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JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 24, 2007

Japan baseball stars first shine bright at Koshien

When Japanese baseball stars like Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka joined Major League Baseball teams in the United States, fans could easily trace their trajectory backward to their roots in the sport.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 22, 2007

Mobilizing the populace 'World War II-style' to judge their fellow citizens

Yoshikazu Ebisu seems an unlikely advocate for judicial reform. The 59-year-old illustrator first gained notoriety in the 1970s for his crude caricatures and moved on to variety shows in the late '80s, where his bumbling slob persona was the perfect target for insult comics. After he was arrested for...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 29, 2007

Aso Mining's POW labor: the evidence

One year after media reports that Aso Mining used 300 Allied prisoners of war for forced labor in 1945, Foreign Minister Taro Aso is refusing to confirm that POWs dug coal for his family's firm — and even challenging reporters to produce evidence.
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2007

A prodigal divides Australia

SYDNEY — The prodigal son has returned from exile in Cuba. After five years of bitter controversy, David Hicks, Australia's gift to world terrorism, is back in hometown Adelaide, South Australia, safely locked away but still dividing a nation's conscience.
Reader Mail
May 2, 2007

Blogger editorial disappoints

I was excited to see an editorial about the ascendancy of blogging in Japan . . . until I actually read all of it ("Japan as number-one blogger," April 22). While it could have been an engaging celebration of this boom in people's media, it ended up being a lame and quite bizarre attempt to downplay...
BASEBALL / MLB'S EFFECT ON JAPAN
Apr 11, 2007

Is the MLB destroying Japan's national pastime?

Best-selling author Robert Whiting, who has penned such classics as "You Gotta Have Wa," "The Chrysanthemum and the Bat" and "The Meaning of Ichiro," has written an exclusive four-part series for The Japan Times on the effect Major League Baseball is having on the Japanese pro game, and how the poor...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 1, 2007

From comedian to politician: an easy step for Miyazaki's governor

Since last September when Shinzo Abe became prime minister, no event has had as powerful an impact on Japan's political landscape as the January election of Hideo Higashikokubaru to the governorship of Miyazaki Prefecture. Many see the former comedian's victory as a harbinger of what to expect not only...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 4, 2007

Princess Tenko: conjuror of pure mystery

The life of illusionist Tenko Hikita -- better
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 14, 2007

Japan keen to keep up with the killing of prisoners

The fall of Saddam Hussein was supposed to lead to a bright new era of democracy for Iraqis, but so far all it's led to is anguish and bloodshed. Similarly, his trial at the hands of his own people was supposed to be an example of real justice, but it was little more than a sad piece of theater.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 11, 2007

Lily in bloom as the opinionated princess of pop

'I've never really looked up to people in music," says Lily Allen, London's rising pop star. In fact, "rising" may be too subtle a word -- "soaring" would be more accurate. Right now in Britain she adorns several magazine covers, blasts from radio stations across all demographics, and even played just...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 26, 2006

Can NHK keep the air free?

The credibility of public broadcaster NHK is on the line over its handling of political interference by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 10, 2006

Politics at the grass roots

Judging by the society pages of certain publications in Japan, politicians at both the local and national levels seem to spend a lot of their time being photographed with ambassadors, captains of industry, assorted aristocrats, passing film stars and all manner of other folk.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

When Japan's beleaguered textiles industry belatedly decided to invest in organizing a fashion week to rival the best of Paris, Milan, New York and London -- and persuaded the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to back it -- they hoped a slick new event would garner valuable worldwide media coverage...
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jun 11, 2006

Ron puts on a show in Bonn

BONN -- The Japan national team received a boost this week with the arrival of unofficial mascot Rommel the dog.
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 2006

Tragedy in a farming community

The investigation into the murder of a 7-year-old boy in a farming community in northern Honshu has taken a bizarre twist. A 33-year-old woman from the community was arrested and she initially admitted that she had abandoned the body of the boy near a river.
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2006

Bills aimed at making noise

The Diet has begun discussions on two separate bills submitted by the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, and by the No. 1 opposition party, to specify procedures for holding a national referendum to amend the Constitution.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 28, 2006

Japan sleepwalks by design toward peace-renouncing poll

The Japanese people may soon be asked to make a momentous decision in a nationwide referendum. As I write this, the major political parties are at loggerheads over conditions under which that referendum will be conducted. Behind the closed doors of the Diet, but barely touched on in the media, this debate...
COMMENTARY
May 16, 2006

Pioneers turned paper into must-reads

LOS ANGELES -- It was a remarkably sad coincidence that within the span of a few days, two of the world's more influential newspaper figures died.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 16, 2006

'Conspiracies of silence' feign sympathies largely unfelt

Japanese people are known for their sense of propriety and decorum. Reserve and self-restraint are fine Japanese virtues, and they have afforded the society an enviable harmony and level of personal safety unparalleled in the developed world. Putting a damper on people's self-assertive instincts, and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 2, 2006

Accepting apologies is not so easy

JAPANESE APOLOGIES FOR WORLD WAR II: A Rhetorical Study, by Jane W. Yamazaki. London: Routledge, 2005, 256 pp., £65 (cloth). POLITICS, MEMORY AND PUBLIC OPINION: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society, by Sven Saaler, Munich: Deutsches Institut fur Japanstudien, 2005, 202 pp., 28 euro...
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2006

News rivals hit Yasukuni visits

Recent events in the nation's normally staid print media have surprised readers of the powerful Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun.
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2006

Defense Agency probes leaks about China intel

The Defense Agency has conducted an internal probe into what it says are media leaks that resulted in two newspaper reports detailing Chinese military operations last May and September, informed sources have said.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2006

In court ruling flip-flop, NHK reporter can hide source

The Tokyo High Court on Friday accepted an NHK reporter's refusal to reveal a news source, saying news-gathering activities are a premise for the freedom of press that serves the public's right to know, which is an indispensable component of a democratic society.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 5, 2006

A few bows too many for shamed DPJ lawmaker Hisayasu Nagata

One picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words, and the one that graced the front page of the Feb. 24 Asahi Shimbun is worth more than all the kanji expended on the Democratic Party of Japan's e-mail fiasco.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 15, 2006

Japan Times wins award for animal rights coverage

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) today announced that The Japan Times is this year's winner of its prestigious International Genesis Award, given in recognition of its Nov. 30, 2005 "breakthrough expose" headlined: " 'Secret' dolphin slaughter defies protests."
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2006

Egypt ambassador counsels caution on cartoons

Attacks like the ones on the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon last weekend could take place in Japan if the media here insult Muslims by reprinting cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, Egyptian Ambassador to Japan Hisham Badr warned Friday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 29, 2006

Sifting through the geeks -- that's all of us -- to identify the perverts

Less than a week after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki on Jan. 17, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia had not only recorded the ruling in its entry on Miyazaki, but had added an incisive note. When the Miyazaki case was dominating the headlines in 1989, he...

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’