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CULTURE / Music
Dec 31, 2010

Best Japanese/overseas albums of 2010: iLoud

Shinsei Kamattechan — "Tsumanne"
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2010

Japan's cloudy prospects for higher fertility

WASHINGTON — Japan's efforts to raise fertility through changes to the child allowance present a fragile and troubling vision for the future.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 31, 2010

'Kohaku' gig cements Arashi's star status

Wildly popular boy-band Arashi were in the eye of the storm at rehearsals for NHK's "Kohaku Uta Gassen" ("Red and White Song Battle"), the long-running "competition" that this year pits 22 popular male bands and singers against their female counterparts and will be broadcast live on New Year's Eve from...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 31, 2010

Digital signs provide flashy new trend in advertising

Moving through a bustling JR East station, one can't help but notice the ubiquitous digital information swirling about.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 31, 2010

Best Japanese/overseas albums of 2010: Goblin

Shugo Tokumaru — "Port Entropy"
CULTURE / Music
Dec 31, 2010

2010's many charts tell a confusing tale

As seems to be becoming commonplace with these end-of-year roundups, the big music story was once again the rise (and rise) of AKB48 and their rapidly multiplying sister groups, SKE48 (named after their home at Nagoya's Sunshine Sakae building), NMB48 (after Namba in Osaka) and "mature" proto-porn, postgraduation...
Reader Mail
Dec 30, 2010

The time for bamboo wheelchairs

Regarding the Dec. 22 Kyodo article: "JAL wheelchair doesn't trip up metal detectors": As I read this news, I was surprised at the idea of wheelchairs made of bamboo. I've never seen these wheelchairs before, but I feel that Japan Airline Corp.'s decision to lend them to those who now use metallic wheelchairs...
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2010

Ozawa agrees to give unsworn testimony

Bending to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's demands, former Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa said Tuesday he will appear before the Lower House ethics committee to explain his political money scandal.
EDITORIALS
Dec 29, 2010

Japan's 'hot' year

The kanji "sho" for "hot" has been chosen by the Japanese people as best representing 2010 in a poll organized by the Kyoto-based Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation. No doubt the memory of last summer's record-breaking heat is still fresh in people's minds, but ironically the summer also brought...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 29, 2010

Looking back on 2010 one word at a time

Perched majestically at the summit of the clutter on my desk this sunny December morning is a copy of the 2011 edition of Jiyukokuminsha's 「現代用語の基礎知識」("Gendai Yōgo no Kiso Chishiki," "Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words") — all 1,688 pages of it.
MULTIMEDIA
Dec 29, 2010

Optimism up as production posts first rise in half a year

Industrial production increased for the first time in six months in November, signaling that the export-led recovery will regain traction.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 28, 2010

Kabuki going strong, 400 years on

The media frenzy over kabuki star Ichikawa Ebizo's drunken midnight brawl in Tokyo last month may be a testament to how, 400 years after its birth, the genre remains a highly popular form of entertainment integral to Japanese culture.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 26, 2010

The king of impersonation; year-end roundup special; CM of the week: Softbank

The holiday season is upon us, and among the extended quiz specials and talk marathons there are monomane (impersonation) contests on every station. The king of impersonators is Croquette, whose repertoire of famous singers and actors numbers about 300.
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2010

Prosecutor ignored evidence: report

An Osaka prosecutor who tampered with evidence to try to convict a former senior welfare ministry official failed to consider the weight of the evidence that favored the accused, the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office admitted in a report Friday.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years