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BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 10, 2012

Home centers forcing JA to improve its game for farmers

Home center Komeri has become a potent challenge to JA's farm-sector retail dominance.
Reader Mail
Sep 9, 2012

Better ways to spend ¥2 billion!

Regarding the Sept. 6 front-page article "Government seen sealing Senkaku deal at ¥2.05 billion": All that for a few small, more-or-less useless islands?
Reader Mail
Sep 9, 2012

Squabbles that cloud the future

Regarding the Sept. 5 question-and-answer article "Island row with South Korea rooted in rival historic claims": In the context of Japan's deliberate policy to obscure the past through its junior high school history textbooks, which have so frequently been used as blunt political weapons to euphemize...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 9, 2012

It will take more than a pop group to save Fukushima's reputation

Last March, Tatsuya Yamaguchi of the idol group Tokio told the media that he was determined to someday reopen Dash Village, the farm that he and his bandmates built from scratch as an ongoing project on their long-running Nippon TV series "The Tetsuwan Dash." The farm is in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture,...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Sep 9, 2012

Aki Basho 2012: Time for ozeki Harumafuji to step up his game

When the Aki-basho starts today, all eyes will be on one man, and this time it is not yokozuna grand champion Hakuho. Rather the focus of sumo fans throughout Japan and around the world will be on ozeki Harumafuji. Looking to secure a second consecutive championship victory and thereby guarantee his...
Reader Mail
Sep 9, 2012

Root cause of Japan's conflicts

Regarding Yoshio Shimoji's Sept. 2 letter, "Best venue for settling dispute": Shimoji points out that the International Court of Justice must prepare for the opportunity to discuss disputes such as the Japan-China territorial row over the Senkaku Islands (called the Diaoyu in China) before the problem...
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2012

Tokyo-Seoul: enough is enough!

Enough is enough! Obviously, the political leadership in Tokyo and Seoul never learned about the First Rule of Holes: When you find yourself in one, stop digging. Each side seems to be going out of its way to make a bad situation worse, even while providing private assurances that it won't let the situation...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 8, 2012

Eye surgeon makes a difference, performing 'miracles' in Vietnam

In 1965, Akira Kurosawa directed "Akahige" ("Red Beard"), the story of an Edo Period doctor who teaches his arrogant intern the importance of compassion, responsibility, and empathizing with his patients. Ophthalmologist Tadashi Hattori has seen this movie, but he insists that he was not thinking about...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2012

Economists in denial as conventional tools fail

In an exasperated outburst, just before he left the presidency of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet complained that, "as a policymaker during the crisis, I found the available [economic and financial] models of limited help. I would go further: In the face of the crisis, we felt abandoned...
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2012

Men who walked on the moon

While I support the feelings expressed in Gwynne Dyer's Aug. 30 article, "Going to the moon still matters" — about Neil Armstrong and the quest that Americans should make to go to the Moon and beyond — Dyer needs to check his facts.
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2012

'DIY scene' is for true artists

Ian Martin's Aug. 30 column on Japan's live-house scene, "The customer is right, that's what's wrong," asks if most bands performing on live-house stages are mere hobbyists.
Reader Mail
Sep 6, 2012

Takeshima/Dokdo University

I have been reading about the dispute between Japan and South Korea regarding the islets of Takeshima/Dokdo and believe that there is a simple solution that would benefit both countries.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Sep 5, 2012

Young Nadeshiko stumbles in U-20 Women's World Cup semifinals

Two-time champion Germany ended Japan's bid to reach the Under-20 Women's World Cup final for the first time with a 3-0 win in Tuesday's semifinal.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Sep 5, 2012

Gunslinging the Japanese way

It's hot. Though this summer, Japanese gamers have been piling into arcades across the country not only to take refuge from the heat, but to also check out one of the most interesting games released this year — and it may surprise you to hear that it's a shooter.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Sep 5, 2012

Japanese baseball union approves participation in 2013 WBC

After weeks of uncertainty, the Japanese Professional Baseball Players Association has decided to participate in next year's World Baseball Classic, it was revealed on Tuesday.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Sep 4, 2012

Toot your own horn — don't let the modesty scam keep you down

As per this column's title, this month's topic was chosen, well, "just because" it's been on my mind.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 4, 2012

Our mixed-race children deserve better than this, so why bother with Japan?

When it comes to parceling out rights, Japanese law makes a very clear distinction: What you get depends upon whether you are a Japanese citizen or not. Sort of.
Reader Mail
Sep 2, 2012

Another anti-nuclear hit piece

Regarding the Aug. 30 editorial "3/11 deaths that were preventable": I would note that Japan's Reconstruction Agency is not a medical committee and thus lacks the knowledge and training to reach any conclusion that can be taken seriously by medical professionals. The editorial is another hit piece against...
Reader Mail
Sep 2, 2012

Can Japan learn from the past?

Regarding Takashi Nagata's Aug. 26 letter, "Military brothels go way back": While Nagata is correct that soldiers worldwide have often visited prostitutes during wartime, and that prostitution has been an ever-present phenomenon near military encampments, he seems to blithely dismiss criticism of a horrible...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 2, 2012

Doctoring the baseball a tactic as old as the game itself

This column is about "the ball," but it is not what you think.
Reader Mail
Sep 2, 2012

Best venue for settling dispute

The Japan-China territorial row over the Senkaku (called Diaoyu in China) Islands looks like a brawl of a nationalistic group from one country against a nationalistic group from another country. But the number of people who have taken to the streets in Chinese cities shows that there are far more nationalistic...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 2, 2012

Man on a mountain

In the very center of Hokkaido lies a landscape so far removed from the urban sprawl of much of lowland Japan that you might be forgiven for asking: "Is this really Japan?" Far more reminiscent of the higher latitudes of Kamchatka and Chukotka (northeastern Russia) or of northern central Alaska (United...
Reader Mail
Sep 2, 2012

Special powers cut two ways

According to his Aug. 30 letter, "Harbinger of the future is here," Robert McKinney wants an "environmental czar whose word is law." For the sake of argument, assume that the creation of such a tyrannical position somehow passed U.S. constitutional muster. Now consider the practical effects of such a...
Reader Mail
Sep 2, 2012

Shake off the empty words

I share Amy Chavez's impressions expressed in her Aug. 25 column, "Veterinary clinics for the rich and famous pets."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 2, 2012

Prescient work of writer Sawako Ariyoshi begs for rediscovery

Aug. 30 marked the day, 28 years ago, that Japan and the world lost a writer of immense importance. Sawako Ariyoshi's works of fiction and nonfiction took up many social issues that came into prominence in the years after her death. To my mind, she is not only one of the greatest authors of modern Japan,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 2, 2012

Goldenglow may be a treat for the Cherokees, but it's a pest for Old Nic!

Summertime here in northern Nagano is very pleasant, quite unlike the muggy ovens of the big cities. This year, after living here for 32 years, I was persuaded to install a fan. We certainly don't have a cooler. At night, or while working in my study, I leave the windows open to let in the sounds of...
SOCCER / J. League
Sep 2, 2012

Ardija rally for draw in Saitama derby

Omiya Ardija fought back from a goal down and an early red card to claim an unlikely share of the Saitama derby spoils with a 1-1 draw against Urawa Reds on Saturday night.

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