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LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Apr 20, 2011

In the battle with smart phones is i-mode dead?

Ever since 1999, when the Web-service/portal known as "i-mode" first appeared on Japanese keitai (cell phones), Japan has been hailed as the world leader in mobile phone technology — until recently that is.
COMMENTARY
Apr 15, 2011

U.S. Civil War: What if?

LONDON — It's not much as anniversaries go, but most of us won't be around in 50 years, so we'll have to settle for the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. The groups who re-enact Civil War battles were therefore out in force on Tuesday, but does it matter to anybody else?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 15, 2011

Chara "Dark Candy"

Twenty years after her debut Chara still sounds like an 8-year-old with an irrepressible urge to act out. Even as she enters middle age, it's a role she manages to pull off without sounding precious or contrived, and despite the somewhat stern expression she wears on the cover of her new album, she now...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 3, 2011

Renewed national pride will shape Japan's future

Spring dawns on a shattered Japan. "Not since World War II" is a recurring phrase, and no wonder. Mass destruction accompanied by radiation — what other analogy is big enough?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2011

Tsunami-hit towns face dire future

OSHIKA, Miyagi Pref. — Survivors of the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami are expressing reservations about returning to their homes, raising the prospect of already depopulated communities turning into ghost towns.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 1, 2011

Keats House: Simple nourishment that tastes like poetry

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." Those oft-quoted words by the romantic poet John Keats resonate here in Japan no less than in his native England. Now, two centuries after being penned, they are the inspiration for a splendid little cafe-restaurant in one of Tokyo's lesser-trod neighborhoods.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 27, 2011

Don't destroy that invader, it was here first!

NEW YORK — Among the most recent invaders of the United States to be exterminated that I learned about is the red lionfish. Before that, the Asian carp got all the attention. About the time the carp scare was quieting down the yellow jacket — yes, the wasp — came forward as a heinous invader to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 25, 2011

'Kamifusen (Paper Balloon)'

Omnibus films must have a unifying theme, however loose or gimmicky; otherwise, they're a collection of shorts. And while there's nothing wrong with shorts as such, when packaged as a feature film, they are, as all distributors know, box-office suicide.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 18, 2011

Crazy T "in to you"

Japan-based American rapper Travis Tewes, who performs under the moniker Crazy T, originally planned to use kanji on the cover of his sophmore album. However, since so few young Japanese could actually read the kanji, he decided at the last minute to spell out "in to you" using the easier-to-read katakana...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2011

'Never let Me Go'/'Away We Go'

The challenge this week is how to convince you to go see "Never Let Me Go" without ruining its surprises for you. The film looks deceptively normal: It's a love triangle with Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan set in 1970s and '80s England. But — and this is a huge but — there's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 12, 2011

Tomioka Silk Mill ranks as Meiji Era industrial gem

In his youth, Shinji Takahashi was a featherweight boxer. Today, working with his two younger brothers in a family legal practice based in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, he is a heavyweight lawyer and committed activist.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 27, 2011

All hail the wonders of Japanese cuisine — if not what Japanese eat

Ask almost any Japanese living overseas what they miss most and they are more likely to say the food than their relatives. Ask virtually any tourist what excites them most about Japan and you are apt to be told "Japanese food."
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 26, 2011

Arsenal poised to end trophy drought

LONDON — It will be a small start but Arsene Wenger knows it is not enough.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Feb 25, 2011

Hill's strategic use of Eaton paying off

For Tokyo Apache coach Bob Hill, the decision to move point guard Byron Eaton to a reserve role may turn out to be the smartest move he'll make this season.
Reader Mail
Feb 20, 2011

Unrequited love for pet owners

In his Feb. 13 eulogy (Counterpoint article) to the sad fate of abandoned pets and his review of author Noriko Imanishi's book on the topic — "Japan's cull of once-loved pets cries out for German-style controls" — Roger Pulvers quotes Imanishi as saying, "It's a given that a society in which animals...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2011

Japan's celebrated Edo Period painters: Having the good fortune to see all that is Gitter's

The first time I met renowned Japanese art collector Dr. Kurt Gitter was at an Asian art conference in New York in 2001, where he was on a discussion panel on Japanese art. An audience member asked Gitter, "Sir, since you and others have passionately collected antique Japanese works for decades and since...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 4, 2011

Bashamichi Taproom: Where there's smoke, there's BBQ and beer

The Celebration Ale was flowing and foaming down in Yokohama last month, and for a very good reason. Baird Brewing, one of our favorite small-scale craft-beer producers in all of Japan, has been marking its 10th year in business. And it's done it in style, by opening its newest and best pub to date....
COMMENTARY
Jan 29, 2011

The task awaiting Tunisia

SEATTLE — Hunger strikes. These were the last resort for Tunisian activists as they fought against a brutal and highly oppressive regime. Prior to the ousting of Zineal-Abidine Ben Ali by an unprecedented people's uprising on Jan. 14, there seemed to be no end in sight to the regime's wide-ranging...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 28, 2011

'Copie Conforme (Japan title: Tosukaana no Gansaku)'

"Copie Conforme" is intimate without being intrusive, blending insight and cynicism to portray the dynamics of a marriage that never was.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2011

Hirayama: Paying simple tribute to the Silk Road

Recently Stephen Fry's BBC comedy quiz show "QI," was in trouble over panelist's comments regarding Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a survivor of both atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Amid generally admiring chit chat about Yamaguchi, panelists treated the bombings with a degree of levity typical of the show, prompting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2011

There's always art behind design

For some, life-changing moments involve a traumatic experience or a piercing epiphany. For others, something as simple as a teapot can elicit transformation.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 19, 2011

Paying respect to the Japanese toilet god

One of the mildly disconcerting surprises awaiting the foreign visitor to Japan is the sheer abundance and creativity of its toilet facilities, public and otherwise.
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2011

Political biases trash lauded Ph.D. research

SEATTLE — Deepak Tripathi's most recent book, "Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism" (Potomac Books) raises several issues, both within and outside of its content. It is based on research for a doctoral dissertation that did not qualify.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 15, 2011

Authentic slice of Japan preserved in South Florida

The first two weeks of the new year are over, and Tom Gregersen, 61, is putting away the kine and usu, the traditional wooden mallets and mortars used in the mochitsuki (rice-cake pounding) event held as part of the O-shogatsu Festival at The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Jan 13, 2011

Ground control, we have a fashionable lift-off

Jean-Paul Gaultier's space
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 31, 2010

A great year for theater innovation

Japan's drama scene has seen some change in 2010. It was as if the theater crowd grew tired of waiting for the country's ailing economy and faltering politics to offer them anything new to work with and decided to go and find their own inspiration.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 25, 2010

Happily lost in the 'empire of signs'

Signs and symbols play an ever-growing role in our increasingly complex society. In this respect, Japan — the "empire of signs," as French semiologist Roland Barthes called it back in 1970 — strikes and confounds the foreign visitor with a vast array of alphabets, shapes and designs.
COMMENTARY
Dec 20, 2010

Blame the pragmatic feel for DPJ's popularity slide

Ever since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in September 2009, the DPJ administrations have turned out unexpectedly unpopular.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building