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Japan Times
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 25, 2012

Darvish could be in for rude awakening with Rangers

The worst way to start a new relationship of any kind is with a lie.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 22, 2012

Changing self and systems for a leaner and greener Japan

Year in, year out, it never ceases to amaze me what a difference a day makes.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 8, 2012

Stop the presses and hold the front page

It was perhaps the biggest financial story of postwar Japan — or it should have been.Yamaichi Securities, one of the nation's four top brokerages, which was among the world's six largest in the 1980s, had in 1992 started to illegally bury millions of dollars in red ink off the books, setting up dummy...
COMMENTARY
Dec 10, 2011

Civil reawakening in Russia?

It came as no surprise to Russian citizens that parliamentary elections held Dec. 4 were neither free nor fair. Elections in Russia have become increasingly managed since Vladimir Putin's first stint as prime minister in 1999.
COMMENTARY
Dec 1, 2011

The Arab Spring's intellectual divide

The so-called Arab Spring is creating an intellectual divide that threatens any sensible understanding of the turmoil engulfing several Arab countries.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 27, 2011

Dispatches from the labor front line

This timely and excellent analysis of the changing employment system in Japan greatly improves our understanding of what it is like to be a dispatched worker (haken) in contemporary Japan and discourse about nonregular employment, of which haken is only one of various categories such as temporary, contract,...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 20, 2011

Paradoxes pervade gender issues' public face in Japan

Transgender people are popping up everywhere in the current Japanese media landscape. Whether it's appearing on variety shows or hawking soft drinks or makeup in TV ads, the current crop of "new-half" celebrities have established themselves in the mainstream in a way that has surprised many onlookers....
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2011

Al Jazeera: Qatar's promoter of the Arab Spring

During the 15 years that it has broadcast from Qatar, Al Jazeera has served as far more than a traditional television station. With its fearless involvement in Arab politics, it has created a new venue for political freedom, which has culminated in its unreserved support for Arab revolutions.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Oct 18, 2011

Sexless marriages, ineffective police

Some readers' responses to Debito Arudou's Sept. 6 Just Be Cause column, " 'Sexlessness' wrecks marriages, threatens nation's future":
Reader Mail
Sep 18, 2011

Muslim prayer for peace

Ten years since the war against terrorism was launched, the world is still suffering the regrettable loss of innocent lives in many countries. Many who supported the war in Iraq and Afghanistan later became disillusioned with the reasons for the war. Peace is still far away. It is unfortunate that the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 18, 2011

Political elite can't stand outsiders

Yoshio Hachiro's stint as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in the new Yoshihiko Noda administration was not the briefest cabinet assignment on record, but it was certainly one of the most controversial. News outlets reported that it was "public outrage" over two remarks he made which forced...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2011

Will the real Dick Cheney please stand up?

He's been called Darth Vader, feared or derided as a trigger-happy, torture-loving puppet master who called the shots over the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency. And now, with the publication of his memoir, "In My Time," Dick Cheney has once again grabbed the media spotlight. But what about...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 7, 2011

Norway's horrors betray a bigoted ignorance of nationality's meaning

First of two parts
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 31, 2011

Nadeshiko Japan show that a relaxed approach gets the best results

The national women's soccer team that just won the FIFA World Cup in Germany is called Nadeshiko Japan. "Nadeshiko" is the name of a flower, but it also represents a certain ideal of Japanese femininity that's demure, quiet and accommodating to men; or, at least, it used to be. Japan's victory over the...
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2011

Symposium fiasco forces reclusive NISA chief to surface

After being harshly criticized for failing to appear before the media to explain an attempt to manipulate a 2007 "pluthermal" symposium, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency Director General Nobuaki Terasaka held a hastily arranged news conference Friday night.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2011

Murdoch's malign empire

The resignation of two key lieutenants of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his own full-page signed apology in British newspapers — "We are sorry for the widespread wrongdoing that occurred" — is clearly a desperate attempt to save his News Corporation group from being incinerated in the firestorm...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 26, 2011

Game changer as advertisers take a sporting chance

Earlier this month, teen golf sensation Ryo Ishikawa was driving his Audi when he was stopped by police and told that his international driver's license, obtained in the United States, was not valid in Japan. It was an innocent faux pas, but Ishikawa was forced to apologize profusely through the media...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 31, 2011

The edified and TEDified in Japan

On May 21, Tokyo's third annual TEDx event was held at Miraikan (the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) in Odaiba. Though officially closed until June 11 due to the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, Miraikan hosted 300 guests to this year's event: TEDxTokyo 2011: Enter the Unknown.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2011

Asahi kicks off news pay service

The Asahi Shimbun Co. launched a digital newspaper Wednesday, aiming to find a profitable balance between old and new media.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
May 18, 2011

Japan, the Twitter nation

According to Twitter's official blog (blog.twitter.com), when the clock stuck midnight last New Year's Eve, Japanese Twitter users went crazy, recording 6,939 tweets per second—a new record at the time. In fact, globally 14 percent of all tweets are in Japanese—second only to English, with 50 percent—which...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 17, 2011

Tweets fuel drive to aid stricken north

Marriott Hotel, Ginza, Tokyo. On a chilly March morning less than a week after the earthquake and tsunami, a group of almost 60 people were brought together through Twitter. The purpose of this 7:50 a.m. hotel-front gathering was to collect donated goods to be taken up north to areas devastated by the...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 29, 2011

Sake fights fallout of Japan's triple disaster

After surviving the double disaster of the magnitude 9 earthquake and towering tsunami that damaged more than 100 sake breweries in northeastern Japan on March 11, sake producers in Tohoku thought that the situation could hardly get worse. But when the media reported that the stricken reactors at Fukushima's...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 28, 2011

Weeklies getting the gavel for targeting public figures

Fear is mounting within Japanese journalism circles, especially among publishers of popular weekly magazines, that their reporting may be severely constrained by the recent tendency of courts to award large compensation claims to plaintiffs in libel suits.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2011

Black ink, red blood

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PRESS NETWORKS OF EAST ASIA, 1918-1945, by Peter O'Connor. Global Oriental, 2010, 381 pp., £61 (hardcover) In the pre- and early war years, the big three newspapers at the center of the networks in Japan were The Japan Times, Japan Advertiser and the Japan Chronicle.
Reader Mail
Mar 6, 2011

Blurry separation of generations

The March 2 Kyodo article " 'Kawaii' culture taking hold in U.K." gives an an interesting contrast of the differences in the perception of "kawaii" (cute) between the United Kingdom and Japan. But I'm surprised that the writer didn't look beyond street pop culture to examine publishing.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 27, 2011

Nationalism and its discontents

In this wide-ranging feature following a recent visit to Chengdu, China, Jeff Kingston examines Sino-Japanese relations and challenges facing the government in Beijing
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 27, 2011

Skipping the ads gets harder as shows become infomercials

In the late 1990s, I did piece work for a public relations company, translating achievement reports into English for its non-Japanese clients. The reports outlined how and where the company had secured mentions of its clients' products in various media, and included equivalent advertising value amounts...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 6, 2011

There be all kinds of monsters among us

An old saying goes "Issun no mushi ni mo gobu no tamashi" (even a one-inch worm has a half-inch soul); i.e., even the most humble and powerless creature can put up with only so much before turning on its tormentor.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 23, 2011

The countdown: six months and a day till TV goes digital

Quick: what happened in Japan on Sept. 10, 1960? A few people might recall that was the day Japan commenced color TV broadcasting. At the startup, color programs were few in number, but consumers still had four years and one month to buy a color set before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jan 19, 2011

Japanese Web outlook and predictions for 2011

Last year saw many changes for Japanese Internet users as people began to shift from Japanese social networks to international ones, and from regular cellphones to smart phones. The international influence was felt in other web-based areas too. So what can we expect for 2011?

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’