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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 28, 2012

2012: Another year of good Tokyo eating

Before we usher out the Dragon and ring in the Snake, it's time to pause, look back and appreciate all the fine eating that Tokyo has provided this year. Gongs and rankings are meaningless in a city the size of Tokyo: How can anyone visit and compare more than a fraction of even the best restaurants?...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / BEST OF 2012
Dec 28, 2012

In the name of sincerity and love, this list is for you

I've been thinking about you. About what you want from life, from relationships, from the movies. This list isn't about me, it's about you. Your needs, your dreams, all that jazz. This may seem like a hodgepodge selection of titles with no connecting thread, but believe me, these films reflect the way...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 28, 2012

Experienced heads put Cinq Reves in playoff contention

The Tokyo Cinq Reves have taken their fair share of bumps and bruises during their inaugural season, but coach Motofumi Aoki is guiding the team in the right direction.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / BEST OF 2012
Dec 28, 2012

Japan's female directors make a strong showing

Female Japanese directors were once like those rare species periodically discovered in Asian jungles and immediately labeled endangered. This year, however, in their highly individual ways, they made some of Japan's strongest, most ambitious films. By now the only thing endangered is local industry prejudice...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 28, 2012

Time for Japan to let go of the status quo, U.S. leadership expert counsels

Japan isn't going to end decades of economic malaise, nor will its corporations meet the challenge of overseas rivals, unless bold changes are made, warns an expert on leadership from Harvard University who was in Japan recently to give a series of lectures.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Dec 27, 2012

Partisan feuds leave judicial posts unfilled

It takes a calculator and perhaps the rigor of Sherlock Holmes to cut through the partisan rhetoric about President Barack Obama's first-term record on judicial nominations. But the bottom line is clear enough.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2012

Living in the here and now

Regarding the Rev. William L. Bulson's letter of Dec. 23: Bulson's overriding concern with the tragic Newtown, Connecticut, massacre seems to betray a certain double standard.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2012

Give younger blood a chance

Regarding the Dec. 23 front-page article "Abe pauses on Senkakus postings" (concerning Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision not to station officials on the Senkaku Islands to avoid jeopardizing ties with China): Once again we see the lies by politicians, and once again we see the stupidity of the Japanese...
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2012

Ambassador deserves support

Regarding the Dec. 24 article "New envoy to China urges economic thaw": In my opinion, it will be difficult to conclude which country the Senkakus belong to. So, as Masato Kitera, the next ambassador to China is about to do, we should try to avoid the dispute in order to construct stronger economic ties...
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2012

Japan's actions affect the world

Regarding the Dec. 22 article "Abe hints at scrapping reactor ban": In the United States, such a statement would lead to the conclusion that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is paid by the nuclear industry.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2012

What surprise attack on India?

In his Dec. 13 article, "The art of war, Chinese style," Brahma Chellaney repeats the claim that, in 1962, China made a surprise attack on India. As China desk officer in Australia's Department of External Affairs, I can assure him that, for me and my colleagues in London and Washington at the time,...
COMMENTARY
Dec 26, 2012

Homestead Act: the door-opener to America

At the end of this year in which election results reinserted immigration into the political conversation, remember that 2012 is the 150th anniversary of "the first comprehensive immigration law."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 25, 2012

Benshi Midori Sawato

Midori Sawato is a benshi, a unique kind of performer who provides live narration to silent films at the movie theater. The benshi brings the characters in films alive using different voices and vocal expressions. They sit to the side of the screen, watching the movie with the audience and using their...
EDITORIALS
Dec 25, 2012

Tough times for graduating students

The job-hunting season for university students went into full swing on Dec. 1 as major enterprises started recruiting students who are scheduled to graduate in the spring of 2014. Students are likely to increase their chances of finding good jobs if they explore employment opportunities at small and...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 25, 2012

LDP returns with all its old baggage

They're baaaack. After warming the opposition bench for more than three years, the Liberal Democratic Party has returned to power, hungrier and more eager than ever to rule.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Dec 24, 2012

Big Bulls give coach Oketani happy birthday

Before his 35th birthday, Iwate Big Bulls coach Dai Oketani had already guided his former club, the Ryukyu Golden Kings, to a pair of bj-league championships.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 24, 2012

Rip van Winkle returns to government with trade war on his mind

Japan is about to get a new government and it's just like old times. Liberal Democratic Party leader Shinzo Abe, who is set to become prime minister, again sounds as if he has been spending his time out of office back in the 1960s.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2012

Hard questions about the U.S. nuclear arsenal

We are rightly mourning the horrific killings in Newtown, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School and discussing the threats posed by semiautomatic rifles.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 24, 2012

Switching to mama mode is not easy for today's gals

Bad news on the kekkon sensen (結婚戦線, marriage front) — hardly anyone's doing it. According to a government survey, more than 60 percent of single men and close to 50 percent of single women are not in relationships, nor are they particularly interested in dating. At this rate, Japan's already...
LIFE / Travel
Dec 23, 2012

Award-winning Hakuba inn offers a warm and bespoke welcome to all

A report published this year by a national association of ryōkan (traditional inn) owners notes that one of the most common problems facing its several thousand members is a dearth of suitable successors — meaning there will be no one in line to run them when the current operators retire.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 23, 2012

How to care for the children when we're at odds with the planet?

Perhaps this column should begin with a disclaimer like those found on CDs and DVDs that are intended to help protect kids from obscenity — Parental Advisory: Explicit Content.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Dec 23, 2012

Yokohama's Burns thrives as leader

The Japan Times features periodic interviews with players in the bj-league. Draelon Burns of the Yokohama B-Corsairs is the subject of this week's profile.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 23, 2012

2012: The year in books

The Japan Times invited seven of its book reviewers to pick their favorite books published or made available in Japan in 2012, regardless of whether the book was reviewed in these pages.
Reader Mail
Dec 23, 2012

Way of compassion worth a try

What to say, what to do in response to a massacre like the most recent one in Newtown, Connecticut? As a U.S. national (and Anglican priest) who moved to Japan just over a month ago, I have felt deep gratitude for the regards and concern that the people of this country have shown me since news of the...
Reader Mail
Dec 23, 2012

LDP doesn't get a grace period

I was tremendously interested in the Dec. 17 editorial, "LDP back in the saddle again." A few comments about that.

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