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BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 31, 2012

Fighters come alive in Japan Series

A change in scenery got the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters back in their comfort zone and back in the Japan Series.
EDITORIALS
Oct 30, 2012

Prenatal test raises ethical concerns

As part of their research, about a dozen medical institutions in Japan plan to start carrying out prenatal detection tests that can predict whether a fetus has Down syndrome or not with an accuracy of more than 99 percent. The method, developed in the United States, consists of testing a blood sample...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Oct 30, 2012

Taiji hunts continue to anger, confound readers

Readers' responses received to the Sept. 11 Hotline to Nagatacho column, "Stop the annual Taiji dolphin massacre, make your children proud" by Deb Bowen-Saunders, and letters published on this subject on Oct. 9 ("Call to stop dolphin hunt in Taiji makes waves," Have Your Say):
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LIGHT GIST
Oct 30, 2012

The world according to Toru Hashimoto

Loved by his supporters for his fiery rhetoric — which often involves bashing the Tokyo-centric status quo, overpaid local bureaucrats, utility executives, teachers' unions or, indeed, anybody who disagrees with him — Hashimoto's critics charge that he's a dangerous rightwing demagogue seeking a...
Reader Mail
Oct 28, 2012

Tragedies make bad laws

I wonder who the parents of the six children killed last year in April by a mobile crane in Tochigi Prefecture blame: the driver or the crane?
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2012

A mother's message

Twenty years after Mieko Hattori's 16-year-old son, Yoshihiro, was fatally shot while studying in America, the outspoken mother has once again called for tighter gun control laws in the United States and around the world. Her latest speech was delivered in Baton Rouge, the town where 20 years ago her...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 28, 2012

Hashimoto needs a much thicker skin

There is a breed of political reporter that thrives on misanthropy. These journalists have no use for empathy when trying to understand issues or individuals. They are only stimulated by acrimony, by the need to reveal the darkest impulses of human endeavor. H.L. Mencken, the most eloquent of this ilk,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 28, 2012

'Fresh Currents' charts the way to, and from, Fukushima

This month's column is about a book that is very much more than just a book: It is a work of art, a labor of love and a realizable dream of a better future for Japan. But I'm getting ahead of myself ...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 27, 2012

Yakushima to Amami Oshima: Pursued by Typhoon No. 21

Seasick and dehydrated, I was looking forward to our arrival on Yakushima, an island that is 90 percent forest, has 46 peaks at over 1,000 meters, and boasts more than 3,000 types of insects. I certainly needed a break after three days of looking at only sea from a 45 ft yacht pitching in 2.5-meter waves....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2012

Festival/Tokyo theater event to give Asia a starring role

Japan has been on a bit of a losing streak for a while now. In 2010, it was overtaken as the world's second-largest economy by China, and in 2011 the nation was rocked by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the ensuing tsunami and nuclear crisis.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2012

'A Dangerous Method (Kikenna Mesoddo)'

In the opening scenes of "A Dangerous Method," we find Keira Knightley playing a young woman who is completely, utterly losing it. This is not just a "scream and smash some dishes" movie version of a breakdown, but total gibbering, thrashing, convulsing hysteria. It's frighteningly out of control, and...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 26, 2012

Giants, Fighters inch closer to Japan Series clash

The dust has settled on the 2012 season and only the Yomiuri Giants and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters are still standing.
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2012

Nation honors an athlete

The government will bestow the People's Honor Award on Ms. Saori Yoshida — a wrestler who has won three Olympic gold medals and 10 world championships — "for bringing hope and courage to society." As Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said in announcing the government's decision to give her the...
Reader Mail
Oct 25, 2012

Insanity of U.S. gun ownership

No one who lives in Japan can truly understand the insanity that allows all Americans to own nearly any sort of gun. While long guns such as rifles and shotguns could be argued by some as a defense against tyranny, handguns have no such defense. I truly feel for Mieko Hattori, but her heartfelt words...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Oct 23, 2012

Leadership development meeting draws Girl Scouts from around world

No matter what nationality you are, it's likely that several times in your life you have come across a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout dressed in that unique uniform — be it a friend or someone else from the community.
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2012

NRA must ensure transparency

More than a month has passed since the Nuclear Regulatory Authority was inaugurated on Sept. 19. The NRA started in a deplorable manner. In a political maneuver, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda used a provision of the relevant law and appointed the five commission members without Diet approval.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 21, 2012

Hagi: restful cradle of a revolution

I had just been re-reading Paul Theroux's African travelogue, "Dark Star Safari," and was up to a part where he explains that he never books rooms on his journeys, just turns up and leaves the rest to chance.
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Oct 21, 2012

The colonial exposition, Japan branded 'aggressor nation,' Cuban missile crisis, Black Monday stock market crash

Despite rainy weather yesterday, the Colonial Exposition at Ueno [in central Tokyo] was visited by an enormous number of people, who thronged in and about the building to enjoy the queer objects.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage / WEEK 3
Oct 21, 2012

Dramatists explore the essence of language in new play

In a small studio just a seagull's squawk from Tokyo Bay in the Higashi Gotanda district of Shinagawa Ward, a unique play titled "Understandable?" briefly delighted packed houses of baffled Japanese and others recently with its absurd-but-not, "abandoned- in-translation" dialogue devoid of subtitles....
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 21, 2012

Catcher has pair of run-scoring hits in victory over Dragons

Shinnosuke Abe rallied the troops before the Yomiuri Giants took the field for Game 4 of the Central League Climax Series final stage.
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 20, 2012

Experiences put game in perspective for Umesaki

Urawa Reds will be disappointed if their pursuit of this season's J. League title comes to nothing, but attacking midfielder Tsukasa Umesaki has survived enough setbacks in his career to know that the bad times can be just as important as the good.
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.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 20, 2012

Donoue sparks Dragons to 10th-inning win over Giants

It's beginning to look like the Chunichi Dragons just will not be denied.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 20, 2012

Shiraishi to Yakushima: Nearly abducted by aliens

I don't remember whose idea it was to sail from Okayama in the Seto Inland Sea to Okinawa, Japan's southernmost islands, but here we are — seven friends in a 45 ft (13.7 meter) yacht named Sea Fox, sailing in 20-knot winds down the coast of Kyushu in the Pacific Ocean. All hands on deck!
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Oct 19, 2012

Ex-Apache forward Baker poised for return with Broncos

Veteran forward Dameion Baker, who suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon on May 17, 2009, in the championship game at Ariake Colosseum, while playing for the Tokyo Apache and hasn't played a pro game since then, will join the Saitama Broncos in the coming days, a source familiar with the deal told The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2012

"France vs. Japan: Modern Paintings"

During the 1920s, many Japanese painters traveled to Paris for artistic education and inspiration, and they brought back with them techniques that influenced the development of modern Japanese art.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2012

From the low key comes high art

The Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum is deceptive in more ways than one. Not only is it a lot younger than it looks — it was built in 2009 as a recreation of a Meiji Era building — but the interior doesn't quite match the exterior. The latter looks somewhat grand and even slightly palatial, but once inside...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Oct 17, 2012

Kozo Keikaku Engineering talks; UN Day forum on sustainability; kabuki documentary

events

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