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Japan Times
Features
Feb 29, 2004

Creature comforts fuel business boom

The growing popularity in Japan of dogs as pets has turned its pet industry into a lucrative market in which suppliers and sellers are eagerly competing to offer products and services from the pet's cradle to its grave.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 23, 2004

Casting calls begin for vice presidency

WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry has the Democratic nomination for president nearly wrapped up with his victory in Wisconsin last Tuesday, giving him victories in 15 of the 17 primaries and caucuses contested to date. There will be some mopping up, and then a cakewalk to his hometown of Boston...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 18, 2004

Going with the wind in Manchuria

Akai Tsuki Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Yasuo Furuhata Running time: 111 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Yasuo Furuhata is the most established of mainstream directors, consistently working with the Japanese film industry's biggest...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 18, 2004

A bombardment of images leaves riddles in the rubble

Naqoyqatsi Rating: * * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Godfrey Reggio Running time: 89 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] While all the attention has focused on "The Matrix" and "The Lord of the Rings," another trilogy, 20 years in the making, has...
Japan Times
Features
Feb 15, 2004

Soaking up Sakura

Pass by the noisy pachinko parlor near BicCamera in Yokohama, turn the corner at the red paper lantern outside the yakitori shop and, tucked away down an alleyway, you'll find a villa-like little storefront labeled "Snack Sakura."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 15, 2004

Asian Sherlocks pursue exotic crimes

THE FENG SHUI DETECTIVE, by Nury Vittachi. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004, 280 pp., $23.95 (cloth). THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE, by Barbara Cleverly. New York: Bantam Dell, 2003, 314 pp., $6.99 (paper). The "feng shui detective," an elderly Singaporean named C.F. Wong, doesn't wear a trench coat or pack...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 11, 2004

Got something for everyone

Hanochi Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Itsumichi Isomura Running time: 122 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Gege Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Kiyoshi Sasabe Running time: 113 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See...
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2004

Over-exposed in Houston

Say this for U.S. President George W. Bush: He might have wrong-footed the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but he struck just the right note when asked to comment on the flap over singer Janet Jackson's risque performance in the Super Bowl halftime show in Houston the night before. Mr....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 31, 2004

Preconceptions on Japan expats go out window

When Gwyneth Merner asked if she could interview me for her Division 3 thesis, we struck a deal: She could talk to me if I could talk to her. Now we are in her father's home overlooking Sagami Bay, and she is getting to know what it feels like to be on the other side of the table, so to speak.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 30, 2004

Explore the past in cosmopolitan ways

A walk through Kagurazaka's many narrow winding alleys is like slipping away from reality. Just a step away from the lively main road, and quietude takes over. Gone is the incessant irritant of cell-phone chatter, the barrage of electronic sounds from game centers and the gunning car and motorbike engines....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2004

Trade, tourism thrive on DPRK border

LONDON -- I spent the first two weeks of this year on a whistle-stop tour of Northeast China -- an area once known as Manchuria. The term Northeast China usually means the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 25, 2004

Embracing the beauty and the beast

The Chicago band Califone and Tucson-based singer-songwriter Howe Gelb will be coming to Japan next month to do a club tour together. Both artists record for the same Chicago indie, Thrill Jockey, which has a licensing deal with the Japanese company Headz, and they both happen to have time to kill in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 21, 2004

Memories of war from a distance

Utsukushi Natsu Kirishima Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Kazuo Kuroki Running time: 119 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Why has the flow of Japanese movies about Japan at the end of World War II never stopped, more than 50 years after...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2004

Where the rock girls are . . . By SIMON BARTZ

In "Kill Bill," Japanese garage-rockers The 5.6.7.8's dripped cool as the blood splashed. But that was just a scratch on the surface of a thriving girl-band scene. Here we dig deeper to give you the chick picks of 2004.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 21, 2004

Seeing double at kabuki new year shows

Kabuki has made an auspicious start to the Year of the Monkey, with performances at no less than three venues in Tokyo: the Kokaido (Public Hall) in Asakusa, the Kabukiza in Ginza and the National Theater in Hanzomon. Of these, the first two venues offer the special excitement of watching up-and-coming...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 15, 2004

An island alone that is worlds apart

If it were possible to view the Japanese archipelago rising from the Pacific in profile, a distinct, lonely, broad cone would be immediately apparent between the high peaks of the Japanese Alps of Honshu and the even higher peaks of Taiwan. That cone is the long-isolated, mountainous island of Yakushima,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 14, 2004

New year musing of a 'pottery poet'

As this is the first Ceramic Scene of 2004, I'd like to wish all readers a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 11, 2004

Ba Cissoko: "Sabolan"

The infectious and joyous debut release from Ba Cissoko, four young Guinean exiles living in Marseille, connects the intensity of Salif Keita with the fun of Guinean dance bands. The keynote of their sound is the distinctive and elegant kora (21-string African harp). Instead of burying the kora's intricate...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 11, 2004

More than transformation to a photo critic's eye

THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY, edited and translated by John Junkerman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003, 404 pp. $65 (cloth). The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, deserves kudos for sponsoring this superb slab of a book. This is certainly an impressively organized, thoughtful and comprehensive...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 11, 2004

Home sweet (old) homes

To buy a dream home is an aim shared by many, and in this respect Satoshi and Yumiko Takano were no different from millions the world over.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 9, 2004

Scrutiny will increase if Eriksson becomes Chelsea manager

LONDON -- Will he stay or will he go?
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 7, 2004

Workplace nurseries finding fledgling footing

Decor fit for a trendy beauty salon. A breathtaking view of autumn leaves in a sprawling city park.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jan 4, 2004

It's time to stop looting Japan's tree treasures

A couple of decades ago, I had a very public confrontation with the government's Forestry Agency. It was about the cutting of old-growth deciduous forest around where I live in Kurohime, Nagano Prefecture -- trees that were hundreds of years old.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 25, 2003

Be good to your rice and your rice will be good

"Aaaaah. Nihonjin dana . . . (Ahh, isn't this what being Japanese is all about?)"
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDEN PATHS
Dec 25, 2003

A romantic gem in Tokyo's heart

Japanese gardens were designed for poetry, music and romance; think of all those lovers in "The Tale of Genji" trailing through dew-drenched gardens to trysts with ladies of their dreams.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 21, 2003

Zen and the art of gardening

INSIDE JAPANESE GARDENS, by Shunmyo Masuno. Osaka: Commemorative Foundation for the International Garden & Greenery Exposition, 350 pp., 4,800 yen (cloth). In the formal Japanese garden -- a source of delight but also puzzlement to some visitors -- every element has a reason for being there, an ordained...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Dec 21, 2003

Of death and glories

The stench! That was what got me first as I pushed my bike up the steep, narrow lane: the reek of burning hair, bones, hooves and flesh.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes