Search - beauty

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 9, 2011

Setting a course for pirate isles in the Seto Inland Sea

A Portuguese Jesuit named Padre Louis Frois, who was one of the first Europeans to write extensively about Japan, described Murakami Takeyoshi as the most powerful pirate in Japan and a man feared by all.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Oct 7, 2011

Pretty in pink at The Peninsula Tokyo

As part of The Peninsula Tokyo's ongoing Enriching Your Life and Community campaign, the hotel is showing its support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month throughout October with Peninsula in Pink — a new Peninsula Hotels groupwide campaign to raise awareness and funds through signature pink-themed promotions....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 30, 2011

'Friends With Benefits'

Friends With Benefits" is one of those American movies with a title whose nuance is lost entirely in the translation; local distributor Sony didn't even try, titling it "Stay Friends" for the Japan market. "Sekkusu Furendo" might have been more on the mark, but was presumably a bit too blunt for those...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 25, 2011

Single mothers konkatsu; origin of toy poodles; CM of the week: Sekisui Heim

Once upon a time, single mothers rarely talked about their situations. Obviously, that's changed, if the TBS special "Unmei no Konkatsu Tabi" ("The Journey to a Fateful Union"; Mon., 7 p.m.) is any indication.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 22, 2011

"The Design of Katagami"

ICU Hachiro Yuasa Memorial Museum
CULTURE / Books
Sep 18, 2011

Existence is but a brief shimmer of light

INCIDENTAL MUSIC, by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa. BlazeVOX, 2010, 112 pp., $16.00 (paper); and NOTATIONAL, by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa. Otoliths, 2011, 68 pp., $12.45 (paper). If the saying is true that "writing about art is like dancing about architecture" — or, as Martin Amis argues, that, when reviewing poems,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 16, 2011

"Fin de Siècle, Form of Beauty"

By the end of the 19th century, the art scene within European countries had fully flourished. New varied forms of expression — introduced by artists such as Paul Gauguin, Émile Gallé and Alphonse Mucha — challenged traditional art conventions, and through experimentation with style and color, modern...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 16, 2011

The gun proves mightier than the pen

I have one name for you: Nicholas Sparks. Depending on who you are and whether you have immediate access to a restroom, you may, like my brother, wish to throw up immediately. Nicholas Sparks ... Some names can kill.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 15, 2011

Francois Girard and a woman of many letters

"This wonderful project started when my friend, the Lebanese writer Wajdi Mouawad, gave me a book and said I should make a movie out it," Francois Girard explains. "But after I read it I got back to him and said, 'Sorry, I disagree with you. This is really not right for a movie — but it's perfect for...
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Tourists ignoring dolphin culls

Regarding Susanna Duft's Sept. 8 letter, "Boon for a new tourism drive": Duft seems to believe in the misguided logic that ending the annual dolphin slaughter in Japan will encourage much-needed tourism, which has been decimated by the March 11 Tohoku-Pacific earthquake and tsunami.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 11, 2011

God's own country

Everywhere around Kerala in southwest India there are signs emblazoned with the state motto: "God's Own Country" — and certainly no supreme deity could have chosen a better place to call home.
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Boon for a new tourism drive

Ontarians as well as people from around the world recognized Sept. 1 as Dolphin Day. Unfortunately, Japan became the focus.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 4, 2011

Year-round playground Yamanashi

In all of my visits to Yamanashi Prefecture, never before has catching sight of Mount Fuji left my heart beating so fast. Certainly, any view of that lofty symbol of Japan is sure to impart a sense of awe at its scale and natural beauty. But this time, it was the 121-degree freefall right after my fleeting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 2, 2011

'Hanna'

Hollywood so often uses foreign-accented types for its villains, and American media in general spends so much time bashing Europeans as cheese-eating surrender-monkeys, that it's good to see ol' Europe hitting back. "Hanna," the slick new action thriller by Londoner Joe Wright, is the third film this...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 2, 2011

"Naoki Ishikawa '8848'"

Naoki Ishikawa, an incessant traveler, took up professional photography just four years ago and has since documented many of his expeditions. He has won various international awards and was the second-youngest photographer to win Japan's Ken Domon Award.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 2, 2011

'Hanezu no Tsuki (Hanezu)'

Naomi Kawase is the most lyrical of Japanese directors now working. As both a documentarian and a feature filmmaker, she discovers in the common materials of everyday existence — sun, wind, water, trees, insects, people — a beauty and transcendence that is always present, seldom noticed. Set mostly...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 28, 2011

The best of his years . . .

This summer, my translator and I stood in Izumi Matsumoto's home-cum-office in Tokyo, where he had just been searching in vain for any original drawings from "Spring Wonder," which was, 27 years ago, the first manga serial he pitched to leading comics magazine Weekly Shonen Jump.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 26, 2011

"Meibutsu: Treasured Japanese Swords"

Over the course of history, objects initially created for a particular use occasionally become appreciated more for their design and form, and in turn become more ornamental than functional. Since the Muromachi Period (1338-1573), the virtue of Japanese swords has been recognized by samurai and collectors...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 25, 2011

Tsuneo Enari Exhibition — Japan and its Forgotten War: Showa

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography Closes Sept. 25.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 21, 2011

Poetry as stimulating as a stun gun

THE NEW YURI AND SELECTED YURI: Writing From Peeling Till Now, by Yuri Kageyama. Ishmael Reed Publishing Company, 2011, 134 pp., $19.99 (paper) In the babbling cosmos of contemporary literature, there have been a handful of distinguished cross-cultural writers who have made the English language their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 19, 2011

Pitt, Penn heap praise on Malick's 'real world'

Terrence Malick kicks off his new film, "The Tree of Life," with a bang. The Big Bang, actually. Over the next 138 minutes, the viewer witnesses a journey through history that ends up in a small town in Texas. Critics seem to agree that you'll either love it or hate it.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Aug 18, 2011

Men look to shed a few years off their aging skin

The rough-hewn look might be on its way out as makers of skin-care products aim for the middle-aged male market.
Reader Mail
Aug 18, 2011

Geothermal is the most practical

With respect to Pete Hourdequin's Aug. 7 letter, "(Prime Minister Naoto) Kan's vision is commendable": Renewable energy in its current state is NOT a viable solution for Japan. Solar power cells may continue to advance technologically, but they don't make sense for Japan geographically.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 18, 2011

Trippple Nippples

You're based in Japan, how was it playing at Summer Sonic?
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2011

Tsunami spared Matsushima but swept away bay's tourists

Matsuo Basho, arguably Japan's most famous haiku poet, is said to have been at a loss for words when he first saw the hundreds of pine-clad islets scattered around Matsushima Bay during a 17th-century journey to the Tohoku region.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 8, 2011

Unbeautiful yen's rise will help the economy more than hurt it

The yen continues to appreciate as Japan struggles to get a handle on recovering from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the unresolved crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and the inability of the administration of Prime Minister Naoto Kan to implement policy actions to deal with the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 5, 2011

'Days of Heaven' / 'Nashville'

It's somewhat depressing to think that the two best films on offer this summer, by far, were made over three decades ago. Robert Altman's epic "Nashville" came out in the torrid summer of 1975, while Terrence Malick's sophomore film, "Days of Heaven," was released in '78 after two years in the editing...

Longform

Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?