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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 14, 2003

Not letting the facts get in the way of a good 'documentary'

In the tributes to the Japanese diplomats who were killed two weeks ago, few people mentioned what they were actually doing in Iraq. Katsuhiko Oku was, among other things, encouraging Iraqis to watch NHK's popular drama series, "Oshin," which is being broadcast on Iraqi TV. The show, originally aired...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 14, 2003

Bento pioneers stay the course of time

As the hub of the Gokaido, the five roads radiating from old Edo to major centers around the country, the Nihonbashi district of the capital was long one of its most bustling areas.
COMMENTARY
Dec 14, 2003

Getting Asia's youth behind their party

MANILA -- As elections approach, politicians remember the importance of being on good terms with the youth. Young people are easily motivated and are inexpensive workers in political campaigns. The young generation also constitutes a sizable electoral constituency.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 13, 2003

Timothy Minton

"While some professional British vocal groups have long-established reputations in Japan, my wife and I felt that few Japanese fans realized how those groups actually came into being, nor how their great expertise was acquired. The collegiate and cathedral choirs are at the root of the English choral...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 12, 2003

'Land of Fire' with history burning in its mokkosu heart

Few things puff up local pride like a local hero. Sendai dotes on its "One-Eyed Dragon," warrior Date Masamune. Kagoshima loves its plump 19th-century rebel Saigo Takamori. And Kumamoto adores its old daimyo lord Kato Kiyomasa.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 11, 2003

Mortality vs. morality

James Cash is the death row inmate and protagonist of "Manhunt" -- an ultra-violent new game for PlayStation2 from Rockstar Games -- and is given a new lease of life when his lethal injection turns out to be a sedative.
JAPAN
Dec 11, 2003

Panel eyes transplants for children

The Liberal Democratic Party plans to introduce a bill next year that would allow people under the age of 15 who have been diagnosed as brain-dead to be organ donors for transplants.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2003

Killer's death sentence commuted

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday acknowledged that a 56-year-old man who killed a woman and seriously injured three members of her family when he torched their house was insane at the time and thus commuted his death sentence to a life term.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2003

Ruling on quake insurance overturned

The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a lower court ruling that ordered seven nonlife insurance companies and an insurance group to pay damages to people whose homes were damaged in a fire caused by the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe and its vicinity.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2003

Opposition leaders refuse to 'understand'

Opposition leaders remained opposed Tuesday to the government's plans to send Self-Defense Forces troops to Iraq, rebuffing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's request for their understanding on the matter.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2003

Iraq gives SDF a military-reality check

An Air Self-Defense Force officer in his 40s says he is happy to be chosen as a candidate for the planned mission to help rebuild Iraq.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Dec 10, 2003

Desperately seeking Kyusetsu

In the world of tea, certain inherited potters' names stand out as shining stars and their works are seen almost as brand-name goods. Just as shoppers hanker for a Gucci bag, a tea devotee covets certain chawan (tea bowls), say, from the Kaneshige kiln in Bizen. Possessing one of these is a status symbol,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / A GAIJIN'S TALE
Dec 9, 2003

Gentlewoman

One of the more interesting things about Japan is the rather unusual dynamic between men and women.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 7, 2003

Thousands pay respects to diplomats slain in Iraq

Some 3,500 people paid their last respects at the funerals Saturday of two Japanese diplomats killed in an ambush in Iraq, with many sobbing as friends and colleagues of the two men offered eulogies.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 7, 2003

Traditions of fiction that can liberate and stifle

VIRTUAL LOTUS: Modern Fiction of Southeast Asia, edited by Teri Schaffer Yamada. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002, 332 pp., $29.95 (paper). Though novels are not unknown in Southeast Asia, it is the short-story form that has been chosen here to represent the area. Neither novels nor...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 7, 2003

Celebrating art far from home

"This stuff saved my life," says Amelia Toledo, one of Brazil's best-known artists. She pulls out of her handbag a tiny bottle of flower essence. "You just drop it on your tongue and it makes you feel better."
Events
Dec 7, 2003

KANSAI Who & What

Osaka district lights up its streets for Christmas: The Nakanoshima district of Osaka's Kita Ward is being illuminated every evening until Dec. 27 as the city celebrates Christmas.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2003

Death penalty upheld for Hayashi

The Tokyo High Court on Friday upheld the death penalty for senior Aum Shinrikyo member Yasuo Hayashi for his roles in two fatal sarin attacks and an attempt to spread cyanide gas at JR Shinjuku Station.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 6, 2003

Yoko Wakabayashi

Last month, Shinjuku Gardens staged its annual chrysanthemum show. Last spring, it maintained its reputation as one of the best Tokyo places for cherry blossoms. Year round, people enjoy the extensive lawns, giant trees and scenic lakes of these public gardens, which have replaced what used to be the...
COMMENTARY
Dec 6, 2003

Chen plays a dangerous game

HONOLULU -- Is President Chen Shui-bian trying to provoke a crisis with China in the runup to Taiwan's March 2004 presidential elections?
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2003

Farmers lose 33-year fight over land at Narita

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by farmers seeking nullification of the government's expropriation of land for Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Dec 4, 2003

"Lionboy," "The English Roses"

"Lionboy," Zizou Corder, Puffin Books; 2003; 352 pp. How old do you have to be to write your first book? Thirty years old? Twenty? How about 10? If you're Isabel Adomakoh Young, 10 is as good an age as any.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2003

Chirac still feeling the heat

PARIS -- France has not finished paying for the August heat wave and its 10,000 deaths. Vegetable and beef prices have risen, tourism has declined, forest fires have devastated wide areas and the financial impact on the budget has postponed an economic upswing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Dec 3, 2003

Take a closer look

Contemporary art sure can be divisive. Every year, the British press fills with angry opinion pieces lambasting the finalists for that nation's Turner Prize. In the United States and elsewhere, citizens' groups regularly mobilize against the controversial in art exhibitions -- be it Robert Mapplethorpe's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 3, 2003

A behind-the-scenes drama of noh

A masterly drama about a master dramatist is playing at the New National Theater in Tokyo through Dec. 21. Bando Mitsugoro, a 47-year-old kabuki actor, takes the title role in "Zeami," a biographical play about the talented writer-actor-director who, in the early 15th century, did more than any other...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 30, 2003

A couch potato's guide from the experts' side

THE DORAMA ENCYCLOPEDIA: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama Since 1953, by Jonathan Clements and Motoko Tamamuro. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2003, 442 pp., 100+ photos and illustrations, $24.95, (paper). THE COUCH POTATO'S GUIDE TO JAPAN: Inside the World of Japanese TV, by Wilhelmina Penn. Sapporo: Forest...

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