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EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2012

Sake makes a comeback

Japanese traditional sake had a resurgence in 2011, with drinkers consuming more than in 2010. After hitting a peak in the mid-1970s, consumption gradually fell to a third. Last year, though, saw a return of enthusiasm for sake as a way of supporting Tohoku, a region with three major sake-producing prefectures:...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 3, 2012

Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name many of his works. Recently, indeed, I was amazed when...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 22, 2012

Once one and only, Sony seeks to regain that status

Despite reporting a record ¥457 billion annual loss last year, Sony Corp. earlier this month said it would return to the black in fiscal 2012 with a ¥30 billion profit.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 6, 2012

Weeklies take a look at faiths, (misplaced) hopes and charities

Which religious groups were most successful in raising funds for earthquake victims in the devastated parts of Tohoku? In its Golden Week double issue, Flash (May 8-15) ran an article about the heretofore unreported nexus between last year's disaster and religion. The most generous donor by far, which...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 3, 2012

Bus driver salaries inversely proportional to risk involved

Cheaper bus fares means higher stress factor for drivers
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Apr 3, 2012

'Silver democracy' could undermine Tohoku's reconstruction

Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda,
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Apr 3, 2012

Keene should engage brain before fueling 'flyjin,' foreign crime myths

Congratulations to Donald Keene, who was granted Japanese citizenship last month with great media fanfare. At 89 years young and after a lifetime contributing to world scholarship on Japan, he truly deserves it.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2012

Nuclear safety studies torpedoed

Of all the shocking revelations over the past year about nuclear power plants in Japan, the recent revelation that the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency canceled safety studies in 2006 is one of the most exasperating. The agency responsible for nuclear safety should have expanded the studies,...
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2012

Nation marks first anniversary of disasters

Japan on Sunday marked a year since the massive earthquake and tsunami rocked Tohoku and its Pacific coastline on March 11, 2011, leaving nearly 20,000 people confirmed dead or missing.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 11, 2012

The power of bad news

Weekly Playboy magazine discerns among young people a rising interest in Buddhism. This is surprising, given Japan's well-known "religion allergy" — or not, given that troubled times often inspire spiritual quests.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2012

Revenge of the Japanese mandarins

Ever since the huge earthquake that hit Japan's Tohoku-Pacific coast on March 11, 2011, the country's mass media have obsessively focused on the magnitude of the physical damage and the loss of life. Repeated broadcasts of traumatic video images of the great tsunami and the damaged reactors at the Fukushima...
COMMENTARY
Mar 6, 2012

Hamas' perilous maneuvers

Despite all of Hamas' assurances to the contrary, a defining struggle is taking place within the Palestinian Islamic movement. The outcome of this struggle — which is still confined to polite political disagreements and occasional intellectual tussle — is likely to change Hamas' outlook, if not fundamentally...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2012

Transcripts sketch out NRC's 3/11 confusion

Transcripts of phone conversations immediately after the March disasters, released Tuesday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reveal the early sense of urgency and confusion about the crisis unfolding at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2012

A 'stewpid' time to raise VAT

The International Monetary Fund has joined Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and leading politicians and bureaucrats in laying down a remorseless softening up barrage of facts, figures, argument and just plain determination that the country's consumption tax should rise as quickly as possible.
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2012

Joining the Hague convention

The Legislative Council of the Justice Ministry earlier this month submitted an outline of domestic bills related to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction to Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa. The government plans to submit a bill to approve Japan's joining the convention...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 19, 2012

Retooling Hawks need newcomers to contribute

You might think Fukuoka Softbank Hawks manager Koji Akiyama is worried about the coming season and successfully defending his 2011 Japan Series championship. After all, he's lost three of his best pitchers and his All-Star shortstop from 2011.
COMMENTARY
Feb 7, 2012

Capital pain: pay, bonuses

The recent international jamboree at Davos provided ample opportunity for the "great and the good," as well as the not so great and not so good, to enjoy gourmet meals and doubtless lashings of champagne ultimately at the expense of tax-payers. The participants also had time to exchange views on current...
COMMENTARY
Jan 30, 2012

Economic crisis exacting tolls on public health

The deteriorating global economic outlook is increasing worries among health experts on the effects that the economic crises will have on people's health.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 30, 2012

Aggression born of American 'exceptionalism'

I thought American exceptionalism was debunked and dying. I was wrong.
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2012

Europe's potion is now its poison with China inheriting the benefits

Today's lecture is on the sorry state of that dismal science called economics.
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
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2012

Takeda to pare workforce 9% to revive profit

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. plans to eliminate about 9 percent of its workforce over the next four years to integrate Nycomed, the Swiss company it's counting on to reverse declining profits.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 15, 2012

Call of the powder: sublime snow in Japan

There is nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of hurtling down a steep, untracked slope of knee-deep powder. It is an uncomplicated pleasure, pure and exhilarating; carving turns into the untouched snow and sending up white plumes in your wake.
BUSINESS
Jan 11, 2012

Intervention fails as yen is poised to strengthen

There was no better currency than the yen last year and strategists forecast more gains this year, even as Japan promises to intervene again in foreign exchange markets and expands the world's biggest debt burden.
COMMENTARY
Jan 5, 2012

Why Obama will (won't) win re-election in 2012

Could 2012 turn conventional wisdom on its head? Here's the conventional wisdom: U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election is vulnerable to the weak economy and high joblessness. Here's what might happen: The economy gradually improves, and although unemployment stays high (exceeding 8 percent), what...

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers