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JAPAN
Sep 6, 2013

At stake in bid — ¥3 trillion

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government estimates that hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics will produce economic effects worth ¥3 trillion from Hokkaido to Okinawa.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 6, 2013

Science's great unknowns: 20 unsolved questions

What is the universe made of? Astronomers face an embarrassing conundrum: they don't know what 95 percent of the universe is made of. Atoms, which form everything we see around us, only account for a measly 5 percent. Over the past 80 years it has become clear that the substantial remainder is comprised...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 6, 2013

Miyazaki vows he won't be idle in retirement

Hayao Miyazaki, the retiring czar of Japanese animation, said Friday that while he will no longer be at the forefront of creating feature-length animated movies, he will be a "freed man" pursuing his own interests as long as he can.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2013

Camera at reactor 1 finds water entry point

An entry point for some of the groundwater flooding the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant is found at reactor 1.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 5, 2013

Uneasy feelings persist about England

If England beats Moldova at home Friday night and then defeats Ukraine (a) and Montenegro (h), it will top Group H and qualify automatically for the World Cup finals next year. Its fate is in its own hands. The bad news is — so is Ukraine's.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

Kobayashi film explores Japan's suicide problem

A folk-singer-turned-filmmaker who went to France in 1981 to apprentice under his idol François Truffaut, Masahiro Kobayashi may have failed in his quest (he couldn't work up the courage to press Truffaut's doorbell), but after returning to Japan became a prolific scriptwriter for pinku (softcore...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

'Nihon no Higeki (Japan's Tragedy)'

What is a good death? For certain Japanese Buddhist priests it was sokushinbutsu — self-mummification. As practiced by members of the Shingon sect, it was a decade-long process that culminated with the priest's descent into a stone tomb to meditate in darkness, without food or water, until the final...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Sep 5, 2013

End of unequal inheritance lauded

Legal experts said Wednesday's landmark decision by the Supreme Court that the Civil Code provision denying full inheritance rights to heirs born out of wedlock is unconstitutional was welcome but late in coming.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 5, 2013

Data show twisters form over Kanto in September

Damage to people and property by tornadoes made headlines over the past week, with the latest in Tochigi Prefecture injuring three people while destroying houses and other buildings.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 4, 2013

Top court shoots down unequal inheritance rights

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court declares unconstitutional the Civil Code clause that denies full inheritance rights to heirs born out of wedlock.
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2013

Radiation near tanks hits highest level yet

Tokyo Electric Power Co. detects the highest radiation levels found so far near tanks holding contaminated water used to cool reactors at its wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Same-sex marriage not inevitable

Regarding professor Jeff Kingston's Aug. 25 column titled "Gay marriage in Japan? Only over the reactionary LDP's cadaver": The theory that the dinosaurs died out because they were as stupid as they were huge has long been debunked, but the notion that human beings who resist social "progress" are to...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Take the stairs if you want to walk

I am writing to address the three online comments written on Aug. 23 in response to the Aug. 19 editorial "Wanted: better escalator manners."
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Japan has much to do to raise FDI

Regarding Shinji Fukukawa's Aug. 31 commentary titled "Knock down barriers to FDIs": I agree completely with the views on foreign direct investments expressed by Fukukawa, who is one of the most perceptive and visionary of Japan's ex-government officials. He correctly points out three of the "structural...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Poisoned minds

Regarding the Aug. 30 article "Yokohama recalls texts describing 1923 'massacre' of Koreans": I wonder what's going through the minds of the folks at the Yokohama Board of Education. According to the story the city's board of education has recalled a junior high school textbook due to its "descriptions...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Repair harm from misbehavior

Regarding the Aug. 17 editorial "Spare the rod at school": The real issue is whether corporal punishment is effective in dealing with student misbehavior. The evidence is not encouraging.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 4, 2013

Scientists tracing ancestry of India's large mammals

About 120 million years ago, the supercontinent of Gondwana broke into a jigsaw puzzle of continents and isles in the Southern Hemisphere. One of those was a giant island forming what we now call India.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 4, 2013

Acclaimed sci-fi author Frederik Pohl dies at 93

Frederik Pohl, who helped shape and popularize science fiction as an influential agent, editor and award-winning author, died Sept. 2 at a hospital near his home in Palatine, Illinois. He was 93.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2013

Is America now becoming an international outlaw?

When Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush as U.S. president, the world heaved a collective sigh of relief. How ironic then that Obama risks making the U.S. the biggest international outlaw of our times.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Sep 3, 2013

Closely knit friends in Daikanyama

I am sitting at a low wooden table with a group of Japanese mothers discussing the pros and cons of different knitting stitches.
LIFE / Digital
Sep 3, 2013

Web giants pumping us for data

Should you be looking for an example of hucksterish cynicism, then the mantra that "data is the new oil" is as good as they come. Although its first recorded uttering goes as far back as 2006, in recent times it has achieved the status of an approved corporate cliche, though nowadays "data" is generally...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2013

Sweden offers a model for economic recovery

Sweden is enjoying steady growth thanks to an economic model that combines a social welfare society with a free-market economy and a high degree of government efficiency.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2013

JET alumni advocates for Japan

Clifton Strickler never thought of coming to Japan until he met his boss at the University of Texas while engaged in an undergraduate work-study. His boss lived in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, teaching English with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Sep 3, 2013

10 charming things believed by little kids in Japan

Certainly everyone has some embarrassing things they thought were true as a kid. You are not alone.
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Sep 2, 2013

A lesson in line, last of the summer design needs, and Issey Miyake's bright ideas

'Line' is one of the most important elements of design. It defines, separates, decorates and gives life to a structure — and Shinn Asano's Sen furniture series couldn't utilize it any better.
WORLD
Sep 2, 2013

U.S. in unending hunt for terrorists in spy agencies

The U.S. government suspects that individuals with connections to al-Qaida and other hostile groups have repeatedly sought to obtain jobs in the intelligence community, and it reinvestigates thousands of employees each year to reduce the threat that one of its own may be trying to compromise closely...
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2013

Animation master Miyazaki to retire; fans in disbelief

The abrupt announcement about film director Hayao Miyazaki's decision to retire triggers tributes and disbelief.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 2, 2013

How economically effective are the Olympics?

The so-called economic boost of the Olympics is mostly speculative.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2013

Voices from the scarlet calamity of World War II

World War II's reverberations will roll down the centuries in its geopolitical consequences, and in the literature it elicited in letters and in histories like Rick Atkinson's trilogy on the liberation of Western Europe.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic