Search - author

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Feb 25, 2018

Netflix is animated about anime

Netflix's director of anime, Taito Okiura, tells me he feels like a local baseball player who got drafted into the U.S. Major Leagues. Except, he doesn't play the sport.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 24, 2018

Kazuki Kaneshiro's Go: Strength and irony in the face of prejudice

One of the most memorable characters in modern Japanese literature is not Japanese. Sugihara, the 17-year-old narrator of "Go," by Kazuki Kaneshiro, is a third-generation Zainichi Korean in his last year of high school. Son of a North Korean ex-boxer and shrewdly adept at silencing bullies, Sugihara...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2018

India's choice in the Maldives

The crisis in Maldives is a defining moment for New Delhi as China encroaches on its traditional sphere of influence.
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2018

Scenarios abound for Japan getting dragged into a U.S.-China conflict: expert

Could a few tiny islets in the East China Sea help light the fire that sparks a wider conflagration in East Asia? What about preventive strikes on North Korean nuclear and missile sites? A collision near one of Beijing's man-made islands in the South China Sea?
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2018

The social media threat to society and security

Global regulation is needed to tame the growing menace that social media giants like Facebook and Google pose to the public and democracy.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2018

What does the U.S. want in Syria?

The complexity of the Syria situation has far surpassed the world's ability to master it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 20, 2018

Contemporary dance festival puts modern 'Genji' front and center

How do you make a thousand-year-old story resonate with an audience in Osaka today? Tell them that you plan to radically modernize one of the most famous literary works ever to come out of Japan to fit present concerns.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 20, 2018

I want to drink your blood: Vampire bat's genetic secrets revealed

If you want to know how vampire bats can survive on a diet that — as everyone knows — consists exclusively of blood, the answer is simple. It's in their genes.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2018

The narrow latitude of Japan's security policy

Japan's alliance with the U.S. and robust economic growth will remain key to ensuring Japan's national security for the foreseeable future.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2018

America's never-ending struggle: Gun rights versus gun control

There are at least two sides to every issue, and gun ownership in America is no exception.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 18, 2018

Kuroda must channel his inner Greenspan

The BOJ governor must shift from being a man of bold action to one of courageous words.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Feb 17, 2018

'Because I'm a Mom' children's song sends vexed mothers the wrong message

What was meant to be a much-needed pat on the back for mothers has done more harm than good. In Hulu’s original children’s program “Dai! Dai! Daisuke Onisan!!,” hosted by ex-NHK talent Daisuke Yokoyama, Daisuke Onisan performed a new song titled “Atashi Okasan Dakara” (“Because I’m a...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 17, 2018

Heroism and the changing state of morality

Every age breeds its own morality. One era's good is another's evil. Today's virtue is tomorrow's vice, today's wisdom tomorrow's stupidity, today's sanity tomorrow's madness.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 16, 2018

Fire, ash and a bicycle ride around the volcanic Sakurajima Island

Active Kagoshima Prefecture volcano a hot destination for cycle tourists, best viewed from the safety of Sengan-en, an Edo Period circuit garden.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2018

Isao Yukisada swaps feel-good teen drama tropes for brutal honesty in 'River's Edge'

In a two-decade directing career that began with the 1997 relationship drama "Open House," Isao Yukisada has made everything from the critically acclaimed "Go" (2001), with its rebellious Zainichi Korean hero battling his way through a Japanese high school, to the smash hit "Crying Out Love in the Center...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 13, 2018

The four mottainai in Okinawan affairs

Opportunities to defuse tensions surrounding the U.S. military presence on Okinawa have been wasted.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 13, 2018

Oregon woman first to be found infected with eye worm previously known only in cattle

An Oregon woman has become the first person worldwide known to have had an eye infestation by a tiny worm species previously seen only in cattle that is spread by flies that feed on eyeball lubrication, U.S. government researchers said on Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2018

Forget fake news — worry about fake history Oscars

Two movies about Britain in 1940 — 'Dunkirk' and 'Darkest Hour' — have collected plenty of Oscar nominations. Both movies are full of historical nonsense.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 10, 2018

Japan's impoverished are finding it hard to enjoy freedom

Freedom comes in many forms, as does "unfreedom." You can be a prisoner in prison, a prisoner in a prison-state, a prisoner in your job, a prisoner in your joblessness. Who is freer — a poor person in a free country, or a rich person in an "unfree" country?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 8, 2018

Thaw won't warm South Koreans to unity

Younger South Koreans are either apathetic about or hostile toward North Korea.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 7, 2018

Challenges to the Japanese style of work

Will the goverment's effort to implement labor reforms be enough to put an end to the notorious phenomenon of 'karoshi'?
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2018

South Korean President Moon Jae-in's Olympic realpolitik

South Korea's president has both neutralized the threat of North Korean disruption to the Olympic Games and kept a thin-skinned U.S. president firmly on his side.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 6, 2018

Democrats could lose again this fall

Americans vote their pocketbooks, and their wallets are feeling better than they have in a long time.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2018

China could seize the lead in self-driving cars

Alibaba is building systems that will link vehicles to the roads they drive on.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2018

Japanese startup Sansan looks to bring business cards into the 21st century

Even in the age of LinkedIn profiles and digital addresses, the business card endures.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Feb 5, 2018

Looking at what the world likes about Japan

Google Trends has released its search data on Japan for 2017 and topping several lists was the name Mao Kobayashi (u5c0fu6797u9ebbu592e).
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Feb 3, 2018

Finnish broadcaster targets youth vote with anime-inspired video

On Jan. 27, the day before Finland’s presidential election, a Finnish social media news and current affairs service called Kioski released an election video that caused a stir online, receiving over 700,000 views since its release. While President Sauli Niinisto’s landslide victory with 62.7 percent...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 3, 2018

Frederick Douglass, champion of individualism

Frederick Douglass, the first African-American to attain historic stature, was a legatee of 'the classical liberalism of the American founding.'
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 2, 2018

Solving Japan's joint operations problem

The current system practically forces the three branches of the SDF to fight with each other not only for budgetary allocations but also for relevancy.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami