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Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2015

Last officer from Pearl Harbor battleship USS Arizona dies at 100

The last surviving officer of the USS Arizona, one of the ships that was bombed in Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, has died at the age of 100 at a nursing facility in Northern California, his son said on Facebook.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Feb 9, 2015

Injuries to Okinawa anti-base protesters 'laughable,' says U.S. military spokesman

In an email, a top marine official likens protesters hurt in demonstrations to diving soccer players.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 9, 2015

Plumbing the delicious depths of February with ume

Traditionally, Kisaragi (如月, the old name for February) was considered a month of hope — a chance to wipe the slate clean and start over. Before the nation switched to the Western calendar, it was the month for ushering in Oshōgatsu (お正月, New Year) and marked a time when everyone took it...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Feb 7, 2015

Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear: Russia's War with Japan

Richard Connaughton's "Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear" is a detailed study of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, the first war where an Asian power defeated a European power since the Mongol invasion of the 13th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 7, 2015

The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia's Environmental Emergency

With our planet teetering on a climate crisis, environmentalists have recently started making the case for going green from the perspective that it's good for business.
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Feb 6, 2015

Orser says Hanyu back in training, working on quads

Brian Orser, the coach of 2014 Olympic and world champion Yuzuru Hanyu continues to be the best quote in the business.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / TYSON-DOUGLAS SHOCKER REVISITED
Feb 6, 2015

Lampley remembers historic fight in Tokyo

Second in a series
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 6, 2015

Amputee women in Japan proudly step forward

Japan isn't the easiest place to live for people with disabilities. Buildings and transportation aren't always accessible; people are apt to regard disabilities as shameful; and a societal tendency to turn away from anything unpleasant makes it difficult to effect change. Nevertheless change is possible,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2015

Immigration detention centers like prisons, U.K. inspectors say

When British incarceration inspection expert Hindpal Singh Bhui last month paid his first visit to a Japanese immigration detention center, his overriding initial impression was that it looked like a prison.
MORE SPORTS / TYSON-DOUGLAS SHOCKER REVISITED
Feb 5, 2015

Whiting says booming economy brought Tyson-Douglas bout to Tokyo

Best-selling author Robert Whiting, who penned an epic series for The Japan Times examining the legacy of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics last fall, has lived in Tokyo for decades. He is a keen observer of the ties that bind the United States and Japan, especially through the prism of sports.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015

When nostalgia entangles with an unsettling past

When Koichi Watari, the director of the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art contacted Yoshitomo Nara to organize a solo exhibition of his work, the artist was traveling around Hokkaido and Sakhalin with photographer and hard-core explorer Naoki Ishikawa. Nara suggested to Watari that they do a two-person...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015

Message trumps the medium at JMAF

When Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase "The medium is the message" in the mid-1960s, the ensuing dialogue on media theory encouraged an approach that persists to the present day: to examine new types of technology through the societal and cultural changes that they engender.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2015

Ruben Pater: Current advancements in drone technology are worrying

Dutch artist Ruben Pater discusses drones and survival in the modern age:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2015

'The Face of Love': Falling for a doppelganger

Back in the 20th century, there was an unwritten consensus of sorts that actors and actresses over a certain age should not be involved in heavyweight love scenes. But over the last decade, veteran performers have been cast in romantic comedies of all kinds, with or without garments. Fifty is the new...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2015

20,000 Days on Earth: 'Nick Cave beside a fireplace talking about his childhood'

Once upon a time — say, around 1982, when he was strung out on heroin and singing as though a Ridley Scott-style alien had just burst through his chest — it was hard to imagine Nick Cave sitting in front of a fireplace talking quietly about his childhood with a chin-stroking interviewer. Like Iggy...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Feb 4, 2015

Multivitamins may help ward off common cold

Vitamin and mineral supplements are big business in Japan, but are they really any use?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 4, 2015

Ninagawa still exploring in eighth take on 'Hamlet'

Yukio Ninagawa's "cherry-blossom" staging of "Macbeth" at the Edinburgh Festival in 1985, with actors in that famously Scottish play sporting kimono rather than kilts, was a sensation due to its radical reimagining of so revered a work.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 4, 2015

At least 16 dead in Taipei plane crash

A TransAsia Airways plane with 58 passengers and crew on board crashed into a river shortly after taking off from a downtown Taipei airport on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and leaving about a dozen missing, officials said.
EDITORIALS
Feb 4, 2015

The ethics of artificial intelligence

The growing penetration of artificial intellence into our daily lives is raising pressing ethical issues.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 4, 2015

Ending aggression in East Asia

Japan's postwar reconciliation efforts have borne abundant fruit that must be cherished and protected by the Abe government.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 4, 2015

Toyota raises profit forecast as weak yen lifts earnings on SUVs

Toyota Motor Corp. raised its fiscal year profit forecast Wednesday as surging overseas sales of SUVs and the carmaker's production base in Japan make it one of the biggest beneficiaries of a weaker yen.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Feb 4, 2015

In shrinking villages, abandoned graves are a sign of generational flight

In the nation's declining provinces, it is not only the living who are neglected.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 3, 2015

Alibaba scores a hollow victory over Beijing

Alibaba's success in its confrontation with the Chinese Communist Party is not a sign that life is generally improving for private business in China,
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 3, 2015

Don Matsuo to take solo experiences into Zoobombs' new act

In September 2013, weeks away from celebrating their 20th anniversary, Tokyo rock act Zoobombs announced they were disbanding. The group's leader, guitarist and vocalist Don Matsuo, and his wife, Zoobombs' keyboardist Matta, went on to form a new group called The Randolf. However, that project was short-lived...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS
Feb 3, 2015

Blue Bottle Coffee offers a fresher brew

Whether by accident of fate or surfeit of real estate, Tokyo's Kiyosumi-Shirakawa neighborhood is turning into one of the most caffeinated corners of the capital. Already home to artisan roasters, including The Cream of the Crop and Arise Coffee, this district of galleries, parks and low-rise housing...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past