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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2017

Xi's new strength obscures China's internal risks

Xi Jinping's new strength and power helps obscure China's internal risks, including the fundamental challenge of how to avoid a political hard landing.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 28, 2017

Limit the damage on office battlefields

What a nest of vipers an office is! Tens, hundreds, thousands of people, supposedly united in a common enterprise — yet if looks could kill, how many would make it alive through the day?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Oct 28, 2017

Tsukiji races to exterminate rat infestation before fish market relocation

As the Tokyo Metropolitan Government works with industry groups to finalize the date for relocating the famed Tsukiji fish market next year, it is also mulling how to exterminate the hordes of rats infesting the current location.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2017

Look for Tehran to emerge dominant in post-IS Middle East

The changing balance of power in the Middle East threatens to leave the U.S. on the sidelines.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 24, 2017

Game makers deploy deep-learning AI algorithms to keep players coming back for more

In today's game industry, titles like "Clash Royale" and "Pokemon Go" are free for most people to enjoy because there's a small number of players who pay for extras, like special weapons or more lives. Game developers have to strike a delicate balance in this free-to-play model between drawing the masses...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 23, 2017

Abe, post-election, faces a new Trump problem

The odds of Japan getting advantageous terms in direct talks with a U.S. president who's torn up myriad deals since January are tiny.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Oct 22, 2017

Anime tourism invites overseas fans to join festivities

Yuwaku Onsen is a 1,300-year-old hot-springs resort tucked between mountains along the Asano River south of Kanazawa. Ten mid-size traditional inns line its slim main street, leading to a small hillside shrine and a man-made pond.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2017

Why admitting girls into the Boy Scouts feels weird

Girls in the Boy Scouts makes almost as much sense as allowing Republicans to vote in a Democratic primary.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Oct 21, 2017

Koto player Azumi Yamano revels in space and atmosphere

'The koto is a plucked string instrument in which the sound and music really reflect the player.'
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2017

Electric carmakers have an Africa problem

Volkswagen's recent failure to lock in the price of cobalt for five years points to a serious problem with the optimistic projections of an electric vehicle revolution.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 20, 2017

Researchers analyze Kuroda's facial microexpressions to predict central bank policy moves

For decades, economists have tried to guess central bank policy direction by studying subtle changes in official language — now, researchers are finding new clues on policy, not in the words of central bankers but in their faces.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2017

A new front opens in Asia's water war

In a water-stressed Asia, taming China's hegemonic ambition is now the biggest strategic challenge.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 17, 2017

The Kobe Steel fiasco tells a much bigger story

The Kobe Steel scandal offers insights into why more Japanese households aren't feeling the benefits of today's 2.5 percent growth.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Oct 17, 2017

Sino-Japanese rivalry deepens as Abe and Xi look set to consolidate grips on power

Asia's two biggest economies both have their most powerful leaders in decades — and neither one has much incentive to mend a relationship that has long been volatile.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / NEWS IN NIHONGO
Oct 16, 2017

British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro wins Nobel Prize in literature

The Swedish Academy is awarding this year's Nobel Prize in literature to Nagasaki-born British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies / Taking the Lead
Oct 16, 2017

Ippudo ramen chain credits its global success to localized tastes

Toshiyuki Kiyomiya likes to compare ramen to a carefully arranged universe in a bowl.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Oct 15, 2017

Duck and cover: Regulation by and for the state, through the Japanese people

Bureaucrats rustle up policies that require citizens to do their duty, however irrationally.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 14, 2017

Japan's 'way of the sword' baffles foreign observers

All cultures present aspects that cannot but baffle the foreign observer. For example: nothing in the native tradition equips a Japanese to grasp the concept of the blood of the crucified son of the one God washing believers clean of sin.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 13, 2017

Political realignment leaves voters on shaky ground

Japanese will vote in the Oct. 22 general election amid uncertainty and confusion resulting from the recent realignment of the political landscape.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Oct 12, 2017

Motosada Zumoto and the origins of The Japan Times

A 10-minute walk from JR Sapporo Station brings one to a small, white clock tower in the city center. The 13-meter-high Western timepiece is an iconic image of the city and Hokkaido.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 12, 2017

It's more than 400 years old, but 'Richard III' is just as relevant today

Romanian theater director Silviu Purcarete has staged several plays in this country before, but now he's working with an all-Japanese cast for the first time as he prepares to present his brand-new "Richard III" at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro from Oct. 18 to 30, ahead of a three-city tour....
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2017

Don't expect China's new leaders to change

We now have five years of data on Xi Jinping's policies and predilections, and very little of it suggests he is deeply invested in a pro-market, reformist agenda.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 10, 2017

Main parties ignoring Japan's top security threat

Neither Shinzo Abe nor Yuriko Koike are addressing Japan's most difficult threat: demographic devolution.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Oct 8, 2017

Vow to 'compete at the Japanese level' pays off for Oussouby Sacko, Kyoto Seika's next head

In his rise up the ranks, Malian academic positioned himself as a bridge between Japan and the outside world.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2017

Japan has much to teach America about guns

Owning a gun in Japan is not viewed as a freedom equalizer. It's seen as a social disruption to the smooth and peaceful rhythm of daily life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Oct 8, 2017

Performance artists in China feeling the chill from official disapproval

One woman, a performance artist from Taiwan, tied herself up with bras, but left her nipples exposed. Another artist, a Romanian woman in a bathing suit, had someone write the Chinese characters for "control" and "art" across her buttocks.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 5, 2017

Kibo no To puts tax hike insanity in the spotlight

Win or lose on Oct. 22, the energized opposition force coalescing around Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike is already changing the political conversation for the better in three specific ways.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2017

Negative obituaries prove Hugh Hefner was right

Critical obituaries of Hugh Hefner show puritan values still resonate loudly in America.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Oct 4, 2017

Kyoto Seika's next dean, Oussouby Sacko, was schooled in the violent tumult of '80s China

Malian architect lived through protests by Chinese students targeting Africans just months before the Tiananmen Square massacre.

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