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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 19, 2012

The list of lists

They grace the Internet like snack foods at a cocktail party.
JAPAN
May 18, 2012

Osaka's Hashimoto puts municipal workers' tattoos into the limelight

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto caused another public stir recently when he asked all city workers if they have a tattoo and even suggested those who answered yes should quit the municipal government.
CULTURE / Music
May 18, 2012

Will the world soon wake up to the scent of Perfume?

When the Nippon Budokan was built in 1964, its architects probably never envisaged it one day resembling a massive nightclub filled with hundreds of laser beams in every shade of neon as three women in lightup minidresses danced like finely tuned robots to the sound of the bassiest bombast imaginable....
Reader Mail
May 17, 2012

The discourse over 'liberation'

I share Donald Feeney's concerns in his May 10 letter, "Politically correct 'straw men," about modern political discourse, but it seems we are not reading the same letters. He implies that my May 3 letter accused him of claiming in his April 29 letter "that Western males were perfect with regard to their...
Reader Mail
May 17, 2012

Let international tribunal decide

The ongoing ruckus between Manila and Beijing over Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea exposes China's penchant for bullying and contempt for international law. This gives other countries that have territorial disputes with Beijing, including Japan, an idea of the standoffs they might expect with...
Reader Mail
May 17, 2012

Business entities do not qualify

Is Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s plan for returning to profitability — restarting nuclear power plants to raise enough cash to pay off the damage caused by their inability to properly manage nuclear power plants — supported by government officials?
Reader Mail
May 17, 2012

Unable to thwart China's might

Regarding Mark Valencia's May 14 article, "Philippines-China spat tests ASEAN solidarity": Thanks for a nice article. I appreciated it because I have doubts that coincide with the writer's as to whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the United States and other countries with close ties...
JAPAN / 40 YEARS AFTER REVERSION
May 17, 2012

Old deals sowed seeds of unresolved problems

Third in a series Forty years after the U.S. returned Okinawa to Japan after a 27-year occupation, the public agreement ensuring American bases would remain after reversion and the secret agreement allowing the U.S. to reintroduce nuclear weapons continue to create anger in Okinawa and problems for the...
Reader Mail
May 17, 2012

Whose nod will reassure us?

Regarding the May 15 front-page article "Oi assembly says yes to restarting reactors" and the rush to restart these idled nuclear reactors: The Oi municipal assembly's choice to preserve its local economy makes sense, especially in light of the lucrative measures of support promised by the central government...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / IN THE RECORD
May 17, 2012

A Taut Line

Tokyo-based British DJ/producer Matt Lyne, aka A Taut Line, coruns the record label Diskotopia, with Brian Durr, aka BD1982. A Taut Line's melodic broken house, garage and techno productions are just as influenced by the Chicago jazz and postrock scenes as by the 1980s Chicago house scene. Meanwhile,...
Reader Mail
May 17, 2012

Train lights wasting electricity

Regarding the serious shortfalls in electrical energy predicted for Kansai and other regions of Japan this summer, it troubles me to see obvious waste by those who should know better. At this time, all segments of society should be taking action to eliminate any extravagance in their use of electrical...
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2012

Argentina's old-school economics

Resource nationalism was supposed to be a throwback, a discredited school of economics that failed the governments that embraced it. Apparently, Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner never got the memo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 17, 2012

There is trouble on Kafka's shore

Seventy-six-year-old theater director Yukio Ninagawa is famed and honored the world over for his magnificently visualized stagings of Shakespeare and Ancient Greek tragedies — as well as modern Japanese plays.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 16, 2012

Satellite to monitor ice in Arctic Ocean shipping lanes

The forecasting company Weathernews Inc. unveiled a micro satellite Tuesday that it developed to monitor Arctic Ocean ice for purposes of guiding ships through the area in summer.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2012

Internet age renders obsolete U.S. view of China

When the human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng escaped extra-legal house arrest and beatings and found his way to the U.S. Embassy last month, he became an instant hero on the Chinese Internet.
Japan Times
JAPAN / 40 YEARS AFTER REVERSION
May 15, 2012

40 years after return, Okinawa still struggling to grow up

First of five parts When people turn 40, they have reached a milestone age and one that often entails various responsibilities beyond caring just for oneself.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
May 15, 2012

Olympus fiasco was 'lost opportunity'

Waku Miller, a resident of Tokyo for over 30 years and a veteran translator who recently served as a spokesman for Michael C. Woodford — former president and CEO of Olympus Corp. — said he found it odd how indifferent major Japanese shareholders were even after a massive loss coverup by the camera...
BUSINESS
May 15, 2012

Utilities' bond risk climbing amid nuclear shutdowns

The bond risk of nuclear power companies had the largest weekly increase in seven months led by Kansai Electric Power Co., the utility likely to face the biggest electricity shortage this summer, after the country shut its last reactor.
BASKETBALL
May 14, 2012

Phoenix, Golden Kings return to Final Four

As expected, the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix and Ryukyu Golden Kings, regular-season winners of the Eastern and Western Conference titles, respectively, will return to the bj-league's Final Four again this coming weekend with a shot at meeting in the title game for the second consecutive year.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 13, 2012

Japanese laws make abortion an economic issue

The cost of abortion in Japan shows it is not considered a women's health issue.
Reader Mail
May 13, 2012

Put priority on debating skills

Amy Chavez's May 5 Japan Lite column, titled "English fluency and alligator pits," deals with the very thing that I'm concerned about these days. As someone who is learning English at a university, I often sense the importance of communication skills other than what passes for "fluency" in English-conversation...
Reader Mail
May 13, 2012

Fear and respect before royals

In his May 10 letter, Ambassador of Thailand Virasakdi Furakul says that the king is "genuinely respected and held in the highest regard by his people." But how would he know? When praise of royals is mandated, there is no way to know. Even I stood up at the beginning of a movie in a Thai theater when...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 13, 2012

Noda's vexing full plate: tax hike, Ozawa, Futenma, Senkakus

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda hopes to persuade Okinawans to accept the government's highly contentious plan to move the Futenma air base elsewhere in the prefecture once the burden of hosting U.S. forces there starts to ease.
Reader Mail
May 13, 2012

'Rule of law' has its challenges

Regarding the May 10 letter "Due process of lese-majeste law": Many thanks to Ambassador of Thailand Virasakdi Futrakul for impressing three points on readers. These points are as relevant in Japan as they are in his country:
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 13, 2012

Beware not the loud girls, but the plain ones

No one who remembers the ganguro (black-face) girls of the mid to late 1990s will be shocked by Friday magazine's little article on the hadeko (loud kids) of today, but it all gives rise to a bemusing question: How did the age-old quest for beauty become transmuted into a quest for weirdness?

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’