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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2008

Takagi taps the color of sound

Is Masakatsu Takagi a musician that makes video art or a video artist that makes music?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 22, 2008

Manga makes it to the museum

More than anything, it reminded me of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau. Not the new, four-winged fortress near Tennoz Isle, but the old and cramped one in Otemachi. And it wasn't because of the exposed plumbing running along the corridor ceilings. No, it was the number of people inside; they seemed...
BUSINESS
Feb 22, 2008

LPG merger eyed to boost competitiveness

Japan Energy Corp., the oil refining unit of Nippon Mining Holdings Inc., said Thursday it is holding talks with Osaka Gas Co. and Itochu Corp. to combine their liquefied petroleum gas businesses.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Feb 21, 2008

Power-hitting phenom Nakata thrust into spotlight

As if professional baseball isn't hard enough on rookies, try tackling what Hokkaido Nippon Ham newcomer Sho Nakata is probably about to go through.
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2008

MSDF in troubled waters

An Aegis destroyer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force collided with a fishing boat about 40 km south-southwest of Cape Nojima, the southern tip of Chiba Prefecture, early Tuesday morning and split the boat into two. The two fishermen aboard, a father and son, are missing. Investigators are trying to...
BUSINESS
Feb 21, 2008

More funds set aside for small, midsize firms

The government unveiled a package of measures Wednesday designed to fend off a credit crunch that small and medium-size firms are suffering due to higher oil prices and a housing slump.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2008

Dreamtime on canvas

It was just two years ago that the Australian media was bemoaning the unrequited nature of their country's love for Japanese art. Explaining the dearth of Australian art in Japanese public collections — despite the huge presence of Japanese art in Australian collections — Melbourne newspaper The...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 20, 2008

Japan the latest stop on Neumann's basketball odyssey

Johnny Neumann's trip through the world of basketball has been nothing short of an incredible journey.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2008

DPJ takes up beef against road levy with governors

As the Lower House on Tuesday began deliberating the bill to continue the provisional extra rates on road-related taxes for another 10 years, the Democratic Party of Japan, the legislation's key foe, held a joint public debate with the National Governors' Association, which supports the plan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Feb 20, 2008

'Streetfighter IV' leads the coin-op charge

Making their debut on the arcade-entertainment scene at Chiba's Makuhari Messe exhibition venue on Saturday were Crimson Viper, a redhead with a predilection for cross-dressing and ultraviolence, and Abel, a Teutonic blond whose rippling physique seemed to bear the hallmarks of some serious steroid abuse....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 19, 2008

Sitting out but standing tall

In "Japan at War: An Oral History," Hideo Sato recalls being forced to hoist the Hinomaru flag in tandem with the playing of the "Kimigayo" — "His Majesty's Reign," the Japanese national anthem — as a schoolchild in the 1940s. If the flag reached the top of the pole too early the teachers would beat...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 17, 2008

Organic food, JFK conspiracies, dealing with terminal cancer in a new way

Recent scandals concerning food produced in Japan and overseas have increased consumer interest in organic produce, which is seen as being both safer and healthier. On Tuesday, TV Tokyo's business-documentary program, "Gaia no Yuake (The Dawn of Gaia)" (10 p.m.), will look at organizations that are trying...
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2008

What curfew for Okinawa's youth?

What's amazing is that more than 30 investigators jumped on this case. Does it really take that many? If it was a Japanese man that was suspected of this type of crime, would there be the same amount of involvement and publicity?
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Feb 17, 2008

Trailblazer Matsui continues to hone game at Columbia

K.J. Matsui is a perfectionist.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Feb 17, 2008

Taking to the streets of tomorrow

Listen carefully and you might detect the slight whir of this car's motor, a little wind noise and a faint thrum from the tires. Could this be the sound of driving in the future? Will our streets one day be whisper-quiet even as they teem with traffic? Mitsubishi's electric mini-car, due on the market...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 17, 2008

A return to Japanese sensibility

SHAME IN THE BLOOD by Tetsuo Miura, translated by Andrew Driver. Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007, 216 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Of all the major postwar Japanese writers, Tetsuo Miura is the least translated. One or two of his short stories found print in English-language magazines during the 1970s, and my own version...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2008

Bangladesh tries to shake corrupt image

DHAKA — Ever since its hard-won independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has struggled to shake off something just as unwelcome as foreign rule: its image as an impoverished and politically corrupt backwater.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2008

Sarin killer's death penalty is finalized

Rejecting his appeal, the Supreme Court on Friday finalized the death sentence of senior Aum Shinrikyo cultist Yasuo Hayashi, a key figure in the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 16, 2008

Teaching skills pave road to self-reliance

The room is chockablock — or seems to be. Also, a baby is crying. Yet there is a center of gravity in Cesar Santoyo, a mission coordinator from the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. While small meetings take place all around, he calmly sets up a promo DVD with one hand, and soothes the baby...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2008

'Fast Food Nation'

Once upon a time, the spread of freedom and democracy was measured in the spread of hamburger franchises. Beaming network correspondents would report from places like Moscow or Beijing on how formerly gray and monolithic communist societies had opened their doors to the Golden Arches. This, truly, was...
COMMENTARY
Feb 14, 2008

Crises cast light on China's problems

HONG KONG — More snow, even blizzards, are expected this week, but for the most part, China has weathered the crisis brought on by weeks of unusually bad weather, including severe snow and ice storms that affected most of the country, paralyzing transport systems just when millions of people were trying...
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2008

Flowers back for a second bite of Shinsei Bank

Christopher Flowers is back in Tokyo, eyeing a second opportunity to make money from Shinsei Bank Ltd.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2008

Solutions to social services

The People's Conference on Social Security, established at the initiative of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, has started discussions. Social security, including pension and medical services, is an issue for which the nation must find solutions to. The government should not use the conference as a cover...
Reader Mail
Feb 10, 2008

Cut the hype about Indian students

As an Indian national, I am asked almost routinely by Japanese friends and others how it is that Indian children can do two-digit calculations in their head, and whether that makes them superior to Japanese. Let me shed some light on this:
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 10, 2008

Chinese women striving through history, hero cop docu-drama, African history game show

Chinese women get respect in the two-hour Nihon TV special "Onnatachi no Chugoku (Women's China)" (Monday, 9 p.m.), which looks at the country's female citizens and 4,000 years of history.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 9, 2008

Pocketful of yen

If you live to be 75 years old, you will live approximately 650,000 hours. Somehow, that doesn't seem like a lot, especially when you can buy a very nice house for $650,000, the same number, but a huge amount in dollars (and which would cost you one dollar per hour to live there). On the other hand,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2008

Brit proves comic relief in Japan, abroad

Wearing kimono and with flowers in her hair, Diane Kichijitsu (Diane Orrett) sallies forth onto the stage of AiMesse Hall in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, before a near 100 percent Japanese audience, and within seconds has them eating out of her hand.
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2008

Sentiment of 'economy watchers' tumbled to six-year low in January

Japanese merchant sentiment fell to a six-year low in January as stagnant wages forced consumers to crimp spending, the government said Friday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2008

Harmony (in his head)

An eight year hiatus is a long time for a filmmaker, especially for someone as iconic in indie film as Harmony Korine.

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