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Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 19, 2010

Mix and mingle in Fukuoka

Now Lounge, a dance party in Fukuoka, hopes to bring together the area's internationally minded people.
LIFE
Nov 14, 2010

The Hour of the Ox

At 13 years of age, Angelica Akahoshi was the youngest person ever awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for Literature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 12, 2010

Ephemeral beauty in the lives of Edo women

The Ota Memorial Museum of Art, Tokyo, is currently hosting an exhibition of Edo Period (1603-1867) ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the Museum for Art and Craft Hamburg, Germany. The museum houses one of the finest ukiyo-e collections in Europe, and has lent 237 pieces from its 5,000 piece collection,...
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 12, 2010

Theater with a hint of human truth

Yumi Suzuki co-founded the Jitensha Kinqureat theater company with friends at Nihon Joshi Daigaku (Japan Women's University) in 1982, and it was not long before the Tokyo troupe gained a prominent reputation and a keen following for its true-to-life plays in colloquial language about the lives of young...
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2010

'Ghost — Mo Ichido Dakishimetai (Ghost: In Your Arms Again)'/'Paranormal Activity Dainisho: Tokyo Night (Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night)'

Hollywood has been remaking Japanese films for decades, but now Hollywood studios — as part of a worldwide strategy to boost box office in overseas markets — are starting to remake their own films for Japan, with Japanese talent.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 10, 2010

Six-mat chic: Small spaces suit us just fine

As the minimalism movement gains momentum in the United States, it's probably a good idea to re-examine the concept on our own shores. Minimalism is a Japanese birthright — what Western culture views as monkish habits, Zen aesthetics or the joys of simplicity, the Japanese have pretty much taken for...
EDITORIALS
Nov 7, 2010

Manga-friendly Japan

Manga sales might be falling, but manga and anime as well as cute mascot characters permeate Japanese society. The new virtual koban "Keisatsucho Fureai Koban," launched this month by the National Police Agency, has its mascot character "K-ta-kun" answering common questions.
COMMUNITY
Nov 6, 2010

Canadian loves keeping Fukuoka informed

Nick Szasz, a native of Toronto, has published the free bilingual magazine Fukuoka Now since 1998. He says he launched the publication out of love for the biggest city in Kyushu and his sense of mission to provide information for non-Japanese living in the area.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 5, 2010

Architect's floating future vision

The inexorable rise of Tokyo Sky Tree on the city's skyline has once again raised the question of what a future Tokyo might look like. The exhibition "Sousuke Fujimoto Architects: Future Visions — Forest, Cloud, Mountain" at the Watarium Museum attempts to get people thinking along these lines, while...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Nov 3, 2010

Marines excited to play at home again

CHIBA — The Marines had hopes for weeks to return to the warm cheers at home on a chilly November night.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 31, 2010

Japan's Afghanistan news blackout in the spotlight

Veteran freelance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka was finally freed last month by kidnappers after five months of captivity in Afghanistan. Though the Japanese media reported the kidnapping when it happened last April, and then Tsuneoka's release on Sept. 6, any details about his confinement or what he was...
BUSINESS
Oct 30, 2010

Sony back in black on PS3 lift

Sony Corp. returned to the black in the latest quarter and raised its earnings forecast thanks to brisk sales of its PlayStation 3 gaming consoles and personal computers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Oct 27, 2010

Paint the town red for Mario's 25th birthday celebrations

Usually, if someone tells you their Wii is all red, you'd suggest they see a doctor. Thankfully, Nintendo's new red Wii is more cause for celebration than medical scare.
BUSINESS
Oct 26, 2010

Sony cuts PSPgo price for holidays

Sony Corp. slashed local prices for its latest hand-held game console Monday ahead of the critical yearend shopping season.
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2010

Hard times for bookstores

Will traditional bookstores be able to survive in an age of e-publishing and book distribution, when young people are increasingly turning away from books in favor of other forms of information and entertainment? The Japanese e-book market is expected to grow dramatically in the next few years. In distribution,...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 24, 2010

Nagoya event can feel far distant from nature

I have been in Nagoya attending the U.N. biodiversity confrence, COP10, for nearly a week now (two if you count the pre-COP10 meeting on biosafety, MOP 5), and I think it's safe to say I haven't heard mention of an actual animal or plant yet.
BUSINESS
Oct 22, 2010

Asia, Europe face wait for Sony's Google TV

Sony plans to introduce its Web-surfing Google TV in nations other than the U.S. but they may have to wait more than a year, especially in China, a senior executive said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 22, 2010

Is Tokyo staging the next major theater festival?

Festival/Tokyo, which launched last year with two sets of events in spring and autumn, is in a bid to join the ranks of the world's top-flight theater festivals — such as Edinburgh's annual spectacular in Scotland, Avignon's in the South of France and Adelaide's in South Australia. The question is,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2010

'Inshite Miru: 7-kakan no Desu Gemu (The Incite Mill -7 Day Death Game-)'

J-horror is over. The moment for the ghostly ladies with the long black hair has passed. But people still want to be scared at the movies — and among the Japanese films doing it most successfully now are the hybrids of the horror, mystery and thriller genres that treat murder as a game.
JAPAN / U.S. FORCES IN JAPAN
Oct 14, 2010

Bases: Transplanted slices of Americana

Edward Papazian, an American, visits the U.S. Navy bases at Yokosuka and Atsugi, both in Kanagawa Prefecture, once every two or three months, escorted by a former navy friend.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 10, 2010

Boys in the big house; modernity's trash heap; CM of the week: Aderans

The Matsumoto Boys Prison in Nagano prefecture is the only punitive facility in Japan with a public junior high school. It has been the subject of two TBS documentaries, and on Monday the network will present a true-life drama that takes place in the school.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Oct 3, 2010

India's expanding film industry boasts more than just Bollywood

Everyone knows Bollywood — the film industry centered in Mumbai (formerly called Bombay, hence the "B" in Bollywood) whose singing and dancing entertainments are shown throughout the country — and now the world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 3, 2010

Fukuoka: Designed for living

Inquiring as to the whereabouts of English-language bookstores in Fukuoka, the person at the Rainbow Plaza information center's desk straightaway handed me a printout of English listings, maps and directions. This, I began to realize, is a well organized city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 1, 2010

De De Mouse sets an electronic trap

"I am a musician, not a celebrity," says the shy fop when asked about the bumbled between-song banter in his otherwise triumphant set that finished just moments earlier at a music festival. Facing in toward his backing band, rather than outward to the crowd, the shy fop had buried his head in a bank...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Sep 24, 2010

'Mizuki Shigeru: Illustrations of Yokai'

Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe Closes Oct. 3
LIFE / Digital
Sep 22, 2010

Fans line up for previews

With record figures of 81,469 attendees last Saturday and 77,185 on Sunday, the public days at Tokyo Game Show were swamped with more people than the game companies could handle.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 19, 2010

'Rakugo' star spins his tales in English

More than 100 readers of The Japan Times attended an English-language "rakugo" comic performance Saturday held in celebration of the paper's 40,000th issue.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 19, 2010

Thinking aloud

Few philosophers are compared to rock stars or TV celebrities, but that's the kind of popularity Michael Sandel enjoys in Japan.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan