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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 17, 2012

Easy does it on Taketomi

Consulting a map of Okinawa, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Yaeyama Islands group comprises fragments of Japan and China that have become loosened and detached. It's an impression confirmed at every turn once you set foot on these remote littorals.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 17, 2012

Watami under scrutiny after karōshi

Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto has been compared to Adolf Hitler in the media for his authoritarian governing style, but on a realistic level he seems more like an overbearing boss. The famous tattoo controversy comes down to the notion that, as mayor, he employs city workers, and since the city's residents...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2012

Remix Film Festival questions the future of copyright law

Sampling, mashups, ripping and remixing — in an age of infinitely accessible and increasingly malleable digital audio, the question of who's allowed to do what with someone else's original music is becoming ever more heated. If you use a piece of software such as Traktor to ironically suture "Singing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2012

Rampant use and abuse of religious freedom

What are the proper limits of religious freedom? Marianne Thieme, leader of the Party for the Animals in the Netherlands, offers this answer: "Religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins."
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jun 13, 2012

Gadgets and games to keep you dry in the washroom

It's not the classiest of topics, but here I go touching on the taboo — toilets. We all visit the bathroom several times a day, and what a relief that we do! The experience can conjure a curious mix of emotions: pleasure, pain, anxiety, boredom, impatience, pride. Japan famously produces toilets with...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2012

The fax of life: Japan refuses to part with aging device

In Japan's businesses and bureaucracies, in home offices and hulking companies, the fax machine is thriving.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Jun 12, 2012

Totally wrapped in Joy

Asked to name a seminal New York City-born musician with an intrepid preference for over-the-top fashion, and Lady Gaga would surely the first name to roll off the tongue. But there's another female musician from the city who influenced global fashion with her unique taste in stage costumes: Yeah Yeah...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 10, 2012

The public shame of crying poor

Public acts of contrition don't get any more dramatic than comedian Junichi Komoto's May 25 press conference, where he apologized for allowing his mother to collect government welfare payments even though he's made good money himself as a TV personality. Josei Seven, the women's weekly that broke the...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 10, 2012

It's not that easy to quit

"If you don't like it, quit."
Reader Mail
Jun 10, 2012

Pejorative use of 'homophobic'

Philip Brasor's June 3 Media Mix column, "Homophobic joke goes awry for 'Beat," shows just how far prejudice has permeated the media. But not the way most readers think.
BUSINESS / CABINET INTERVIEW
Jun 9, 2012

New financial services minister eyes stiffer fines for insider trading

The Financial Services Agency may impose heavier fines on those who engage in insider trading in light of a spate of recent cases, according to its new chief.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 8, 2012

Why Japan is so down on British food

Ask any Japanese person what they think of British food, and the common reply will be, "I've heard it's terrible." This universal disdain for British cooking is a result of the usual media prejudice, exacerbated by a confidence among Japanese in their native ability to discern epicurean excellence.
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2012

Lessons from the Battle of Midway

Seventy years have passed since the Imperial Japanese Navy was severely battered by the U.S. Navy in the Battle of Midway on June 4-7, 1942. With the loss of four fleet aircraft carriers, many aircraft and its most experienced air crews, Japan lost its dominance and strategic initiative in the Pacific,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 7, 2012

Nagasawa quiets down for 'Seven'

Some musicians simply ooze self-confidence. They walk into the room like they own it, flashing a smile that instantly melts a thousand hearts. But Tomoyuki Nagasawa is not one of those musicians.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2012

Domestic output at high risk: Toyoda

Unless competitive barriers such as the strong yen and high corporate tax are eased as soon as possible, the nation's automakers may not be able to keep building cars in Japan, newly appointed Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association Chairman Akio Toyoda said Monday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 5, 2012

Rumors, lies fill void left by police in Furlong case

It is one of the more ugly tasks in journalism: trying to extract a quote from a bereaved family after a violent death. By the time I called Nicola Furlong's mother on May 25, she had learned that her 21-year-old daughter had been sexually assaulted and probably throttled by a stranger in a city 10,000...
EDITORIALS
Jun 5, 2012

The Houla massacre

The situation in Syria continues to worsen. While accurate information is difficult to acquire, all indications are that the country hovers on the brink of a civil war. The most recent atrocity is a massacre in the town of Houla that left at least 108 people dead. On Saturday, 89 deaths were reported...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 3, 2012

Hush ye not! Here's a heckle of an idea to get rich — and save the world

You gotta hand it to the Americans. By god, they invented or at least morphed into profitability just about everything that's on my desk as I write this: my landline telephone; my iPad, which is open to my Facebook page; a DVD of the director's cut of "Edward Scissorhands"; even the plastic-lidded cup...
Reader Mail
May 31, 2012

Tepco admits to incompetence

To a person like me following the developments in Japan from a distance, it is shocking to learn that the initial radiation levels from the meltdown of the reactors at Fukushima were 2.5 times the levels originally estimated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.!
CULTURE / Music
May 31, 2012

AKB48 'election' shows marketing brilliance

The biggest event of the year for AKB48, the 48-member pop group that's the most popular music act in Japan today, arrives next Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
May 30, 2012

Looking at the lay judge system

Three years have passed since the lay judge system was introduced to bring citizens' perspective into criminal trials. According to the Supreme Court, 20,817 had people served as lay judges and 7,257 as backup lay judges by the end March. More than 95 percent of them said that participation in trials...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 29, 2012

Safe blood requires strict, and detailed, standards

In last week's column, several people living in Japan explained that whether they were able to donate blood was primarily determined by health or safety concerns rather than Japanese language ability, which we originally discussed in our April 3 column, "Less-than-fluent foreigners may have trouble giving...
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2012

Why do economies stop growing?

Over the years, advanced and developing countries have experimented, sometimes deliberately and frequently inadvertently, with a variety of approaches to growth. Unfortunately, many of these strategies have turned out to have built-in limitations or decelerators — what one might call elements of unsustainability....
Reader Mail
May 27, 2012

A roughshod run over contracts

Regarding the May 23 Kyodo article "Hashimoto: Answer tattoo survey or else": The debate surrounding tattoos on public employees in Osaka can evoke a lot of emotion, so it is helpful to approach it from clearly defined principles.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 27, 2012

Anniversary of Okinawa's reversion highlights opposing press views

In February, Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba assured the mayor of Iwakuni City and the governor of Yamaguchi Prefecture that Japan would not ask the people they serve to take on "any additional burden" from U.S. forces. Iwakuni already has a Marine Corps air station, and it is thought that the United...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight