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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 26, 2016

Designer Jotaro Saito seeks to free the kimono from the confines of tradition

Jotaro Saito has been showcasing his kimono brand at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo since 2006, almost a decade before the eyebrow-raising appearance of X Japan frontman Yoshiki Hayashi's Yoshikimono brand at the event last October.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Mar 26, 2016

Andrea Pompilio: 'Keep wearing fashion the way you want to'

Name: Andrea PompilioAge: 42
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 24, 2016

Pop star Carly Rae Jepsen really, really, really likes Japan

Carly Rae Jepsen has a major crush on Japan. Proof of this came last summer when she released her latest album, "Emotion" (rendered "E• MO• TION"), in this country a whole two months before anywhere else in the world. That kind of exclusive isn't common for an album as anticipated as "Emotion"...
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 23, 2016

Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford dies after bout with rare cancer at 46

Rob Ford, who catapulted into the international spotlight after admitting he smoked crack cocaine while mayor of Toronto, has died. He was 46.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 21, 2016

Lessons in history and bureaucracy lurk within Japan's geographical layer cake

Although in English we say Japan has 47 prefectures, Japanese uses four terms to express the same concept. And that's just for starters.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Mar 20, 2016

Playwright brings voices of America's enslaved to the Tokyo stage

Follow-up show to an upcoming Huck Finn musical grapples with how to strike a balance between relating the true horror of slavery and telling the whole story.
Japan Times
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 18, 2016

Abramovich's wealth not enough for Chelsea now

When you have grown up in the Communist regime of the former Soviet Union, started your business career importing rubber ducks and becoming the 12th-richest person in Russia thanks to owning an oil company, then being accused of "failing to demonstrate even a minimum amount of manners and education"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 15, 2016

'Kuniyoshi & Kunisada: From the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston'

Ukiyo-e prints were once the equivalent of today's TV shows and magazines. During the Edo Period (1603- 1868), they often illustrated kabuki theater stars and portrayed the latest fashion trends, even at times serving as cosmetics catalogs or tourist guidebooks.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 15, 2016

'Modern Beauty: Art & Fashion in France'

French fashion and cosmetics are the subjects of the Pola Art Foundation's 20th-anniversary commemorative exhibition, which focuses on 19th- and 20th-century paintings from the museum's own collection.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2016

Why the world must live with a nuclear North Korea

It is inconceivable that Kim Jong Un would give up the weapon that places his nation in the exclusive nuclear club, and sanctions won't force him to do so.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Mar 12, 2016

Mercedes-Benz fashion week vs. homemade couture

Fashion Week gets peachy
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 9, 2016

Trump's luxury hotels in Indonesia could face backlash over his anti-Muslim remarks

Few villagers living near a half-built golf course in Indonesia's West Java province know the name Donald Trump, and fewer still are aware that one of his firms will be managing a six-star hotel and luxury resort in their backyard.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 5, 2016

Japan's counterterrorism efforts falling short

The Foreign Ministry invited ridicule toward the end of 2015 after it advertised job openings for part-time counterterrorism analysts. While the expansion of the exploited precariat of non-regular workers to nearly 40 percent of the workforce is lamentable in itself, who would have thought some of them...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OBJECT-ORIENTED
Mar 4, 2016

Slippery history of an English dish in Tokyo

There is a 19th-century English roasting dish that has lived in the Mingeikan (The Japan Folk Crafts Museum) since this venerable institution opened its doors to the public in 1936. How this piece of slipware (pottery decorated with a mixture of clay and mineral, known as "slip") got there is something...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 2, 2016

'The Big Short' explains the 2008 financial meltdown with strippers, guns and shouting

When I was in junior high school, my English teacher walked into the classroom one day, placed a pencil on his desk and pointed at it, saying, "All right, give me at least a page about this before the bell rings — and it had better be interesting." We thought he was nuts, but the lesson was a valuable...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 1, 2016

The dyeing art of Japan's traditional everyday kimono

Weaver and dyer Fukumi Shimura's (b.1924) inherited an interest in craft from her mother, Toyo Ono, who made inroads through the early 20th-century mingei (folk crafts) movement led by philosopher Muneyoshi Yanagi. Introduced to the lacquer artistan Tatsuaki Kuroda in 1956, Shimura began to hone her...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 27, 2016

Sewing stitches of creativity in the streets of Kuramae

I'm knocking about Taito Ward's Kuramae area one chilly February morning, visiting an artisan friend, when he mentions a brand new chocolate shop has opened nearby. My ears perk up. Any good? "People are lining up," he says. I dash off to check it out, because it sounds like news. Never mind that I'm...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 25, 2016

Dodos were not so dumb after all

The dodo is an extinct flightless bird whose name has become synonymous with stupidity. But it turns out that the dodo was no birdbrain, but instead a reasonably brainy bird.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Feb 24, 2016

NGO's Japanese founder foments organic revolution in Vietnam

Seed to Table helps locals rediscover lost agricultural wisdom and pull themselves out of poverty with duck and cow 'banks.'
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 21, 2016

Site of missing MH370 may be lost forever

The man leading the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is showing the strain after almost two years of fruitless toil.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 21, 2016

By the numbers: The hunt for MH370

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March 2014 sparked a search mission that has spanned thousands of square kilometers of seabed and absorbed millions of dollars. But the team hunting for the missing aircraft and its 239 passengers and crew has come up with few clues as to what happened....
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 20, 2016

Growing chorus of experts is raising ethical questions about the future of robotics

Crowds filter through a darkened corner of Tokyo's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation on a recent Saturday, seeking to catch a glimpse of what the future may be like.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 20, 2016

'Japan: The Precarious Future' is a sobering summary of looming disasters

Ominous demographic trends, ineffective governance, the not-if-but-when prospect of another devastating earthquake ... the litany of topics addressed by "Japan: The Precarious Future" will already be familiar to readers of this newspaper. A collection of essays from specialists in relevant fields, the...
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Feb 20, 2016

Kansai is in need of some youthful innovation

In its latest report, released Feb. 12, the Kansai Economic Federation presented mixed news about the local economy. Looking at monthly sentiment in eight different areas ranging from industrial production to housing purchases to sentiment toward China, the report showed that, on the whole, 2015 was...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 19, 2016

Crunch's 'Blue Blue Blue' embraces melancholy in true indie-pop style

Pairing skippy music with relatively sad-sack lyrics has always been one of indie-pop's favorite tricks, a clever way to ring out bad feelings in song without sounding like a total mope. Sometimes, however, just giving in and embracing your gloom can be OK. Nagoya trio Crunch has created plenty of up-tempo...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 17, 2016

'The Shell Collector' wields a healing kind of poison

In English, you usually don't want to be compared to marine life. "Cold fish," "shark" and "whale" are not often intended as compliments, and "come out of your shell" is commonly addressed to the anti-social.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 16, 2016

What do you know about the flowers that grow in an English royal garden?

There is a fascinating story to be found at the "English Garden" exhibition now on at the Panasonic Shiodome Museum — that is if you look closely. That tale is of botanical imperialism, namely the desire by the expansionary spirit of the British Empire to send artists and botanists to far-flung, exotic...

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