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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2010

First-time director takes on Murakami

Many filmmakers say the difficulties of adapting a best-selling novel to the screen can be daunting. How about the challenge of adapting a story by a foreign best-selling author ("All God's Children Can Dance" by Haruki Murakami) from a country one had never visited (Japan) and to choose the project...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 22, 2010

80Kidz "Weekend Warrior"

Ali and Jun, aka 80Kidz, might be Japan's very own blogosphere darlings, but time hasn't been kind on their peers in the West. Indie-dance favorites such as The Shoes and Autokratz, both of whom featured as guests on the band's debut full-length, "This Is My Shit," have fallen into irrelevance — victims...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 22, 2010

Here be Vampires

V ampire Weekend bassist Chris Baio exudes a happy demeanor, albeit a slightly weary one. Weary thanks to an unyielding touring schedule that finds him traveling to San Diego midway through an extensive tour of the United States; happy because there can be no reservation that his band have dominated...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Oct 22, 2010

Hill, Apache ready for season to tip off

The Tokyo Apache and the Niigata Albirex BB begin the 2010-11 bj-league season a week later than the other 14 teams. And so they've both had extra time to make preparations for their first game.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2010

Okada urges less heat in Senkaku row

Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Katsuya Okada cautioned both Japan and China not to resort to extreme nationalism following the recent bilateral spat in connection with the Senkaku Islands.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 21, 2010

JAL chief touts 'amoeba' style of management

Japan Airlines Corp. CEO and Chairman Kazuo Inamori voiced confidence Wednesday in turning the ailing airline around, saying it is improving financially and will achieve restructuring goals through his "amoeba" management style.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2010

Return of a maverick

HONG KONG — On the way to the airport in early 1990, I saw a strange face among the profusion and confusion of election posters. Not a European grandee, or indigenous Indian, or mestizo, or mulatto. It was more like Chinese, but surely not in this heart of Latin America.
SOCCER / J. League / J. LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Oct 21, 2010

Relegation battle heats up as title race cools down

An unexpected defeat for Nagoya Grampus has reined in the J. League's one-horse title race — for now at least — but the competition at the other end of the table is just getting started.
JAPAN / HANEDA COMEBACK
Oct 20, 2010

Haneda new old kid on the block

This month, Tokyo's Haneda airport returns to scheduled international flight operations for the first time in 32 years as part of the government's goal to turn the offshore facility into a 24-hour hub to compete with global competition and boost the economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2010

U.S. is no role model for prosecutor reform

The revelation of an "ace" prosecutor's criminal misconduct in Osaka, and of a coverup by his bosses and peers, have led to one of the most serious scandals in the history of Japanese criminal justice — and to many calls for reform of Japan's prosecution system.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 20, 2010

Battling language’s law of diminishing returns

Before I left Japan in May, I planned a pub crawl in Tokyo's Shibuya district with some friends. My friend Brian had to work until 7 p.m., so I first went for ramen with a couple of Japanese friends. One spoke English but the other didn't, so I figured I would speak only Japanese in order to make sure...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 19, 2010

Focus more on 'satoyama': expert

To stop ecosystem degradation in farmland and coastal areas, bureaucrats and scientists must join hands to design new policies that can improve the situation, warns a United Nations official who has worked closely on the issue in Japan.
JAPAN
Oct 19, 2010

Biodiversity parley finding goals elusive

NAGOYA — The Monday start of the COP10 conference was marked by strong differences over how to ensure fair access to genetic resources and how to demarcate terrestrial and marine areas for protection under a new environmental protocol.
COMMENTARY
Oct 19, 2010

Justice in mosque destruction takes its time

CHENNAI, India — Much like Charles Dickens' immortal classic "Tale of Two Cities," India's own saga of two religious shrines has been fraught with tragedy. On a cold December morning in 1992, a nearly 500-year-old mosque at Ayodhya, central India, was razed to the ground. Fanatical Hindus owing allegiance...
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Oct 19, 2010

Playoff schedule denies NPB center stage

Major League Baseball, as it has done throughout its playoffs, showcased the best of the best over the weekend.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 19, 2010

Barking mad over canine commotion

FF in Tokyo has a barking dog next door that just won't stop!
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 18, 2010

Unsung heroes make key contributions for Giants

NISHINOMIYA, Hyogo Pref. — Yoshiyuki Kamei went 0-for-5 in Game 2 of the first stage of the Central League Climax Series. After the Yomiuri Giants' series-clinching 7-6 victory, he was hailed as a hero by teammate Alex Ramirez and praised by manager Tatsunori Hara.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2010

Nations gather for COP10 biodiversity conference

NAGOYA — Representatives of over 190 signatories to a United Nations biodiversity pact are set to gather in Nagoya Monday for a two-week marathon conference that some have billed a "Kyoto Protocol for all living things."
COMMENTARY
Oct 17, 2010

Time to let the neighbors deal with the North Korean problem

PARIS — North Korea has officially unveiled the youngest son and heir apparent of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il. Yet again the impoverished dictatorship has captured the world's attention. But the United States should leave the problem of dealing with Pyongyang to the North's neighbors. The so-called Democratic...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 17, 2010

Hawks edge closer to Japan Series

FUKUOKA — It may not have been the most beautiful way of getting a "W." But winning is all that matters in the postseason, and the Hawks were pleased they did just that.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 17, 2010

Tireless work ethic earned Nomo respect in majors

Third in a four-part series
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2010

The illustrated life and times of author Kenji Miyazawa

The surprising thing about Ko Yano's biography of Kenji Miyazawa is not that he's done it in the form of a comic book, but rather that this manga biography appears to be the only book-length life of Miyazawa available in English.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 17, 2010

Okitsuru: An island in the middle of Yokohama

At a 2009 concert, Seijin Noborikawa, the grand-daddy of Okinawan folk music, told the audience about where he felt most at home when he visited mainland Japan. He described a neighborhood where passersby chatted in uchinaaguchi language, where shops served pig-trotter noodles and island songs seeped...
COMMENTARY
Oct 16, 2010

Beijing's reaction justifies Nobel Committee's choice

In China's upside-down world where black is white, the great honor of the Nobel Peace Prize being given to Liu Xiaobo, a writer, intellectual and human rights activist, has been denounced by the government as a "desecration" of the award because it was given to "a criminal who broke China's laws."
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2010

Secret to work-life balance vital for Japan

While the phrase "work-life balance" has gained some currency in Japan recently, there is still a long way to go before people here can find the right mix between careers and personal life, due in part to cultural stereotypes about gender roles, participants at an international symposium in Tokyo said...

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb