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Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Nov 30, 2012

Oita defaults on player salaries, asks league to intervene

The Oita HeatDevils assembled one of the league's top rosters, a smart collection of veterans, and produced nine victories over their first 14 games, fewer wins than only one club in the 10-team Western Conference — the perennial powerhouse Ryukyu Golden Kings. More of the same appears impossible....
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 25, 2012

The Fish Tree

Once upon a time there was a child who, being a child, simply didn't know what to make of himself. "Look," said his mother. "I brought the sun out for you. Go out and play."
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Nov 23, 2012

89ers lend support to S. Dakota teen battling cancer

The Sendai 89ers are lending a helping hand to a 17-year-old South Dakota student's fight against cancer.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 20, 2012

Tackling the nihongo mountain, by strategy: from base camp to the plateau and beyond

For foreigners who arrive in Japan with little knowledge or preparation, the first encounter with the local lingo can be brutal. In the past, for instance, newcomers would have taken the train from Narita airport to Tokyo or Shinjuku station and promptly run up against a solid wall of indecipherable...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 19, 2012

Plan A: Live long and inconspicuously

Among other things, being Japanese means embracing a distinct and particular weirdness. The Japanese are well aware of this fact, and generations of Nipponjin (日本人, Japanese) have pondered on how hen (変, strange) we are since the country opened its doors to outsiders some 150 years ago. Encountering...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Nov 18, 2012

Story behind drug scandal that rocked bj-league to core

Nearly six months after being released from Osaka Prefectural Police custody, Dana Washington, wife of bj-league legend and former Osaka Evessa star Lynn Washington, decided it was time to tell her side of the story.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 8, 2012

No problems with Nisennenmondai's contradictions

There's a basic disconnect at the heart of Tokyo's Nisennenmondai. A series of small contradictions run through nearly all aspects of what the instrumental trio does, but they add up to make it one of the most intriguing bands to come out of Japan's underground and experimental-rock scene in the past...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Oct 21, 2012

Payton says NBA players lack will to defend

Gary Payton played point guard as fearlessly and with as much intensity on defense as anyone has ever done. He's equally as bold when it comes to dishing out his opinions about the sport he still loves.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 20, 2012

Then and now

I remember well my first Halloween in Japan, mostly because I was invited to speak about it at a junior high.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Oct 20, 2012

American artist takes personal approach to traditional painting

Finding places in Tokyo can be complicated. All too often a simple address is not enough. That's why many people here look like treasure hunters roaming the streets armed with a map or its modern equivalent, the smartphone.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 11, 2012

Magical Mistakes goes all natural on new album, 'Everything Uncertain'

Shiga Prefecture-based musician Erik Luebs, who works under the moniker Magical Mistakes, wanted to record the majority of sounds on his new album, "Everything Uncertain," by himself. Save for a few vocal snippets and 808 bass drums, his newest full-length leans heavily on natural sounds from the world...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2012

'The Samaritan'

One resounding truth about guys in the movies is this: They don't last. Five years ago I was fantasizing about dinner with, oh, Mel Gibson (I know, I know. Terrible taste). Or Jason Statham (even worse). While on-screen, these guys did what they do best, which is offing evil-doers in crowded public venues...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 4, 2012

Drawing a bead on functional items as 'art work'

There is an idea common today that almost anything can be "art." This probably has something to do with a certain Frenchman who exhibited a urinal as an "artwork" many moons ago; not to mention more recent absurdities. But, despite the looseness of the "art" category, there are occasions when it resists...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 29, 2012

Canadian musician pens piece for 'Tsunami violin' performances

Four months ago, Miguel Sosa, a composer, concert pianist, conductor and teacher was asked by Taizo Oba, organizer of the Bond Made of 1,000 Tones project, to write an original composition for one of the two "tsunami-debris" violins.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 2, 2012

Film star Satoshi Tsumabuki moves up to a new stage

Wearing a headband and tracksuit, Satoshi Tsumabuki — the 31-year-old darling of the Japanese entertainment world — was easy to spot among a crowd of actors in a rehearsal studio in downtown Tokyo recently. He was there preparing for "Egg," Hideki Noda's new play, which opens Wednesday at the Tokyo...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Aug 21, 2012

Meet Loco: blogger, author — and racist?

A glance of distrust on the sidewalk. A seemingly harmless question. An empty seat on an otherwise packed train.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 18, 2012

Innovative organic farming achieves sustainability in rural Hokkaido

How to endure? It's an elemental question perfectly matched to the endless, ripening fields of the organic farm Land Mann in the town of Biei, Hokkaido.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2012

'7 Días en La Habana (7 Days in Havana)'

Just last week this column trotted out the movie industry's defense — post-Colorado "Batman" shootings — that films don't influence actual behavior. Now along comes "7 Días en La Habana (7 Days in Havana)," a raucous compendium film that features scene after simmering scene of people getting righteously...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jul 29, 2012

Gasol leads by example for club and country

Fact: Kobe Bryant is one of the five most famous athletes on the planet.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 28, 2012

Small lives changed through the power of a photo

For over five years now, The Japan Times has run a weekly photo box featuring a cat or dog in need of a home, as well as success stories of animals that have been adopted.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 17, 2012

Refugee groups slam Japan's struggling resettlement plan

Much fanfare greeted the arrival at Narita in September 2010 of the first Burmese refugees to take advantage of Japan's decision to join the U.N.'s third-country resettlement program. Japan was the first Asian country to join the program, it was emphasized, under which the country would take in "less...
Reader Mail
Jul 15, 2012

Why Japan hosts fewer startups

A 2003 study by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor showed that Japan has the lowest entrepreneurship activity among 37 countries surveyed. After reading past studies in this area, I discovered that the best predictor of entrepreneurial activity is population growth.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jul 10, 2012

Scholar urges fresh look at rich Ainu heritage

Shunwa Honda, a renowned scholar of indigenous ethnic groups, emphasizes that the Japanese people need to create a stage for the nation's indigenous Ainu, who "still suffer from not having their voices heard properly in society."
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 8, 2012

Okinawa's first nuclear missile men break silence

In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war after American spy planes discovered that the Kremlin had stationed medium-range atomic missiles on the communist island of Cuba in the Caribbean, barely over the horizon from Florida.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 8, 2012

The sorry state of affairs in Japan is enough to turn WGs into FGs

Many years ago I coined a phrase — "Frozen Gaijin" — to describe a particular kind of foreigner living in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 7, 2012

In wake of 3/11 disasters, successful Italian helps those who helped him

After 21 years in Japan and for most of that time working 15 hours a day, Calabrian restaurateur Elio Ermanno Orsara has achieved a certain measure of success.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jul 3, 2012

In formulating immigration policy, no seat at the table for non-Japanese

Last month the Japanese government took baby steps toward an official immigration policy. Ten ministries and several specialist "people of awareness" (yūshikisha) held meetings aimed at creating a "coexistence society" (kyōsei shakai) within which non-Japanese (NJ) would be "accepted" (uke ire).
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 1, 2012

Innovation, marketing by the book doesn't hold in globalized world

Creativity and innovation hold the key to being competitive in a global environment, but what does it really take for a company to recruit or build innovative talent?
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Jun 26, 2012

Swallows not dwelling on disastrous interleague campaign

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows survived the interleague season.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2012

Japan also has stake in universal rights, says ex-Congo child soldier

Michel Chikwanine, a university student in Canada who was once a child soldier in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has suffered things no ordinary Japanese child will ever have to.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan