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Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 30, 2011

K-pop striking chord with the young

Korean pop groups began gaining popularity and media exposure in Japan last year, singing and dancing on TV shows and appearing in commercials.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 23, 2011

Restoring foreign tourism tall order

Foreign tourist numbers have been plunging since the March 11 quake, tsunami and nuclear crisis in Fukushima Prefecture, and not only for visitors to the disaster zone.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 21, 2011

Korean television dramas are not the real problem

On July 23, actor Sosuke Takaoka tweeted that he was sick of all the Korean dramas on Fuji TV, a network he "used to be indebted to," and demanded more "traditional" Japanese programming. "If anything related to South Korea is on," he continued, "I just turn it off." The backlash was swift, and the actor...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 21, 2011

Now it's Japan's turn to shout 'Yes, we can!'

Two thousand eight was a dreadful year. Long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were going badly. The U.S. "subprime crisis" was strangling the global economy. Rising food prices were causing concern at best, riots at worst. The worse things got, the more helpless the world's democratic leaders showed themselves...
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2011

UPS resumes Iwate package delivery

United Parcel Service Inc. is resuming the remainder of its services halted in Iwate Prefecture after the March earthquake and tsunami.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 9, 2011

Backup batteries for home on radar

Storage batteries — especially those for home use — have been gaining attention since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and sparked fears of blackouts hitting Tokyo during another sweltering summer.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 7, 2011

Man convicted of murder may soon be proved innocent

"Can you imagine how it feels for an innocent man to be kept in prison for years?" demanded Govinda Prasad Mainali during a Japan Times interview in November 2003.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2011

Tepco makes little headway in decontaminating water

Tokyo Electric Power Co. continues to struggle with cleaning up the more than 120,000 tons of radioactive water flooding the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, as the utility has hardly been able to reduce the overall amount of the water in the past several weeks.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 2, 2011

New law fails to ease organ demand

A year has passed since the revised Organ Transplant Law took effect in July 2010. Now anyone, even children, can be organ donors if the next of kin consent. The changes have raised the number of donors but many patients are still waiting to receive organs.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 31, 2011

Nadeshiko Japan show that a relaxed approach gets the best results

The national women's soccer team that just won the FIFA World Cup in Germany is called Nadeshiko Japan. "Nadeshiko" is the name of a flower, but it also represents a certain ideal of Japanese femininity that's demure, quiet and accommodating to men; or, at least, it used to be. Japan's victory over the...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 31, 2011

Timely film reiterates the 'no nukes' urgings of Barefoot Gen's creator

"Nothing has changed from the time of the atom bombs. ... It stands to reason that people are terrified of what they cannot see. I understand the hysteria. In the end, humans must not resort to the atom that they cannot control. The time has come for the Japanese people to make up their mind."
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2011

K-pop stars luring Japan to buy Korean products

Yuko Ishii, a 53-year-old factory worker in central Japan, used to feel reluctant about buying products made in South Korea. That changed after she became a fan of pop stars such as boy band TVXQ.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 26, 2011

TV: Analog out, digital in, with rivals Net, satellite, cable

Sunday marked a nationwide transition to digital terrestrial television broadcasting, bringing to an end over five decades of analog transmissions in Japan.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 24, 2011

Today is D-Day for analog television

Sony recently announced it would discontinue production of the MiniDisc Walkman in September. It was just over a year ago that the company dropped the cassette Walkman, so within the space of 18 months two media will have bitten the dust. Though audiophiles may lament the end of another era, to most...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 19, 2011

All reactors off by spring — a once unthinkable scenario

As the crisis continues at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and thousands of people remain evacuated due to radiation fears, public sentiment has turned against allowing reactors idled for regular checks at power stations nationwide to be restarted.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 12, 2011

Son's quest for sun, wind has nuclear interests wary

In late March, while engaging in volunteer work and making efforts to restore telecommunications networks in the quake-stricken Tohoku region, Softbank Corp. founder and Chairman Masayoshi Son met with evacuees from the area surrounding the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 10, 2011

Media were quick off the mark with March 11 disaster publications

Within a couple of weeks of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, major magazine publishers and newspapers were already putting out extra editions covering the disaster. The first were mostly A4-size on glossy paper, which made them easy to display in the magazine racks at convenience stores and bookshops....
CULTURE / Books
Jul 10, 2011

Watch your manners!

MANNERS AND MISCHIEF: Gender, Power and Etiquette in Japan. Edited by Jan Bardsley and Laura Miller. University of California Press, 2011, 245 pp., $22.95 (paper) Don't let the cutesy Hello Kitty cover fool you. "Manners and Mischief" disdains frivolity and stands firm as an academic text for students...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 10, 2011

Lady Gaga vs. Kuroyanagi; Korean boy-band drama remake; CM of the week: Sogo/Seibu

A couple of weekends ago, Lady Gaga conquered Japan with her willingness to engage each and every person who crossed her path. On the Monday edition of "Tetsuko no Heya" ("Tetsuko's Room"; TV Asahi, 1:20 p.m.), Japan's longest-running TV talk show, the pop star known to her parents as Stefani Germanotta...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 9, 2011

Don Morton raises a mug to bicycles and cold beer

Film buffs may know American Don Morton for the reviews he writes for Metropolis magazine. During a recent interview in his apartment, though, he mostly talked about bicycles. In fact the 67-year-old native of San Francisco is the founder of the Tokyo-based Half-Fast cycling club.
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2011

Water treatment, cooling systems finally working

After suffering numerous problems, the newly installed treatment system for decontaminating radioactive water at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and another system designed to recirculate that water to cool the reactors are finally working.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jul 8, 2011

Live from Tokyo, it's Saturday Night!

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Saturday Night Live Japan!
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 7, 2011

TCY Radio aims to revive club scene

Aside from being one half of successful J-pop duo m-flo, Taku Takahashi is also one of the most established DJs in Japan's club scene. So when Takahashi talks dance music — people listen. Just as well, as that's exactly what he's doing with his latest project, the online station TCY Radio.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2011

Sendai girls end healing Aloha home-stay

The brightly colored markers and the construction paper are ready. Stamps and stickers, prepped to be peeled. Scissors sit on piles of magazines spread out on the table.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 5, 2011

Welfare rise: sign of economic, aging times

The Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to maintain the minimum standard of wholesome and cultured living. Thus to help those struggling to make ends meet, the government provides financial aid according to poverty level while encouraging them to get back on their feet.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 3, 2011

Great Asian thrillers to get you through the summer

LARRY BOND'S RED DRAGON RISING: Edge of War, by Larry Bond and Jim DeFelice. Forge, 2010, 380 pp., $25 (hardcover) Future war fiction is mostly fantasy, and fortunately such stories seldom come true. But some do. One example was a book titled "Banzai!" Published in 1908 by Parabellum (nom de plume of...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 3, 2011

Japan needs to do more than simply 'cope' with stress

What's ailing us? The list is long. In a nutshell: stress. Sixty percent of Japan's work force suffers from it, according to the business magazine Weekly Toyo Keizai.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Jun 30, 2011

A cocktail of AR and social marketing

Chivas Regal 18 combines bar-hopping and AR to create a cocktail of promotion and social marketing.

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