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COMMENTARY / World
Mar 12, 2015

Russia's social order today

In today's Russia, traditional forms of employment with stable wages and a more or less transparent system of social security have given way to shadow-market-style labor relations with badly documented part-time jobs and nontransparent methods of remuneration.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS
Mar 3, 2015

Switch Coffee keeps the neighbors happy

"Sometimes people say you shouldn't make your hobby into your job," says Masahiro Onishi, the 28-year-old owner of Meguro roastery and coffee stand Switch Coffee. "I was concerned about that."
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 20, 2015

Fallout from incident with Chelsea fans may be extreme

The condemnation of the racist thugs who refused to allow a black man to enter the train in the Paris Metro was immediate and widespread.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jan 22, 2015

Chocolate delight at Hyatt Regency; Ritz-Carlton offers berry good buffet; Peninsula Spa soothes, pampers

Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 20, 2015

Perseverance wins Ningen Isu an encore

Kimonos and heavy metal. It's a combination that few groups have pulled off convincingly. While the aesthetic may have been used last year to turn (or bang) more than a few heads in the West by heavy metal idol unit Babymetal, the tiny trio certainly wasn't the first to attempt it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 14, 2015

Ichiyanagi opera aims to be 'total work of art'

As part of its 40th-anniversary celebrations, Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama will stage a world-premier version of "Legend of the Water Flame," an opera by the renowned composer Toshi Ichiyanagi that's scored around a libretto by a fellow octogenarian, the poet Makoto Ooka.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2015

We are all Charlie, too late

The hope must be that the assassinations of cartoonists and journalists at the weekly Charlie Hebdo will waken political and media leaders to understand that press freedoms have been badly eroded worldwide.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 3, 2015

In Kawabata's footsteps to 'Snow Country'

"The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country."
JAPAN / History
Jan 1, 2015

Donald Keene reflects on 70-year Japan experience

My first visit to Japan was very short, only a week or so in December 1945. Three months earlier, while on the island of Guam, I had heard the broadcast by the Emperor announcing the end of the war. Soon afterward, I was sent from Guam to China to serve as an interpreter between the Americans and the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 24, 2014

Top 10 films of 2014: made in Japan, for Japan

Are Japanese films in decline? Not at the box office, where they still beat the Hollywood competition (with the huge exception this year of "Frozen"), but what about international festival invitations, awards and critical buzz? The answer depends on your perspective. For overseas festivals specializing...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 23, 2014

First Air Jordans were banned by NBA for clashing with team colors

This is the third installment from Hall of Fame writer Sam Smith's new book "There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 19, 2014

Navigator of the travel labyrinth is big fan of Japan

In Tokyo, Wang Jia Liang is well-known as a trusted travel agent and a most patient concierge who saves travelers time, money and lots of stress.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Dec 1, 2014

Iwate's Randall stays focused on winning

The Japan Times features periodic interviews with players in the bj-league. Scootie Randall of the Eastern Conference-leading Iwate Big Bulls is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 29, 2014

The Columbia Anthology of Japanese Essays

Not exactly essays, not exactly poems, zuihitsu — a uniquely Japanese genre of literature — may be hard to define, but they are delightfully easy to read. "The Columbia Anthology of Japanese Essays," edited and translated by Steven D. Carter, presents a definitive collection of this genre, written...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 19, 2014

Hurt-till-you-laugh approach to making comedies

When Yosuke Fujita's debut feature "Zenzen Daijobu (Fine, Totally Fine)" started making the international festival rounds in 2008, it charmed nearly everyone who saw it.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 3, 2014

Redaction of a 'comfort woman' story

One of the Japanese stories sometimes mentioned in the 'comfort women' controversy was written by the late Taijiro Tamura in the spring of 1947. It depicted Korean 'comfort women,' but the U.S. Occupation 'suppressed' it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 1, 2014

Cultivating shrunken worlds in Bonsai-mura

Omiya is one of greater Tokyo's rare pockets of residential comfort that can accurately be defined as middle class — a trait it shares with places such as Chiba's Ichikawa Mama or southwestern Tokyo's Denenchofu district.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Oct 25, 2014

No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human" comprises a series of three fictionalized notebooks, with each increasingly darker than the last. The character writing these books, Yozo, is detached from the beginning and is afraid of human interactions, but he learns how to socialize with people by playing the clown...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Oct 21, 2014

Kyoto forward Warren dedicates play to those battling cancer

It's not every day that you see a 202-cm forward wearing a pink headband during a men's pro basketball game.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Oct 17, 2014

BIFF 2014 plays down unavoidable controversies

The biggest event of the year for South Korea's film industry is the opening night of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which marked its 19th year Oct. 2 to 11. Whether or not they have films screening at the festival, almost all the major Korean movie stars show up and strut the red carpet...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2014

Tale of panic and pain strikes an operatic chord

At a time when Japan is being rapped over the knuckles by the U.N. for hate-speech rallies against ethnic Koreans, a movie like "The Tenor: Lirico Spinto" takes on special significance. Directed by Kim Sang-man, "The Tenor" (released here as "The Tenor: Shinjitsuno Monogatari") is a collaborative project...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Oct 15, 2014

Is it time to bid bye-bye to 'haro'?

When was the last time someone Japanese used your presence as an excuse to say 'haro' whilst furtively glancing sideways at their companions to confirm they just made the funniest joke ever?
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2014

New anti-Semitism in Germany isn't the same

It's not the old-style, neo-Nazi anti-Semites who are trying to burn down synagogues or calling the Jews out to fight these days, as they have a problem with the currently dominant strain of anti-Semitism — its carriers have darker skin.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Sep 27, 2014

Jean-Georges Vongerichten: 'What you eat as a child forms your palate'

My dream 25 years ago was to start one restaurant, and now I have a whole empire.
BUSINESS
Sep 26, 2014

Famed bedroom trader Takashi Kotegawa reveals his wealth secrets as he guns for $1 billion

It was six minutes after the opening bell on Feb. 4, and dozens of big-name stocks were still untraded in Tokyo. Telecommunications giant SoftBank Corp. was among those that hadn't budged. The offer price fell 5 percent, then more, and still there were no takers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 20, 2014

Glimpses of Lafcadio Hearn's Matsue

The Matsue-bound train I boarded at Okayama Station was pointedly named Yakumo, a reference to its destination's best-known former resident: Greek-Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), whose adopted Japanese name was Yakumo Koizumi.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 5, 2014

A Scottish 'yes' vote may not be such a big change for the queen

Scotland's vote on independence this month means Queen Elizabeth II faces a division in her kingdom not seen since the days of her namesake, Elizabeth I, at the start of the 17th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2014

Inside author David Mitchell's metaphysical mind

Outside the vista windows of the Hotel New Otani's Garden Lounge cafe in Tokyo, it's snowing, in March, and it suddenly feels like the spring flowers in the Japanese garden below may have popped too soon. David Mitchell wonders aloud what kind of flowers they are, before returning to our discussion....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 16, 2014

Punk author Kou Machida on his offbeat samurai story

You wouldn't expect a punk musician to write decent novels, any more than you'd expect a boxer to be good at darning. The talents prized by the former vocation — restlessness, insouciance, hard-wired disregard for authority — don't lend themselves to the rigors of the author's life: all those long,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2014

How Japan's art inspired the West

In the decades after Japan was forcibly opened to large-scale international trade in the early 1850s, a fever spread across Europe for items from the exotic country: its textiles, ceramics, paper fans, woodblock prints and more. Meanwhile, the term "Japonism" was coined to describe works made in Europe...

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building