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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2013

Director Cuaron examines all angles when shooting 'space'

Last month, we heard Paul Greengrass, director of "Captain Phillips," talk in detail about his choppy, handheld, visceral filming style. This month, we get to hear from Alfonso Cuarón, director of the massive hit "Gravity," whose style is about 180 degrees different.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2013

'Seki Seki Ren Ren (Deep Red Love)'

Japan's suicide rate is nearly twice that of the U.S. and three times that of the U.K., with the number of people taking their own lives each year only recently dipping below 30,000. It is also the leading cause of death among Japanese in their teens and 20s. Why this should be so in a society so orderly,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Dec 12, 2013

Umami: an ideal sake pairing

On a recent September morning in Napa Valley, a sake-pairing session at the Culinary Institute of America's annual Worlds of Flavor conference began with a lesson in organic chemistry. The theme of the seminar was "sake and umami," a topic tantalizing enough to fill the room with food and beverage professionals...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 12, 2013

Xmas music for good causes

Tohoku is still in dire need of support to help its recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011. But it must be remembered that recovery is a slow process, and there are many who are also still struggling after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, which destroyed a large portion of...
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 12, 2013

Top pension fund urged to buy airport concessions

New Kansai International Airport Co. is seeking to attract the state-run retirement fund to a sale of two airport concessions that could raise as much as ¥1.2 trillion.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 11, 2013

Tokyo: Where do you get your news fix from?

NHK, The Japan Times, 2channel, Nihon TV . . . Fox? Tokyoites look to a wide range of sources to sate their thirst for news.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 11, 2013

'Don Quixote' as never before

Paris comes to Tokyo this week with a production from the Théâtre National de Chaillot of a "choreographic essay" by José Montalvo, one of its artistic directors. Featuring 13 dancers and Patrice Thibaud, an actor routinely dubbed a genius, the premiere of "Don Quichotte du Trocadéro" in January...
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 11, 2013

'Swift!' brings theater for all sizes

Parents and lovers of visually creative theater: French company Skappa! has just the play for you.
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

Let's find out how smart Japan is

I would like to raise my concerns about Mark Schreiber's Dec. 8 article, "Impending Japan-China war has the makings of a [Tom] Clancy classic."
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

'Arrogant' China as a role model

The front-page Nov. 26 article "Tokyo cries foul over defense zone" quotes China as saying that aircraft entering its recently established air defense identification zone (ADIZ) must obey its rules of identification and so forth, or face "defensive emergency measures."
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

An insane offset to a greedy tax

Regarding the Dec. 5 Kyodo article "Stimulus package to ease tax hike OK'd": If there was ever a more blatant plan to use power to embezzle money from the public purse than Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's insulting intention to ease the effects of taxation by proffering a stimulus package, then I have yet...
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

Surely the voters can do better

Regarding the Dec. 2 article "Secrecy law protests 'act of terrorism': LDP secretary-general": Day by day it is becoming clearer that the leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party have not really changed, as their true colors shine through with increasing radiance. Yet, once again a high-ranking member...
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

No nation in Asia is an 'island'

I read Takeru Toki's Dec. 5 letter, "Leaders provoking antagonism," with deep interest, and again it made me think very seriously about Japan's relationship with China and South Korea.
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

Labeling of wartime laborers

In Roger Pulvers' Dec. 1 letter, "POWs on the Burma-Thai Railway" (a reply to my Nov. 16 letter, "Who worked the Burma-Thai rails?"), Pulvers apparently reasserts the claim from Richard Flanagan's book "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" that the Asian laborers who toiled on the Burma-Thailand line were...
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

A better use of students' time

Regarding the Dec. 3 Kyodo-Jiji article "University students start job hunt": I have to admit that I do not get the annual university student job hunt, which started this month.
SOCCER / J. League / J. LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 11, 2013

Sanfrecce showed mettle with late charge to claim second straight title

If Sanfrecce Hiroshima's debut title win last season was greeted with respectful but underwhelming applause, there can be no doubting their credentials now that they have successfully defended their crown.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 11, 2013

Jones, Shimizu helping to keep Oita in contention early

The Oita HeatDevils were 7-1 to open the 2012-13 season before the team's financial crisis broke up the nucleus of the roster, sending Matt Lottich, Wendell White, Taj Finger, Cyrus Tate, Kazuya "J." Hatano and Naoto Takushi packing as massive cost-cutting measures took place and new players arrived....
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Dec 11, 2013

Koshien Bowl enjoys long, rich history

Located on the outskirts of Osaka with a unique ambience, Koshien Stadium is the symbolic sports icon in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Dec 10, 2013

Shueisha manga push hard into the global market

One week before Thanksgiving on Nov. 28, readers of The New York Times were greeted by a spiky-haired, wild-eyed manga character named Monkey D. Luffy, his fists clenched and chest bare, charging forward as if the newsprint could barely contain him. Behind him in massive text screamed the words: "Hey...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 10, 2013

London Grammar takes a road less traveled in 2013

The big music story of 2013 hasn't been the emergence of a bright new artist or genre. When people look back on this year they'll think of Robin Thicke's creepy uncle routine, Miley Cyrus giving oral pleasure to builders' hardware or Kanye West's Nietzschean rants about his fiancée's bottom. This was...
WORLD
Dec 10, 2013

Drinking water project pumps up Dead Sea

The Dead Sea has been rapidly disappearing for the past 50 years, one of the world's natural wonders careening toward ecological collapse.
WORLD
Dec 10, 2013

Media overexposure to violence worse than being there

After the Boston Marathon bombings, people who spent six hours a day scouring media for updates were more traumatized than those who were there, a U.S. study suggested Monday.
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 2013

A 20th-century hero and icon

Nelson Mandela's life was a testimony to the need to put aside the anger and desire for vengeance to which one may feel rightfully entitled and to embrace the very best in humanity, regardless of race.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person