after they had shrunk up and become sort of bell-knickers.
BUSINESS
May 30, 2001

Tokio Marine's group pretax profit surges 58.9%

Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co. said Tuesday its group pretax profit for the 2000 business year surged 58.9 percent to 85.45 billion yen.
CULTURE / Books
May 13, 2001

'Earth Mother' Randy Taguchi wins plaudits for her fiction

The novelist Randy Taguchi, known as queen of the e-mail magazine, is enjoying something of a boom. Although she started writing on the Internet in 1996 and now draws some 78,000 readers for the weekly essay she posts on the Web, she came to more general attention when her first novel, "Consent," was...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2001

'Charismatic housewife' advocates happiness through homemaking

Many Japanese women revere Harumi Kurihara, calling her the "charismatic housewife."
EDITORIALS
Jan 4, 2001

HAL, are you out there?

2001 is not just another year. For over three decades, those four digits symbolized the future, and triggered hopes, dreams and fears about what lay over the horizon. Brilliant though it was, Sir Arthur C. Clarke's imagination and Stanley Kubrick's rendering of life in the 21st century have also missed...
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 11, 2000

Art transcends time in 'Julius Caesar' production

A talented theater director can breathe new life into an old play, and David Lan, the new artistic director of the Young Vic Theater in southeast London, has done just that.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Cracked earth: A journey through Thailand's arid and impoverished Northeast

"In a bad year, it is not only the plows that break, but the hearts too." -- Pira Sudham, "People of Isan"
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2000

Troubled insurer Kyoei seeks court protection

Kyoei Life Insurance Co., a troubled midsize insurer with liabilities of about 4.5 trillion yen, filed for protection from creditors with the Tokyo District Court on Friday, making it the largest life insurer to collapse since World War II, company officials said.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2000

Calm rejoicing in simple, ordinary things

OLD TAOIST: THE LIFE, ART, AND POETRY OF KODOJIN (1865-1944), by Stephen Addiss, with translations of and commentary on Chinese poems by Jonathan Chaves, Columbia University Press, 2000, 173 pp., $27.50. The photograph of Kodojin inside this book is very much what the title leads us to expect -- an elderly...
BUSINESS
Sep 19, 2000

Three insurers announce tieup

In the latest round of consolidation in the insurance sector, Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Nichido Fire & Marine Insurance Co. announced Monday they have agreed to a comprehensive tieup, with a view toward integrating their management in the future.
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2000

Insurers plan comprehensive alliance

Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Nichido Fire & Marine Insurance Co. and Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co. are planning to form a comprehensive tieup with a view to integrating their operations in the future, company sources said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2000

Taisho exec's fundraising acts scrutinized

Prosecutors are examining the fundraising activities of a Taisho Life Insurance Co. executive who was arrested Monday on suspicion of fraud, sources close to the case said Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 30, 2000

Feeling the pulse of the seasons

Recently, and for the first time, I flew right across Australia. Heading northwest from New Zealand, I crossed Australia's southeast coast somewhere south of Sydney and traversed the country northwest to the coast near Broome.
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2000

Dai-ichi Mutual, Yasuda Fire considering tieup

Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Co. plan to form a comprehensive tieup with a view to integrating their future operations, industrial sources said Saturday.
BUSINESS
Jun 29, 2000

Taisho gets 4.5 billion yen lifeline

The financially ailing Taisho Life Insurance Co. said Wednesday that it has avoided possible collapse by securing a pledge of 4.5 billion yen in fresh capital through outside funding.
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2000

Good grief for a good man

In the end, Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz's departure was an eerie case of life seeming to imitate art. Schulz died last Saturday on the eve of the final appearance of his Sunday strip. (Like the last original daily strip, which ran in newspapers in January, it featured a farewell message from Schulz,...
JAPAN
Dec 13, 1999

Yasuda, Fukoku announce insurance alliance

Yasuda Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Co. announced Monday that they will form a wide-ranging alliance to share costs for investment in computer systems and cooperate in other areas. The move by Yasuda, the sixth-largest life insurer in terms of assets, and Fukoku, which...
JAPAN
Oct 15, 1999

Negotiations stall over sale of Toho Mutual

The Life Insurance Association of Japan has given up on its plan to sell the failed Toho Mutual Life Insurance Co. by the end of this year, association chairman Tomijiro Morita said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 17, 1998

Japanese insurers postpone decision on AIG's takeover plan

The Japanese life insurance industry has put off making a decision on whether to allow American International Group Inc. of the United States to begin studying a possible takeover of Aoba Life Insurance Co., the industry head said Friday.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 1997

Insurance exec says solvency margins must be disclosed

Life insurance firms will have to disclose their solvency margins under a new policyholders' protection system being formed by the Finance Ministry, the chairman of the Life Insurance Association of Japan said Friday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Longform
May 29, 2023

In a Japanese garden, you’re never under the weather

As the rainy season approaches, the excess water is set to bring life to green spaces across the nation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 6, 2023

'Mister Timeless Blyth' traces the indelible influences of Zen and poetry

Alan Spence's new novel, which was nearly 10 years in the making, follows the life of R.H. Blyth, a British scholar who helped bring Japanese poetry to the West.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 29, 2023

With China's borders open, international students are eager to return

Earlier this month, China removed its last cross-border control measure and reopened to the world by allowing all types of visas to be issued.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 7, 2023

Living doll: Licca-chan casts a spell on Japan's adults

Some adult fans of the toy have formed an online community where they can swap homemade garments and accessories.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2023

The $100 billion offshore wind industry has a whale problem

Nearly two dozen whales have died along the U.S. Atlantic coast, and an unlikely coalition says that offshore wind is the culprit.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Jan 1, 2023

What to expect in the Year of the Rabbit

If 2022 felt a little hectic, the next 12 months could offer opportunities for relaxation, quietness and contemplation.
Director Hirobumi Watanabe (second from left) stars alongside his brother Yuji (far right), who has served as composer on all of his films, in his new feature “Techno Brothers,” which follows a sibling trio on the road to Tokyo to find success in the music business.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 21, 2023

Foolish Piggies Films keeps humor at its heart

Indie director Hirobumi Watanabe looks back on 10 years of making distinctive, micro-budget films with his brother and seeking out new challenges on and off screen.
A woman takes a picture of the poster for the new Hayao Miyazaki film, “The Boy and the Heron.”
PODCAST / deep dive
Aug 2, 2023

Hayao Miyazaki’s confusing new masterpiece

Our critics Thu-Huong Ha and Matt Schley discuss what they thought of the new Hayao Miyazaki film, “The Boy and the Heron.”
Nymphonella tapetis has become a pest for Manila clam (Ruditapes philippinarum) farms in Tokyo Bay.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Aug 6, 2023

There are spiders in the sea surrounding Japan … sort of

Most sea spiders look like a tangle of legs, with little, if any, body to speak of. But they are not actually spiders.

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