Search - life-style

 
 
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 24, 2008

New values rise from the ashes of conformity

Second of two parts
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2008

Shakespeare 'karuta' ambition realized

To be or not to be has never really been a question for Shakespeare aficionado Ayako Yoshimi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 1, 2008

Arcade Fire: 'a goofy bunch of people'

They're a funny bunch, Arcade Fire. Last year saw the Montreal-based band graduate from indie darlings to arena stars touring North America and sharing a stage with Bruce Springsteen and U2. Their second album, "Neon Bible," entered the Billboard chart at No. 2 last March and has since sold upward of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Jan 20, 2008

A home away from home: How we really think about the car

Is there a relationship between cars and houses? And, if there is, what commonalities are there between what we search for in an automobile and a home?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2008

'Hito no Sex o Warau na'

The romantic combination of an older woman and a younger man is common now in Hollywood films, which have come a long way since the day when a young (actually 30-year-old) Dustin Hoffman threw over a middle-age (actually 36-year-old) Anne Bancroft in "The Graduate." As film critic Roger Ebert astutely...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 17, 2008

The faithful student

"I love Las Vegas shows," says kabuki actor Ichikawa Kamejiro. "I go to Las Vegas because I think they use the most advanced techniques to create stunning productions. I find their attitude toward show business completely different from ours."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 13, 2008

Media pundits ponder Japan's prospects for year ahead

With the yearend summaries behind us and the stockpile of New Years' TV variety specials exhausted, the media turns its attention to the business of looking at Japan's future. It's an annual ritual that rarely results in anything edifying, but 2008 may turn out to be a watershed year.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 16, 2007

'Kyoko' shines on as the true star she was

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the death of a wonderful friend. Actress and author Kyoko Kishida passed away on Dec. 17, 2006, and Japan lost not only a fantastic stage presence but also an immense creative spirit and inspiration to its young actors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 15, 2007

Out of exile, into a Tokyo art space

For artist Morio Matsui, life has almost turned full circle. After four decades in "exile" in France, this currently Corsica-based Japanese artist's ties with his homeland have strengthened with the opening earlier this year of an art space, Espace Morio Matsui, in Shimo-Meguro, Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 13, 2007

Stay the course of international justice

WASHINGTON — After eight years on the job, Carla del Ponte is about to step down as the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 9, 2007

New York chefs taste authentic Japanese cuisine

Top New York chefs were given a rare treat recently when master chefs from Kyoto traveled to the Big Apple to give a master class.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 8, 2007

Momoyama luster slides into view

"In the houses of the lords and nobles these paintings and the doors of the rooms have a background richly painted in gold, and on this gold they paint the picture in various suitable colors.'' (This Island of Japon. João Rodrigues' account of 16th-century Japan. Translated and edited by Michael Cooper)....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 3, 2007

Winning salsa moves to a Cuban beat

For Japanese women — any woman for that matter — Richard D. Cabrera is a sight for sore eyes. Here in Japan especially he would appear to have all the requisite credentials that make girls swoon: kakkoii (trendy or cool), kanemochi (wealthy), and kashikoi (smart).
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / 2007 NPB PLAYOFFS
Oct 16, 2007

Big seventh inning propels Fighters

SAPPORO — The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters are a tight-knit group known for going that extra mile for one another. Against the Chiba Lotte Marines in Game 3 they went the extra mile and then some.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 14, 2007

Illustrating Japan's top cover star

For more than 30 years, Masamichi Oikawa has drawn the cover art for Pia magazine, reports staff writer Edan Corkill
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2007

'Sad Vacation'

Shinji Aoyama makes films about extreme emotional dysfunction and dislocation, whose central characters include victims and perpetrators of desperate acts and terrible crimes — sometimes within the same person.
COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2007

Britain's retreat from Iraq

LONDON — "The British have given up and they know they will be leaving Iraq soon," said Muqtada Al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi army, the country's most powerful militia group, in an interview with the Independent. "They have realized this is not a war they should be fighting or one they can win."
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2007

Mere death needn't be a barrier to enjoying a nice cup of tea with the deceased

'Tick, tock, tick, tock," goes the clock of human life. Living with regrets is one of the hardest things to do. What if your dad died and you hadn't had that last cup of tea with him? Not much you can do about that — or so you might think.
Japan Times
SOCCER
Aug 8, 2007

Unheralded Giovani leads Barcelona squad past F. Marinos

YOKOHAMA — Japanese fans caught a glimpse of Barcelona's dazzling attacking triumvirate of Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o, but it was little-known Mexican Giovani who did what the crowd craved from the three superstars with a late second-half goal in a 1-0 friendly win over Yokohama F....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 27, 2007

'Inland Empire'

A man and a woman are glimpsed, in murky black-and-white images, in a Polish hotel room, their faces mosaiced out. "You want to f*** me?" she asks. "Shut up and take off your clothes," he answers. "I'm frightened." she says. Cut to full color and a girl wrapped in a red sheet, crying, and watching TV....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

'Tennen Kokkeko'

Nobuhiro Yamashita scored an international hit in 2005 with "Linda, Linda, Linda," a comic drama about a schoolgirl band whose lead singer drops out just before a big school festival. When it was screened at the Udine Far East Film Festival last year, the audience whooped with laughter at its deadpan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 13, 2007

'Funuke Domo, Kanashimi no Ai o Misero'

Black comedies about dysfunctional families are common enough in Japan, from Sogo Ishii's anarchic "Gyakufunsha Kazoku (The Crazy Family)" (1984) to Takashi Miike's batty "Katakurike no Kofuku (The Happiness of the Katakuris)" (2001), which also has the distinction of the being the first Japanese zombie...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 3, 2007

Oishi Seinosuke: the trial and its outcome

THE LIFE OF SEINOSUKE: Dr. Oishi and the High Treason Incident, by Joseph Cronin. Kyoto: White Tiger Press, 2007, 128 pp., with photographs and drawings, 1,800 yen (paper) The High Treason Incident (Taigyaku Jiken) was an anarchist plot to assassinate the Meiji emperor, one that led to the 1910 mass...
COMMENTARY
May 26, 2007

Gordon Brown too arrogant?

LONDON — The new tenant of Number 10 Downing Street is now all set to move in. With remarkable ease the new British prime minister, Gordon Brown, replaces the old one, Tony Blair, and life goes on in Britain as before.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2007

'Pacchigi! Love & Peace'

In 2004, Kazuyuki Izutsu made "Pacchigi! (Pacchigi! We Shall Overcome Someday)," a serio-comic Romeo and Juliet romance set in 1960s Kyoto. Starring Shun Shioya as a naive high school boy and Erika Sawajiri as the cute-but-tough zainichi (ethnic Korean living in Japan) girl whom he falls for, the film...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 12, 2007

The freshman wears Prada

"Because I want to make a statement," says the girl. "And my statement is that I am unique, which my choice of fashion demonstrates."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 3, 2007

Breakthrough women

In 18th- and 19th-century Japan, the presence of female artists in painting circles slowly increased until in the 20th century, social reforms allowed them access to secondary education and vocational schools as well as art training, patronage and chances to compete in national exhibitions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 26, 2007

Take a peak inside Henry Darger's mind

Outsider artists often present a pathetic spectacle to the world: forgotten inmates of mental institutions; shuffling, muttering loners; or misfits, like Henry Darger, who spent his workdays as a low-paid janitor and his free time writing and illustrating an unpublishable 15,145-page novel about a vast...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 19, 2007

In memory of 'The Blue-Eyed Japanese'

When the American-born artist Clifton Karhu developed an interest in Finland, his parents' homeland, a large-scale exhibition of his art was held at the Retretti Museum in Punkarhajo. The late Prince Takamado, who with Princess Takamado enjoyed Karhu's work so much that a short, scheduled visit to one...

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building