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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 15, 2008

Pecha Kucha! Ping! Monozukuri gets hot!

Good things come from small packagers, according to new online design magazine PingMag MAKE.
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Apr 7, 2008

Economic dependency makes Japan a silent ally of China

On March 5, Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to Japan, was invited to speak to members of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai) for the first time in the organization's history.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2008

Magazine aims to report on reality of life in North

The magazine Rimjingang, whose Japanese version was published for the first time Thursday, aims to let the world know what is really happening in North Korea through the eyes of its own citizens and to connect them to the outside world, the magazine's editors said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 28, 2008

The revolutionary tale of Mikami's enka blues

Kan Mikami once beat the crap out of David Bowie.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 25, 2008

Fukuda's pain is Aso's gain

The focal point in Japanese politics has been shifting from when Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will call general elections to who will replace him.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 25, 2008

Snack mama Hiroko Mito

JUDIT KAWAGUCHI Hiroko Mito just celebrated the 10th anniversary of Kyoya, her small Kyoto-style snack and karaoke bar in Shibuya's Sakuragaoka district. Always dressed in a kimono and a freshly pressed kappogi, the white apron that used to be commonly worn by housewives, Hiroko-mama means business....
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 17, 2008

Ozawa's troops are restless

Political insiders have begun suspecting that Ichiro Ozawa may be losing his grip on the Democratic Party of Japan after a head-on collision between the DPJ and the governing coalition was averted during 11th-hour mediation by the Lower House speaker and the Upper House president.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 9, 2008

Tokyo air-raid photography, convenience stores, LDP versus the DPJ on TV

This Monday marks the 63rd anniversary of the Tokyo air raid. In the very early morning hours of March 10, 1945, U.S. bombers dropped incendiary devices on the capital. No one knows exactly how many people perished in the attack, but estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Feb 27, 2008

Wanted: world's best minds

With further globalization of economic strategies among the industrially advanced nations, fostering and securing "brains" in the scientific and technological fields has become of utmost importance to every country.
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2008

Activists plan Article 9 conference

Dozens of peace activists from around the world will gather in Chiba from May 4 to 6 for an international conference on the Constitution's Article 9, which renounces war, the organizer said Friday in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Feb 19, 2008

Fukuda and Ozawa plotting

A generally accepted view is that the opposition Democratic Party of Japan is bent on forcing Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to dissolve the Lower House and call general elections just as soon as possible, while the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito seeks to put off the elections...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Feb 19, 2008

Takahiko Nakayama

JUDIT KAWAGUCHI For more than six years, Takahiko Nakayama has been cleaning windows on thousands of buildings in Tokyo. With every climb his fascination with architecture grew until he finally decided that he was ready to do more than just wipe the facades: He wanted to design them himself. Nakayama,...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2008

Nukaga, Xie agree food scare shouldn't hurt ties

Japan and China have agreed to cooperate on clarifying the cause of the recent contamination of "gyoza" dumplings and that such incidents should not hurt Sino-Japanese relations, Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said Sunday.
JAPAN / ALSO OUT THERE
Feb 1, 2008

Referee row lifts handball's appeal

Team handball, the figurative water boy of sports, is suddenly in the game and earning the roaring approval of fans in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2008

'Lust, Caution'

All movies require some suspension of disbelief, but some need a lot more than others. I had an easier time swallowing "Beowulf" than director Ang Lee's latest, "Lust, Caution." "Beowulf" trades in fantasy so you make the leap; "Lust, Caution" seeks to explore real human emotions and rings hopelessly...
Japan Times
JAPAN / ALSO OUT THERE
Jan 30, 2008

Finessing the pen-twirl becomes a fine science

Unlike Tamagotchi or the Nintendo DS, the latest Japanese gadget does not bleep, comes without voice recognition system and will not connect to the Internet.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ALSO OUT THERE
Jan 23, 2008

Mobage-town a rising-star site of mobile users, but filters loom

Just when mobile phone users may have thought the worldwide proliferation of video games and social networking services into the popular culture left little room for radical new tacks, the combination of the two has opened up new avenues.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 20, 2008

Showa nostalgia documentary, baseball star interviewed, optical illusions

The Showa boom has yet to run its course. Appropriating the street address used in the title of the hit Showa Period movie series "Always: Sanchome no Yuhi," TV Tokyo pumps up the nostalgia on "Sanchome no Post: Natsukashii Rankingu SP (Sanchome Mailbox: Nostalgic Rankings Special)" (Monday, 7 p.m.)....
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jan 12, 2008

Language partners turn life partners

Information-technology engineer Rodion Moiseev was alone when he traveled from Moscow to England at the age of 14 to attend high school, and he believes those early experiences in a new land made him open to foreign cultures. It may well be one of the reasons for his interest in Japanese culture, particularly...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 9, 2008

At home with Dr. Nakamatsu: Japan's most eccentric inventor

The declining birthrate is a well-known issue in Japan, but for renowned inventor Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu, it is merely another challenge. Two weeks ago at a press conference in Tokyo, Nakamats, who prefers to drop the "u" from his name, unveiled a new bottle of Love Jet, a product first introduced nearly...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2008

Waseda grad school to groom true newshounds

There is no doubt that Japan has produced its share of top-notch journalists: noted political writer Takashi Tachibana, war photographer Ryuichi Hirokawa and videographer Kenji Nagai, who was shot dead in September while reporting close up on the unrest in Myanmar, to cite but a few.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 3, 2008

NGOs gearing up for Lake Toya blitz

OSAKA — While officials of the Group of Eight countries are busy preparing for this year's summit in Japan, the country's major nongovernmental organizations are also gearing up for the event, which will culminate when world leaders meet in Lake Toya, Hokkaido, in early July.
LIFE / Language
Dec 25, 2007

'A Happy Winter Holiday' to you one and all

In many places, celebrations will be getting into full swing. But if you're in Japan, by the time you read this, Christmas (kurisumasu) will have already been forgotten. Like everywhere else, in the runup before, there have been carols sung and trees and lights and images of Santa hung up, especially...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007

'Persepolis'

When Art Spiegelman's "Maus" came out in 1986 (a later edition would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1992), many mused that the graphic novel had come of age. Finally, it seemed, it was possible to meld words and pictures with the richness, depth, and insight of a novel. All sorts of topics could be tabled now,...
JAPAN / ALSO OUT THERE
Dec 21, 2007

To survive a corporate scandal or to crumble

Reflecting a year that was jam-packed with food makers' scandals, including false labeling, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation announced earlier this month that "nise," meaning "fake," best symbolized 2008 in a single character.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past