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Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 26, 2020

Telltale signs that a business in Japan may be teetering on the edge of financial ruin

One reliable way to discern if the corporate ship is listing severely is to scrutinize the behavior of its president.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 19, 2020

Despite pandemic, some individuals are living ordinary lives

While enormous things are currently happening in the world, we shouldn't altogether lose sight of the small things either.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 23, 2020

Rats, bugs, crooks and trucks share media spotlight amid pandemic

With city dwellers around the world in lockdown, increasing reports have surfaced about wild animals infiltrating urban areas.
JAPAN / History / BIG IN JAPAN
May 2, 2020

Redefining normality in a world turned upside down by COVID-19

In normal times, we seek happiness. In times of crisis, we seek normality.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2020

Akie Abe criticized for taking group tour in Oita during pandemic

Her reported activity took place a day after her husband sounded the alarm over the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2020

Suicide note reignites Moritomo scandal that rocked Abe administration

The wife of a former Finance Ministry official who killed himself filed a lawsuit against the ministry and the former chief of its financial bureau, seeking damages of u00a5110 million.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 29, 2020

Kansai businesses suffer as COVID-19 alarm hurts tourism

The Japanese expression "kankodori ga naku" (literally, "the cuckoo sings") is frequently used to describe a business slump.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 18, 2020

Japan's news outlets take one step backward before moving forward

Before going forward into the new year, an extra edition of Shukan Shincho (with a Jan. 27 publication date) flashed back in time to track down author Ben Goto. Now a spry 89 years old, Goto achieved instant fame with a 1973 publication titled "Great Prophecies of Nostradamus." His book initially sold...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 4, 2020

From hangover cures to prairie dogs, tabloids end 2019 with a bang

For their final issues of December, the weeklies — their covers trimmed in gold color (except for the Sunday Mainichi, which came out in yellow-orange) — typically publish two-week bumper issues with extra pages. This gives many of them leeway to write about lots of timely topics. For instance, journalist...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 7, 2019

The long arm of the law can't be rushed in Japan

In Japan, 2019 will be remembered as a year that ended twice. In addition to the Western calendar year, which ends on Dec. 31, April 30 marked the final day of year 31 of the Heisei Era, thereby bringing an end to the reign of Emperor Akihito, who had abdicated in favor of Crown Prince Naruhito. From...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 23, 2019

Overuse of Japan's medical system may be complicating treatment

One of the criticisms of the “Medicare for All” government-run health care scheme proposed by U.S. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is that eliminating all limits to treatment would lead to "overuse" of the medical care system, meaning people would be seeing...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 28, 2019

New generation of quasi-gangsters fly under police radar

Mainstream media last month broke a long-standing silence they've had concerning the activities of Japan's organized crime groups, which are referred to in official circles as "boryokudan" (violent groups) or, colloquially, as "yakuza."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 3, 2019

Letter threatening to hunt Koreans sent to South Korean Embassy in Japan

A letter threatening to hunt Koreans and containing what appeared to be a bullet has been sent to the South Korean Embassy in Japan, police said Tuesday, amid worsening ties between the Asian neighbors
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 31, 2019

Road rage coverage reveals gulf in awareness of traffic rules in Japan

For the past several weeks, media organizations in Japan have been obsessed with a road rage incident that happened in Ibaraki Prefecture on Aug. 10, when a 43-year-old man forcibly stopped another driver on the Joban Expressway and assaulted him as he sat in his car.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 24, 2019

Double bubble, tapioca tea and garbage trouble

Food and beverage fads come and go. On frequent occasions, "Gatten," NHK's health-oriented Wednesday evening program, used to present evidence that eating this food or drinking that beverage achieved seemingly miraculous results, including weight loss, lower blood pressure or relief from constipation....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 10, 2019

Japan-South Korea trade spat gains little traction among youth on social media

The diplomatic rift between Tokyo and Seoul widened earlier this month after Japan removed South Korea from its "whitelist" of preferred trading partners. The apparent reason given for the move is national security: Japan says some strategic materials it sells to South Korea are making their way to third...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 10, 2019

Spooky tales from the dead abound over Bon season

"Actually I was wavering over whether or not to publish this story," writes Kyoto-based compiler Nobuo Yuki in "Wailing of a Restless Ghost." It's one of a series of five books from publisher Bunko Ginga-Do under the title "Exceptionally Scary True Ghost Stories" — which many in Japan like to read...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 6, 2019

Friction growing in Osaka over rising foreign population

The guests from the gala Group of 20 conference may be gone, but Osaka continues to garner attention in the media.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 22, 2019

Japan's print media ponder wealth, poverty and pensions

One of my recollections from the bubble economy of the 1980s was a passage in a 1987 book titled "Hokokuron" ("The Theory of National Wealth"). Its author, the late economist Taiichi Sakaiya, stood out as one of the bubble era's most fervent cheerleaders.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 1, 2019

Is disgust with the status quo now feeding nostalgia for the past?

Bulgarian scholar Ivan Krastev, in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun published in March, compared the restless discontent of the 1960s with that of today. Fifty years ago, he said, disgust with the status quo fed hope for the future. Today it feeds nostalgia for the past.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 13, 2019

Japan searches for remedies at the dawn of the Reiwa Era

Japan's weekly magazines do not consider their primary role to be reporting cheery news. It would be more correct to say their practice is to proceed from a pessimistic perspective and then, after readying readers to rude realities, encourage searches for sustenance and survival, if not salvation.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 6, 2019

New era offers Japan an opportunity to reassess the future

What's in a name? What's in an era? What is an "era"? What's a "new era"? Are we entering one?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 2, 2019

Tabloid's objectification of women continues to stir controversy

The weekly magazine Spa has apologized for an article it published in December that ranked universities in terms of how easy it is to get their female students into bed. The article generated backlash but the apology was issued in response to a petition that had been drawn up in protest.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 17, 2018

Flamboyant 'host club king' Takeshi Aida given an extravagant sendoff

An extravagant wake and funeral was held earlier this month in memory of host club Ai Honten's flamboyant founder, Takeshi Aida, who passed away on Oct. 25 at the age of 78 after a prolonged illness.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 29, 2018

Few question the death penalty for heinous crimes

Should murderers be put to death? Yes, says Japan. No, says (increasingly) much of the rest of the world. Japan swims against the current.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 4, 2018

There's no easy way to escape from your smartphone

Two decades ago, it was still common to see articles in the media disparaging the lack of manners and self-absorbed behavior of mobile phone users. By around 2003, however, the phones had become so ubiquitous that the erstwhile complainers had most likely become phone addicts themselves.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 2, 2018

Is the feudal era over for Japan's talent agencies?

Japanese show business definitely has a feudal side. Talent agencies control their tarento (talent) much in the way the daimyō (feudal lords) controlled the samurai in their clans, supporting their livelihoods in return for absolute fealty. And just as samurai were expected to stay with one clan their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 1, 2018

Hide: The musician whose death rocked Japan

On the evening of May 2, 1998, as most of Japan was basking in the annual Golden Week holidays, a few dozen young women had gathered outside an apartment building in Tokyo's Minamiazabu neighborhood.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight