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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 3, 2010

Festival marks blip on the radar for chiptune

Taking Nintendo's Game Boy to places it was never meant to go, a lineup of international chiptune artists will be converging on Koenji High this weekend for Japan's first ever Blip Festival. The roster includes acts such as Nullsleep from New York, who takes a blowtorch to sweet "Super Mario" style ditties,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Sep 2, 2010

Power spots: Japan’s latest spiritual craze

Feeling down? Need a recharge? Seek the nearest 'power spot.'
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 2, 2010

A shift in strategy needed to revive Japanese industry

Against the backdrop of intensifying Japan-U.S. trade frictions in the 1980s, it was considered for some time that Japan's economic power was a threat to the United States. This country's high rating has since declined, however, giving way to comments like "Japan has disappeared from the world's radar...
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2010

U.S. policy on Somalia sowed seeds for chaos

The U.S. decision in 2006 to send Ethiopian troops into Somalia was one of the stupidest moves in a very stupid decade. Last week, some of the chickens spawned by that decision came home to roost.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 31, 2010

Blessed are the low in debt

MUNICH — The world's worst postwar financial crisis is over. It arrived suddenly in 2008 and, after roughly 18 months, vanished almost as quickly as it had come. Bank rescue programs on the order of 5 trillion euro and Keynesian stimulus programs on the order of a further 1 trillion euro staved off...
BUSINESS
Aug 31, 2010

BOJ ups bank-loan program; yen unfazed

Under growing pressure to act, the Bank of Japan announced Monday it will ease its monetary stance further by expanding a ¥20 trillion lending program to ¥30 trillion, aiming to lower short-term interest rates and curb the yen's rise against the dollar.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 30, 2010

Do you know Yucho?

Japan's post office launches a campaign to promote the convenience of opening postal savings accounts. City folk, too, might want to look into it.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2010

A hopeless cause without nuclear power

HONG KONG, PACIFIC PERSPECTIVES — Ask the average environmentally concerned person how our power generators will achieve the tough emissions reductions needed to play their part in cutting global warming, and you will probably get a simple, clear answer: wind and solar.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 29, 2010

Racy pop distracts from lip service

In April, China's Culture Ministry fined two young women 50,000 yuan (¥625,000) each for lip-syncing during performances in the city of Chengdu last year. The authorities characterize this edict against "fake singing" as a kind of truth-in-advertising rule, but most people think it was an overreaction...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 29, 2010

How Japan embraced the advent of cinema

Japanese cinema was different from the very start. In the days of the silent movie, recitators called benshi, took it upon themselves not only to interpret the action, but to add their own vocal and acting embellishments as self-appointed supra-dramatists.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 29, 2010

Journey to the land of Pashmina, Aya Ueto's drama debut; CM of the week: iPhone 4

The final installment of the travel show "Gyakuryu! Shiraberu Toraberu" ("Against the Current! Investigating and Traveling"; TV Tokyo, Mon., 8 p.m.) spends the bulk of its two-hour running time in the Pashmina region of Nepal, which is famous for its cashmere wool. This wool is produced by a specific...
BUSINESS
Aug 28, 2010

Low-cost airlines fuel competition

Japan's tightly regulated skies have been seeing some changes in recent years, with a wave of low-cost carriers from Asia entering the market and domestic budget airlines rising to intensify the competition.
BUSINESS
Aug 28, 2010

Aeon to integrate three subsidiaries

Aeon Co. will integrate its three supermarket subsidiaries under the Aeon brand as part of efforts to rebuild its struggling domestic business, sources said Friday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 27, 2010

U.S. sake lovers spread some joy

For the first time ever, The Joy of Sake, the biggest sake tasting soiree outside of Japan, will bring its American brand of culture-crossing conviviality to Japan. On Nov. 2, the event, which originated in Hawaii, will be celebrating its anniversary in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2010

Looking at a double dip

The U.S. economy is faltering. Consumer confidence is shaky and business uncertainty is rife, and the two create an ugly downward spiral. Worried about tomorrow's bottom line, companies refuse to hire. Fearful of being unemployed, consumers are tightening their belts. The result is a stagnant economy...
LIFE / Digital
Aug 25, 2010

Twitter delivers creative way for ad agencies to play

While Twitter itself is still struggling to find a profitable business plan, Japanese ad agencies have quickly embraced the micro-blogging service to create innovative campaigns.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 24, 2010

Girl idol group about mass exposure, fans

AKB48 has taken the pop singing idol phenom and multiplied it into a mass-production, mass-marketing, mass presence affair.
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2010

Taiji mayor defends dolphin hunt

TAIJI, Wakayama Pref. — As kids in inner tubes bob on the calm waters of this small ocean cove, a 250-kg dolphin zips through the crowd in pursuit of squid tossed out by a trainer.
BUSINESS
Aug 24, 2010

Rival to offer iPhone SIM options

Softbank Corp., Japan's only provider of Apple Inc.'s iPhone, is losing part of that exclusivity as Japan Communications Inc. starts offering chips that will allow the smart phone to access another network.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 24, 2010

Fujitsu hunts for firms with the tech it lacks

Fujitsu Ltd. is "very actively" looking for acquisitions to spur global growth, the company's president said.
EDITORIALS
Aug 23, 2010

Political dues of scorched earth

The consequences of Russia's hottest summer in 130 years, which has caused forest fires and severe drought, have been devastating. More than 50 people have died and thousands of people have lost their residences to fire.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 23, 2010

'Bottle Imp' poses warning for currency and bond markets

Watching the dollar's recent plight in the foreign-exchange markets, I am reminded of a fascinating story I came across some years ago in an anthology of supernatural tales called "The Bottle Imp." It has its origins in German folklore and goes something like this:
CULTURE / Books
Aug 22, 2010

Indonesia intrigue, Tokyo high-tech high jinx

While such enduring bad guys as Nazis, KGB agents, Cosa Nostra gangsters, sinister Asiatics and the occasional vampire still receive top billing in U.S. popular fiction and cinema, the events of 9/11 have not surprisingly inspired a stream of works featuring villains of Middle Eastern and/or jihadist...

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