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BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Jun 25, 2013

Marines need power bat to aid chase for Pa League crown

The Chiba Lotte Marines have done just fine without a real power hitter in their lineup for most of the season.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 25, 2013

'Yellow fever' and the fantasy of the Asian female

Here is a dumb thing you should never do: watch the 007 caper "You Only Live Twice" with your feminist American girlfriend — a woman of color to boot. In a series renowned for its sexism, the Japan entry takes the biscuit.
COMMUNITY
Jun 25, 2013

Western men, on Japanese women: book excerpts

• From "Understanding Japanese Women: Taking the Mystery Out of the Mysterious Women of Japan" by David J. Radtke:
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 24, 2013

LDP win mimics December election

The Tokyo assembly election resembled the decisive contest that returned the Liberal Democratic Party to power in December and raised its chances of taking over the Diet in July.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 24, 2013

Lions' Kikuchi emerging as one of NPB's top pitchers

Yusei Kikuchi might be in the major leagues right now if he'd chosen differently.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2013

Every interventionist step spoils best-laid plans

Every interventionist step the U.S. has taken in the Middle East for 10 years has strengthened the Iranians and fomented Shiite-Sunni conflict.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 24, 2013

Furigana — for when you need a little help with kanji

While watching a variety program on NTV over lunch a few weeks ago, I happened to see the word 儚い (hakanai) flash up on the screen.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jun 23, 2013

ASIJ student McNeill helping to boost Tokyo 2020's bid

There are no definitive guidelines in place, no simple slogans summarizing how individuals and groups should support or oppose an Olympic bid. Of course, it's up to them.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 23, 2013

Taking the long Trans-Siberian road to Japan

In the late summer of 2009, while standing hung over on a pier at Fushiki Port in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, one of those little-visited industrial cities on the west coast of Honshu, I suddenly found myself staring into the eyes of a tiger. This came as no surprise: It seemed a quite proper way to...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 23, 2013

Mount Fuji has long been an icon

In the land of Yamato,
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013

Reflections on two cities

Having written over 10 guidebooks myself, I speak from experience when I say that working on these projects is a mixed blessing. Writing a first-time guide to a little-known part of the world, with the freedom to innovate with format and content, can be a rewarding task, but where there is a rigid template,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013

North Korea occupies Fukuoka in Murakami's alternate world

Not to be confused with another famous Japanese novelist who has the same surname, Ryu Murakami is known for being an overtly political, even subversive, writer. "From the Fatherland, With Love," his latest novel to be translated into English, cements that reputation. Taking place in an alternate world...
Reader Mail
Jun 23, 2013

Wise decision on cervix vaccine

Regarding the June 15 Kyodo article "Cervix vaccine issues trigger health notice": I was so relieved to read about the Japanese health ministry's decision not to recommend the HPV vaccinations to young girls while further research is conducted.
Reader Mail
Jun 23, 2013

Various languages merit study

I would like to comment on Gary Henscheid's June 16 letter, "Improving English education." I fully support his suggestions to make English an elective and to have the education ministry expand programs for studying abroad.
Reader Mail
Jun 23, 2013

Term likens 'slaves' to livestock

The author of the June 12 article "San Francisco spurned Hashimoto amid sex slave outrage" might want to reconsider his choice of words in the last paragraph. One might "round up" cattle to be inspected or branded; one does not "round up" terrified young women to "serve as sex slaves in brothels serving...
Reader Mail
Jun 23, 2013

Government forgets its priorities

I totally agree with the June 11 editorial "Cease promoting nuclear power." I am neither an expert on nuclear technology nor an anti-nuclear activist, to be sure, but one thing I can easily surmise is that nuclear technology is not so much hard to deal with as it is fatal.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 22, 2013

Syrian rebels claim to receive heavy weapons

The rebels in Syria say they are starting to receive heavy weaponry that could swing the civil war their way after a shift in U.S. policy opens the door for others to send them arms.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 22, 2013

The death of civilization

I once had this Japanese student who told me he could tell a book's publisher from the smell.
EDITORIALS
Jun 22, 2013

Kudos and caution for Mr. Abe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been praised by G-8 leaders for his monetary policy as well as warned not to forget about a medium-term fiscal plan.
BASKETBALL
Jun 22, 2013

Kyoto acquires forward Komoda

Forward Takuya Komoda was selected as an Eastern Conference reserve for the 2012-13 bj-league All-Star Game in Tokyo, and averaged a career-best 10.4 points per game for the Sendai 89ers.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2013

NRA shows off its new crisis center

The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Thursday showed the media its new Emergency Response Center, where data will be gathered and decisions made if another Fukushima-like disaster strikes.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jun 21, 2013

Project prods jobless young to test strengths

Only two years after establishing a company in 2005, young entrepreneur Yujun Wakashin found himself in an unexpected predicament: his co-founder and employees ganged up on him, ousting him from his own firm.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 21, 2013

The bell tolls on Demon Pond

The sound of the temple bell of "Yashagaike (Demon Pond)" will ring for the first time at the New National Theatre, Tokyo (NNTT) — but it's the bell's silence that will reverberate for the characters of this new Japanese-language opera.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

How top lowbrow U.S. humor translates in Japan

Somewhere in the history of American cinema, someone (maybe John Waters?) decided that gross and profane and funny could all sit on the same park bench and start up a friendship. That was way back in the 1970s.
EDITORIALS
Jun 21, 2013

Trying time for Turkish democracy

The unrest in Turkey continues, touched off by a May 31 clash between police forces and protesters opposed to the Turkish government's plan to redevelop Gezi Park in Istanbul. At the root of the unrest is the resistance by people who fear the government is retreating from the principle of secularism....

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