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Reader Mail
Feb 16, 2012

Let consumers rule on smoking

Regarding Patricia Yarrow's Feb. 12 letter, "Shaky will to reduce smoking": Coffeehouses and restaurants are private property. It is up to the business owner to determine what kind of environment attracts the greatest number of customers. Even if nonsmokers are a majority in the population, they are...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 16, 2012

Zulu Winter brings brains to their beats

"That sounds very English, doesn't it?" says Zulu Winter frontman Will Daunt of his refusal to get carried away by the fact his band has spent the start of 2012 as many critic's tip for the top. "I don't want to sound like a miserable git, but we really haven't done much yet."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 16, 2012

Calvi sings out in a big way

Endorsed by Brian Eno, asked on tour by Nick Cave and doused with critical acclaim, Anna Calvi is the little woman with the big voice winning admirers at her every turn.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INDIA-JAPAN SYMPOSIUM
Feb 15, 2012

Rising consumerism in India offers Japan huge potential, experts say

India is rapidly evolving as a consumer market and Japan, whose trade and investment relations with the emerging South Asian giant have so far been limited, should take advantage of the huge potential created by the new trends of consumerism in the country, scholars and experts from Indian universities...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 14, 2012

Solving Japan's succession conundrum

Lack of males a recent trend I very much enjoyed the comprehensive article on the Japanese Imperial family by Prof. Colin P.A. Jones of Doshisha Law School in Kyoto ("And then there was one?: Japan's right royal crisis," Zeit Gist, Jan. 17).
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 12, 2012

This country needs a lot more lovin'

Japan's rather tepid sex life of late has drawn considerable attention, not so much prurient as anxious. What does it mean when young people in their sexual prime are bored by sex or can't be bothered with it? The implications are various: psychological (has life grown too virtual to be real?), economic...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Feb 12, 2012

Drugs of the future will be computer-designed

The moment Hideaki Fujitani unlocks the heavy door and enters the room, the buzzing noise — which sounded like a simple hum from the outside — gets much louder.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2012

Unswayed by disaster, Iwaki spa hulas anew

A Hawaiian theme park that has propped up the economy of a rural town in Fukushima Prefecture for 45 years was forced to shut down after the March 11 disasters, but a little less than a year later the hula girls have returned.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 7, 2012

Questions raised about account of Tokyo cop assault

Some readers' responses to the Jan. 24 Zeit Gist column by Simon Scott, headlined "American claims Tokyo cop assaulted son, 8":
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 3, 2012

DiCaprio visits America's dark past in 'J. Edgar'

Leonardo DiCaprio admits that he didn't hear much about the famously feared J. Edgar Hoover while he was growing up. That doesn't stop him from making an astute observation: "The man was a troll."
Reader Mail
Feb 2, 2012

Ability to deal with uncertainty

Sawa Takamitsu, in his Jan. 24 article "More crucial than English," makes a number of interesting points that have to do with research budgets and even the involvement of business people in deciding the course of studies at Japanese universities. While I agree with everything the author says regarding...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2012

Privacy and Net cafes — a tale of two cities

Kazushi Takahashi, a 22-year-old student in Tokyo, likes the privacy provided by closed individual rooms in Internet cafes, where he can surf the Web, play online games and read manga.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 31, 2012

Culture ensnares Czech Japanophile

Petr Holy, who over the past two decades has spent a considerable amount of his time learning the Japanese language and culture, is now in return trying to spread the culture of his home country, the Czech Republic, throughout Japan.
LIFE / Travel / Longform
Jan 29, 2012

Fukushima casts a shadow over India's industrial boom

The ongoing nuclear disaster in Fukushima has quashed once ambitious plans for the construction of new reactors in Japan. The government does, however, remain committed to promoting exports of nuclear reactors and technology as it sees huge potential in overseas markets.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 28, 2012

A serious case of the sniffles

On occasion I meet someone with a suggestion for this column, proposals that I typically decline.
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 28, 2012

Aichi's denizens warm to foreigners

Most Aichi residents like the idea of having many foreign residents living among them, according to a prefectural survey.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2012

Nuclear foes defy order to remove tents from the grounds of METI

Antinuclear activists camping out at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry refused to take down their tents Friday despite an order to do so by 5 p.m.
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 2012

Criticism without originality

The Liberal Democratic Party on Jan. 22 held a party convention in Tokyo. LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki said that this year is the time to end the Democratic Party of Japan government. The problem is that while the LDP is strong at criticizing the DPJ government, it cannot clearly present its stance...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2012

The art of misquotation — it's a form of flattery

To be immortal is to be misquoted. Repeatedly, and often at length. It is to have words stuffed into your mouth by total strangers. It is to be parodied and caricatured and have your face shoved onto T-shirts and your name bandied about and slapped on street signs.
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2012

Shaping a human rights panel

The Justice Ministry in mid-December made public an outline of a bill to set up a human rights protection committee. In 2002, the Liberal Democratic Party government submitted an earlier version to the Diet, but it was eventually quashed mainly because it contained a clause to control mass media concerning...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 22, 2012

Can showbiz really sever yakuza ties?

Last August, comedian and TV emcee Shinsuke Shimada retired from show business following allegations that he'd been palling around with an underworld figure. His withdrawal came on the eve of the implementation of a well-publicized police crackdown on organizations that work with antisocial elements,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 22, 2012

Japan needs a little Cuban-style happiness

A Japanese journalist in Cuba sees decaying buildings and undernourished citizens and wonders, "Why aren't these people depressed? Why, on the contrary, do they seem positively happy?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 21, 2012

Hold the plastic grass — I want the real stuff

Holding the kama (scythe) at the hilt, I tore into the grass. This is the way we cut grass on the island. Not many people actually have grass, and I cherish my small 2 sq. meter patch. My neighbor Kazu-chan, who was watching me in the distance, calmly walked over and said, "Amy, you're doing it all wrong."...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2012

Lay judges present ideas to make system better

A group who have performed lay judge duties say the courts should provide more information to citizens who serve on the bench to help them make fair and impartial decisions.
BASKETBALL
Jan 21, 2012

Happinets cut Terry following arrest

After being arrested for theft of alcoholic beverages at an Akita convenience store last weekend, veteran swingman Curtis Terry has been released by the Akita Northern Happinets, the bj-league team announced on Thursday.

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