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May 14, 2025
 

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Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 2, 2021

Seeing the past two years through a child’s eyes

The decade is off to a rocky start, what kind of an effect is this having on younger children and the way they process current affairs?
Japan Times
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
May 19, 2021

Busting myths: Sumo grapples with persistent urban legends

From exaggerated depictions in popular media to unverified internet rumors, many aspects of the sport and its traditions remain far from understood by the public at large.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
May 3, 2021

Toji, Harris and Nezuko are thriving in their new homes

Toji the dog finally lets his guard down in a new place
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 20, 2021

Reality check: ‘We’re in a tunnel with no exit in sight’

Buddhist priest Myoyu Tamaoki describes the world in terms hard to argue with. “Calm,” she says, “is elusive.” Disaster, ruin and upheaval, if not hitting you personally at any given moment, may strike the next, as a glance at news of them hyperactive elsewhere cannot fail to remind you. “Everyone,”...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 8, 2021

Ten years on from 3/11, do you think you're ready for the 'Big One'?

What if the quake that hit Tohoku 10 years ago happened along the Nankai Trough to the south of Japan? Well, experts are predicting this very scenario.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 20, 2021

Line between solitude and withdrawal becomes blurred in Japan amid pandemic

More than half of the nationwide hikikomori population of 1.15 million are between 40 and 64 years old.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 9, 2021

Can a few simple words ease Japan's anxiety?

What we say to ourselves carries a lot of weight u2026
Japan Times
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Dec 16, 2020

American rikishi recalls extremely wild times in sumo world

Details on the now 71-year-old's career had been lost to the mists of time until the California native resurfaced in sumo circles online in recent months.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 26, 2020

The changing social narrative on Japan's entrenched gender roles

Little can be done as long as a country's cultural norms are built into a social structure that delineates gender roles.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2020

High crimes against journalism and decency

Jeffrey Goldberg's insane 'Trump called troops suckers' piece is a new low.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 22, 2020

Japan’s office worker struggles to adjust to a 'new normal'

It's tough to sing the company song at daily morning meetings wearing a mask.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 17, 2020

‘The Keeper of the Dragonflies’: The essence of cross-cultural relationships, warts and all

Thomas Noah Wood is the pseudonym for the American writer Thomas Dillon, whose name may be familiar to readers of The Japan Times. Dillon wrote about daily life in Japan through the lens of international marriage in “When East Marries West,” a column which ran from 1998 to 2015. Unlike the good-natured...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 11, 2020

COVID-19 pulls the rug out from under workers' feet

And that may not be the worse thing that could happen to them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Mar 2, 2020

A three-legged calico brings joy to an Osaka couple's home

After being featured in The Japan Times Adopt Me! column in October 2018, a beautiful calico cat named Leggy has now found a home with Shiori Hamasako and her husband, Morgan Ruler.
Reader Mail
Jan 31, 2020

Teens have plenty of time to find themselves

I love reading the "Why did you leave Japan" column in The Japan Times On Sunday. What impressed me the most recently is the interview with Haruaki Saito, who is as old as me, in the Jan. 12 edition.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 25, 2020

Decline of social engagement may betray democracy

Japan's three leading newspapers, disagreeing on much, agree on this: Japan's democracy is in crisis.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Jan 23, 2020

Hoping for a Japanese society in which all of its members can shine

Black Eye columnist Baye McNeil opens the new year with an email from a reader that illustrates the importance of language in dealing with multiracial individuals.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Jan 4, 2020

Predicting Japan's digital trends of the next decade

Last year was all about looking back. Between the end of the Heisei Era (1989-2019) and the decade coming to a close, people appeared to go to extra lengths to reflect on the recent and not-so-recent past (this column included). Now that we’ve entered 2020, though, it’s time to leave the highlights...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 28, 2019

Childhood in Japan is certainly not getting any easier

The girl was 15, the teacher in his early 30s. He recognized her ability, encouraged her, befriended her, seduced her. He took her to a love hotel and said, "This is what grown-ups do."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Kateigaho International Japan Edition
Dec 14, 2019

Mizuhiki: Paper with a spiritual twist

Mizuhiki are an indispensable part of the country's new year celebrations, embodying people's hopes and prayers for the 12 months ahead.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2019

Time to listen to children on climate change

Young people are capable of shaping policies by sending powerful messages to a global audience that would not otherwise pay enough attention to climate change.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 27, 2019

Tracing the fluctuations in moral standards

"More than 16,500 women and men were sterilized against their will," reads a newsletter published in 1997 by the Network on Ethics and Intellectual Disability.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 13, 2019

Working harder in a bid to save labor is proving exhausting

The utopia of utopias is "Utopia" by Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). Its best feature is leisure. There are no idle nobles; everyone works. A burden shared is a burden lightened. Utopians "do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden." They work...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 1, 2019

Is disgust with the status quo now feeding nostalgia for the past?

Bulgarian scholar Ivan Krastev, in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun published in March, compared the restless discontent of the 1960s with that of today. Fifty years ago, he said, disgust with the status quo fed hope for the future. Today it feeds nostalgia for the past.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 20, 2019

Understanding the true ties between health and success

There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything — and you're probably doing it wrong.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 6, 2019

New era offers Japan an opportunity to reassess the future

What's in a name? What's in an era? What is an "era"? What's a "new era"? Are we entering one?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 16, 2019

There are many sides to a great warrior

Almost nothing is known of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's early years with warlord Oda Nobunaga, but by 1570 we see him commanding a detachment, 3,000 strong, in battle against a Nobunaga rival. The peasant boy has come a long way.
CULTURE / Books / RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS ABOUT JAPAN
Feb 9, 2019

'Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets': Revisiting the work of one of Japan's most celebrated contemporary poets

A new edition of popular contemporary poet Makoto Ooka's 'Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets' includes the original Japanese texts of each poem, early drafts, photos from the poet's life and a new introduction by translator Janine Beichman.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Feb 3, 2019

Rethinking the media's coverage of 'theatrical crime' in Japan

Ten minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, Kazuhiro Kusakabe drove a rental car into pedestrians on Harajuku's famed Takeshita-dori, injuring nine people.
Transport ministry issues warning to Haneda Airport operator
The operator of Tokyo's Haneda Airport has been warned by the government over its inappropriate transactions.
Xi defiance pays off as Trump meets most China trade demands
Then-Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visits a school in South Gate, California, in February 2012. Experts say Xi won big in his standoff with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Nissan shares surge as carmaker set to cut 20,000 jobs in huge overhaul
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on cars and car parts imported to the U.S. have been painful to most global brands, but crippling in Nissan’s case.
Japan might be playing long game in U.S. tariff talks
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House earlier this year. Ishiba said Monday that farmers won't be sacrificed for automakers in Japan's tariff negotiations with the U.S.
More details emerge about stabbing near Tokyo University metro station
Yoshitaka Toda, the suspect in Wednesday's knife attack at Todaimae Station on the Tokyo Metro Nanboku Line, leaves a police station in the Japanese capital the same day for a pre-detention medical examination.
Sculpted waves, sleek updos: Showa hairstyles are back in fashion
The larger-than-life hairstyles of Japan's Showa Era are unmistakable — and they're making a comeback.
Japan should produce its own AI defense solutions, Sakana AI CEO says
Sakana AI CEO David Ha speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Nissan gets ‘wake-up call’ with $4.5 billion annual net loss
Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa in Tokyo as the company releases its results
Consumption tax set to dominate Upper House election debate
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba enters his office in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Japan set for bigger role in Philippines after SDF’s debut in key drills
Philippine Army Brig. Gen. Michael Logico, who was involved in managing the latest iteration of the Balikatan U.S.-Philippine drills, told The Japan Times that he expects military ties with Japan to surge even further once Tokyo ratifies a key visiting-forces agreement with Manila.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?
By Tomoko Otake

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