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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2009

Busting boundaries with a pioneer of magical music

Hearing Ryuichi Sakamoto talk softly about his 30 years in music, which have elevated him to the status of an officially designated National Treasure, is to witness a perfect exercise in Japanese modesty.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 3, 2009

Lost & Found

The discovery in a German archive of documents and photographs related to the Prussian mission to Japan in 1860-61 has shed new light on the early history of photography in Japan. In particular, newly uncovered letters and records help explain the mystery of why so few images from the well-equipped mission...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 3, 2009

Pachinko bucks recession trend

In the smoky Maruhan gambling parlor near Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, Shunichiro Nagasawa feeds a ¥1,000 bill into a pachinko machine, helping Japan's biggest gaming industry beat the recession and Las Vegas.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 2, 2009

Rabbits forced to fold amid economic crisis

The Seibu Prince Rabbits, an ice hockey team with a 37-year history, is the latest casualty of Japan's economic crises.
Reader Mail
Apr 2, 2009

Generalizations invite challenge

Debito Arudou does paint a bleak picture of the travails of many foreigners at the hands of the Japanese legal system. I do have issues with a couple of his points, though. First, he asserts that "bail [is] impossible for non-Japanese to get." Yet, simply typing "foreigner bail" into The Japan Times'...
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2009

Axed Brazilians, Peruvians to be paid to leave Japan

The government began offering money Wednesday for unemployed foreigners of Japanese ancestry to go home, mostly to Brazil and Peru, to stave off what officials say poses a serious unemployment problem.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / 2009 CENTRAL LEAGUE PREVIEW
Apr 2, 2009

Giants aiming for third straight Central League title

The following is first of a two-part preview for the upcoming Nippon Professional Baseball season. Team-by-team previews of the six Central League clubs are listed in order of predicted finish.
EDITORIALS
Apr 2, 2009

Shutting out a past truth

The Yokohama District Court on Monday ended a retrial of the late Yasuhito Ono, a journalist who had been convicted in the Yokohama Incident — the worst example of Japan's wartime repression of freedom of speech — without determining his guilt or innocence. Regrettably the court failed to deal with...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Apr 1, 2009

LeBron committed to winning title with Cavs

CLEVELAND — The entire course of Cavaliers history was altered by the 2003 lottery when they won LeBron James in a game of chance.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2009

Lost and now found at the Imperial proves a celeb trove

Once asked by a reporter what she wore in bed, the late actress Marilyn Monroe was said to have replied, "Why, Chanel No. 5, of course."
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Apr 1, 2009

TomoToday can broaden your social-media circles

The Web has been praised for taking publishing to new heights, but it's also pioneered new ways for people to connect and reconnect. In Facebook, Mixi, MySpace and hundreds of other large and small online communities, we're learning new modes of socialization.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Mar 31, 2009

Hakuho remains on course to challenge the all-time greats

In the month he turned 24 years of age, Yokozuna Hakuho Sho will leave the city of Osaka, site of the March Haru Basho, an Emperor's Cup winner for the 10th time.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Mar 31, 2009

Immigration pains; 'zombie debate' revisited

Japanese system worse Re: "I am not a Pakistani child bride (but the U.K. can't tell the difference)" (Hotline to Nagatacho, March 17):
Reader Mail
Mar 29, 2009

Trucks pose biggest road hazard

Regarding Amy Chavez's Feb. 21 column, "Driving in Japan is not for the gullible": Actually, the most dangerous thing about driving in the suburban and rural parts of Japan is the trucks.
Reader Mail
Mar 29, 2009

Condoms not as helpful as hyped

The Washington Post editorial perspective printed in The Japan Times on March 21, "Lacking condom sense," concedes that abstinence is the best remedy for controlling AIDS, but adds that the world "isn't perfect — and neither is Pope Benedict's pronouncement on the effectiveness of condoms in the battle...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 29, 2009

Bodies beautiful

At 2 a.m. on a spring morning in 2002, photographer Mitsuhiro Mouri received a phone call from the most famous actress in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Mar 29, 2009

Supporting single mothers

As the economy worsens, some people will suffer more than others. For the first time ever, the number of Japanese single mothers receiving child-care allowances to supplement their low income has topped 1 million, the health and welfare ministry reported in March. These single-mother households greatly...
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Mar 29, 2009

The Japanese way carried the day in World Baseball Classic

Baseball may have been invented in the United States, but it's being perfected in Japan.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 29, 2009

Make room in the scrapyard of history for those quaint TV sets

When regular television broadcasts in America started in 1939, the intrinsic evils of the medium were already being discussed, and by the '50s the term "idiot box" had been coined.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 28, 2009

Japan aims for another victory against Bahrain

SAITAMA — National team manager Takeshi Okada is determined to settle his side's rivalry with Bahrain once and for all in Saturday's World Cup qualifier at Saitama Stadium.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 28, 2009

Gerrard hoping to show club form for England

LONDON — One of the best moves England manager and master tactician Fabio Capello could make before England plays Slovakia on Saturday is to hand the No. 8 jersey to Steven Gerrard.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 28, 2009

Practicing for the Olympics

My grandmother used to reminisce about spending the first five minutes of Spanish class practicing rolling her r's. My grandmother would be proud — the ESL classroom doesn't just spend five minutes on English pronunciation, we spend an entire class on it.
EDITORIALS
Mar 28, 2009

Worrisome state of agriculture

Agriculture in Japan is experiencing difficult times. The nation's calorie-based food self-sufficiency rate is the lowest among developed countries. There are fewer farmers and those remaining are rapidly graying. The number of abandoned agricultural fields is rising.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2009

'Fish Story'

Film critics like to be surprised, which comes from being unsurprised too many times. This critic, however, has become tired of "The Sixth Sense" school of script writing, enamored as it is of that 1999 hit's sleight-of-hand ending. But while a good magician can fool the eye in dozens of ways, a scriptwriter...
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2009

Masterpiece maker

The Japan Times interviewed Yoshihiro Nakamura at the Ebisu headquarters of the Amuse talent agency, where Nakamura was holding forth all day for the press. Despite the PR grind, he was relaxed, with a ready laugh, and spoke in a distinctive low, rumbling voice.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2009

'Watchmen'

Like The Sex Pistols, who wickedly declared themselves "the last rock 'n' roll band," "Watchmen" should have been the superhero comic to end all comics. When Alan Moore wrote the "Watchmen" series in the mid-1980s (illustrated by Dave Gibbons), his canny deconstruction of the superhero genre seemed total,...

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