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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2014

Tonnerre: 'Being nice is one way to get a girl, but it's not enough to keep her'

What do you do when you're a has-been musician with thinning hair, staring at middle age and years of loneliness ahead? The good news — at least for Maxime (Vincent Macaigne) in "Tonnerre" — is that you've got a kind old dad (Bernard Menez), a dog and a rambling house in the titular French city,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2014

Grace of Monaco: 'Decked with as much glittering artifice as the budget allows'

One of the best moments in "Grace of Monaco" comes when Alfred Hitchcock (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) visits Princess Grace (Grace Kelly, played by Nicole Kidman) in Monaco, hoping to lure her back to Hollywood via a starring role in his new movie "Marnie." Ashton-Griffiths is intentionally grotesque and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2014

Minuscule: 'A refreshingly different approach to animation'

Most children's animation these days is motor-mouthed to the extreme and larded with snarky pop-culture gags, but French film "Minuscule" takes a refreshingly different approach. Filmmakers Helene Giraud and Thomas Szabo honed their skills on animated shorts over the past decade and now drop a full-length...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 15, 2014

Classic early mystery lays bare elusive Lepage style

As an actor and world-class theater, film and opera director, Robert Lepage has become renowned for his unconventional productions using high-tech devices. Now, though, Tokyo audiences can feast their eyes and minds on this 56-year-old French-Canadian's early masterpiece, 1987's "Le Polygraphe (Polygraph),"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 15, 2014

Katsura Sunshine's a star at rakugo in English

"It was the first time I'd performed to an audience where there wasn't a single person from Japan, and I don't think anyone had even been there — yet their reaction was electric," Katsura Sunshine said with a beaming smile as he talked about his first show at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival —...
WORLD
Oct 15, 2014

Conflicts the Kurds are currently involved in

Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran all have large Kurdish minorities seeking varying degrees of autonomy from central government after decades of state repression. Here is an overview of their status.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 15, 2014

China rebukes Taiwan for 'irresponsible' comments on Hong Kong

China's top body in charge of relations with Taiwan rebuked the self-ruled island on Wednesday for officials' "irresponsible" comments on the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, and took an apparent swipe at the protests that often happen in democratic Taiwan.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 14, 2014

Nissan finds Datsun cars a tough sell in India at $5,000 each

In July last year, as Nissan Motor Co. prepared to bring Datsun out of a decades-long retirement, the company scoffed at the idea that the budget brand would follow Tata Motors Ltd.'s $2,500 Nano and flop.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 14, 2014

Ferguson protesters struggle to maintain focus on slain teenager

Young black protesters from Ferguson, Missouri, want to keep their anger focused on the fatal police shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown as their movement takes on a national dimension that threatens to dilute it.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2014

Modi's outreach to U.S. more than pageantry

Though some critics view the Indian prime minister's recent visit to the U.S. as puff and pageantry with no concrete results, Narendra Modi laid the foundation for long-term changes in the way India conducts its international affairs.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 11, 2014

The horrific act that connects Islamic State to a few Japanese schoolchildren

Beheadings. Dismemberings. The world is turning into a horror movie.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Oct 11, 2014

Black Rain

Masuji Ibuse's classic 1965 novel "Black Rain" takes readers into the everyday lives of a family poisoned by radiation sickness. The narrative structure carefully balances between the present time of the novel and journal entries from the bombings of Hiroshima to craft a carefully wrought masterpiece...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 11, 2014

Tei: A Memoir of the End of War and Beginning of Peace

Tei Fujiwara's book is a historical memoir of one woman's journey to save her family. The year is 1945 and the Soviets have declared war on Japan. Fujiwara is forced to leave her home in Manchuria, a Japanese-controlled state in China, to flee the oncoming Soviet invasion. Through many difficult trials,...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 11, 2014

Thousands will be massacred if jihadis take key Syrian-Turkish border town: U.N. envoy

Thousands of people most likely will be massacred if Kobani falls to Islamic State group fighters, a U.N. envoy said Friday, as militants fought deeper into the besieged Syrian-Kurdish town in full view of Turkish tanks that have done nothing to intervene.
OLYMPICS / ROBERT WHITING'S 1964 OLYMPICS RETROSPECTIVE
Oct 10, 2014

Olympic construction transformed Tokyo

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics had a profound impact on the capital city and the nation. In the opening installment of a five-part series that will run during the next two weeks, best-selling author Robert Whiting, who lived in Japan at the time, takes a look back at the preparations for the event.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2014

Mourning Excalibur, the dog Ebola didn't kill

A petition to save the pet dog of a Spanish nursing assistant who has contracted Ebola received more than 370,000 signatures before it was sedated and killed. Yet there are no reports of people clashing with police to persuade their governments to do more to help stop the the spread of Ebola in Africa. A university study seems to confirm this preference we have for cute animals over adult humans.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2014

Asia's innovation challenge

The West should pay attention to Asia's experiments with creative ways to finance innovation, such as China's intellectual property exchanges and Malaysia's intellectual-property loan programs.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 10, 2014

Spanish nurse worsens; Madrid blames Ebola infection on human error

The health of a Spanish nurse with Ebola worsened on Thursday and four other people were put into isolation in Madrid, while the country's government rejected claims its methods for dealing with the disease weren't working and blamed human error.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 9, 2014

Japan's chance to develop Antarctic marine sanctuary

Japan now has an opportunity to be a leader in supporting the creation of a marine sanctuary for the Ross Sea and East Antarctica.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2014

The best interests of the Caucasian talk circle

The Caucasus is among the world's most divided and incoherent regions, as the three republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have failed to learn, economically or politically, from similarly linked groups of countries such as the Baltic states. Is it too late for the Caucasus to change course?
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 9, 2014

Messaging firm Line to offer pay, taxi, food delivery services

Smartphone messaging service Line Corp. said Thursday it will launch a payment service in coming months as it seeks to play a more fundamental role in customers' lives.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 9, 2014

DJ Krush taps into tradition for RBMA

This month, artists from 34 countries will congregate in Tokyo for the latest edition of the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA), a caffeine-fueled creative hothouse organized by the world's most ubiquitous energy drink brand. For participants, the event offers a chance to attend closed-door lectures with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2014

The Yamatane Museum presents a brilliant show

Gold and silver have long been used in Japanese painting for their decorative value, on works ranging from intimate handscrolls to large-scale screens. But as the current exhibition at the Yamatane Museum of Art makes amply clear, in the last century or so tradition has been improved upon as modern and...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 8, 2014

Child sex abuse victims face hurdles seeking redress in court

By the time survivors of childhood sex abuse are mentally and financially ready to confront their tormentors, the time for pursuing legal action has often long expired.

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