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JAPAN / Politics
Aug 15, 2015

Growing influence of Japan Conference reflects resentment at Tokyo's postwar settlement with Washington

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress — the first by a Japanese leader — that lauded deepening trade ties and the military alliance with the United States.
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Aug 15, 2015

'Folk Legends from Tono' brings new life to Kunio Yanagita's fantastic tales

"Folk Legends from Tono," takes the reader inside a land of superstition and pragmatism, farming and faith. The tales unravel in short vignettes, loosely grouped by myriad topics ranging from "Biology and Human Emotion" to "Survival on the Edge."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2015

Frida Kahlo and the secret life of women's objects

Miyako Ishiuchi is one of Japan's most formidable photographers — a woman who has been passionately interested in women and their bodies for the whole of her 50-year career. At 68 years old, her fascination with the female physique remains intact, but over the past six years she has added two subtexts...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 11, 2015

'Shimura Fukumi: Nature and Inheritance to Next Generation'

Aug. 8-Sept. 23
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Aug 4, 2015

Attack of the plant hunters, green carnivores and fleshy girls

Never promised you a rose garden, but how about a fleshy plant or a stag-horn fern?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2015

No agnostics in the climate foxhole

Some 97 percent of scientists endorse the position that humans are causing global warming. A consensus of such magnitude is as close as we ever get to a recognized scientific fact.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Aug 1, 2015

Get creative and join the competition

If you went to this past weekend's Maker Faire at Tokyo Big Sight, chances are that all the new ideas — both innovative and kooky — have sparked your own creativity. The timing is good, since there are three upcoming design competitions that are not only free to enter, but will also turn winning...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 1, 2015

Wine joins whisky in Japan's 'Napa Valley'

The small town of Yoichi in Hokkaido has become famous recently as the setting for much of an NHK TV series titled "Massan" that was screened every day, Monday to Saturday, from September 2014 to March this year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 29, 2015

'Obon no Ototo' is one director's attempt to portray his real life through a fictional self

'Life imitates art far more than art imitates life," quipped Oscar Wilde, but in the film world mining one's own life for the sake of art — or rather, a script — is an ancient and hallowed practice. The resulting film, however, may have only a tenuous relationship with the filmmaker's actual biography....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2015

Diabetes epidemic taking a heavy toll on Russia

Diabetes is posing an increasing health threat in Russia as the obesity rate grows.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2015

The Greek tragedy continues

While the latest bailout package provides a lifeline for the Greeks, it does not provide the means for them to get back safely on land.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 22, 2015

In search of male 'members' great and small

Iceland has everything that matters. There's Bjork, of course. There's Skyr yogurt, widely acknowledged to be the best on the planet. And they've got a place called The Icelandic Phallological Museum, the world's only museum dedicated to the penis, run by Sigurour Hjartarson. For more than 40 years this...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jul 21, 2015

JPBL will face many challenges from inaugural season

Unlike the J. League in the early 1990s, the Japan Professional Basketball League will not be an immediate success story when it tips off in the fall of 2016.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2015

What Europe should learn from Asia's crisis

Asia's experience is proof that denial and ill-timed austerity fix nothing. Greece must modernize its economy.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jul 21, 2015

Campaign group SEALDs hooking Japan's youth with jazzy placards, fliers

The sticky, humid night did not stop thousands of infuriated Japanese from gathering outside the Diet on July 15. Many held eye-catching placards that displayed messages such as, “Give peace a chance” and “Our future, our choice” to protest the approval of two security bills at the special committee...
WORLD
Jul 16, 2015

World leaders strike deal on financing development

Rich and poor countries agreed on Thursday to overhaul global finance for development, unlocking money for an ambitious agenda to end extreme poverty, protect the environment and improve economic opportunity by 2030.
Japan Times
TENNIS
Jul 13, 2015

Serena eyes calendar Slam

Serena Williams holds all four major tennis titles after her Wimbledon victory Saturday but she wants more.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jul 13, 2015

Nagoya subway line's late-night service extension finds marginal success

In a widely publicized event last July, the Higashiyama subway line in Nagoya extended its operating hours to provide the "latest last train for subways in Japan."
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Jul 11, 2015

Lafcadio Hearn's timeless anthology of ghost tales

What is it about "Kwaidan"? It wasn't Lafcadio Hearn's first take on Japanese ghost stories — it wasn't even his first such book whose title was a single Japanese word starting with "K" ("Kotto" was published two years earlier, in 1902). But it's "Kwaidan" that still claims a place in literary history,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 6, 2015

South China Sea serenity

The days of America's unequivocal primacy and unilateral capacity to write the rules in the Asia-Pacific region are over.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 5, 2015

City pop revival is literally a trend in name only

City pop is the latest trend to hit Japan's indie-music scene. Well, not the musical style, just the words.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Jul 4, 2015

Design that sounds good and looks even better on paper

Folding Tokyo's icons
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Jul 4, 2015

Yasunari Kawabata's 'Palm-of-the-Hand Stories' are taut tales of the human heart

"Palm-of-the-Hand Stories" is a collection of 70 very brief stories by Nobel Prize-winner Yasunari Kawabata that were written between the early 1920s and 1970s. It contains poetic depictions of emotions, a focus on feelings rather than understanding. These stories present the chaos of the human heart,...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 4, 2015

Fond memories of 'Mr. Minor League'

Sadly, the Baseball Bullet-in says goodbye to a good friend and great fan of the game, Takashi "Bert" Shimada, aka "Mr. Minor League," who died in Tokyo on June 19 at the age of 87. Though he followed baseball at all levels in his own country as well as the U.S., he preferred American minor league baseball...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 2, 2015

Actor Yusuke Iseya's most important role is helping the environment through his Rebirth Project

Prepared to step out of his comfort zone and say what he really thinks, Yusuke Iseya is something of a rarity in the Japanese entertainment industry. An actor with a conscience, he's most well-known for movies such as "13 Assassins," "Tomorrow's Joe" and the Hollywood film "Blindness," yet rather than...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jun 25, 2015

Nintendo's virtual warriors secure same-sex marriage victory

In a sign of the growing embrace of diversity in virtual reality, Nintendo Co. said Thursday its Fire Emblem fantasy role-playing game series now allows characters to have same-sex relationships.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2015

Germany should buy — and show — Hitler's art

The German government should exhibit Adolf Hitler's artwork publically to help people better undersand what happened to Germany in the 1930s and '40s.

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