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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 15, 2011

"SUMO, Wrestlers In nishikie Woodblock Prints From The Otani Kokichi Collection"

Legend has it that a sumo match between gods determined the origin of the Japanese race.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 10, 2011

Media were quick off the mark with March 11 disaster publications

Within a couple of weeks of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, major magazine publishers and newspapers were already putting out extra editions covering the disaster. The first were mostly A4-size on glossy paper, which made them easy to display in the magazine racks at convenience stores and bookshops....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 8, 2011

"XII Biennial of Illustration, Bratislava"

Since 1967, Slovakia has hosted the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB), the world's largest and most prestigious awards event for children's book illustrators. Nominees are selected by an international jury, and the awards have showcased some of the best illustrations from all over the world....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 8, 2011

"Collection of Beautiful Women in Art: Gorgeous Women in Japanese Paintings"

The beauty of women has long been a favorite subject for many artists. For example, during the Heian Period (794-1185), beautiful women were often depicted on picture scrolls, and in the Edo Period (1603-1867) they were seen in ukiyo-e (Japanese-genre paintings and prints).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 7, 2011

The art of spying on bathing beauties

Women at times are like canvases. You see them on the trains, painting their faces, or else walking around wearing intriguing outfits, usually somewhat poker-faced. Consequently, the thought keeps occurring that perhaps they want to be looked at rather in the same way that a painting is looked at —...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 3, 2011

Have a hideously good time in Tono's past and present

The professor's snoring had kept me up until the wee hours of the morning. When I awoke, the reading light in the hostel's upper bunk was still on and a copy of "The Legends of Tono" lay open at the page where I had dozed off. With that book being full of hobgoblins, ravaging wolf packs and rural satyrs,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 1, 2011

"Fossil: Messages From the Past"

This show presents about 900 fossils spanning billions of years of Earth's existence. The collection, which includes fossils of dinosaurs, plants, and insects trapped in resin, is displayed in chronological order so that visitors can not only learn about fossilization, but also visualize the evolution...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2011

Debris removal, recycling daunting, piecemeal labor

Removing and disposing of the debris generated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami are crucial parts of the recovery process as the people in the devastated region move forward with rebuilding their communities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 28, 2011

"Hello, It's We: New Paintings by Rob Judges and Mike Ness"

Moscow, Nakameguro Closes Aug. 25
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 26, 2011

Morishita: treats in place of the trees

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. According to Akinori Saito, a historian in Tokyo's Koto Ward Office, the area known as Morishita (lit. "forest below") was most likely named for woods that surrounded the yashiki (residence) of a feudal lord named Saemon Sakai (1564-1619), a retainer...
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2011

Is there an Afghan solution?

The war in Afghanistan has now lasted almost 10 years. It has cost many billions of dollars and the lives of thousands of soldiers from the United States, Britain, Canada and other NATO countries. Many more have been injured. The loss of life among Afghan military and police forces has been even greater...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2011

Impressionists and friends: on the verge of the modern

There seems to be an exhibition of Impressionist art somewhere in Tokyo every year, such is its popularity in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 19, 2011

Summer's joys in snow country

If you'd only ever experienced Niseko under a four-meter blanket of snow, you'd barely recognize Hokkaido's most cosmopolitan winter-sports resort in summer — in the best way possible.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 16, 2011

Waraku Ensemble serve up some summer classics

Despite a day of torrential downpour to kick off Japan's rainy season, Junnosuke Uehara is grinning from ear to ear. He's got his shamisen with him and he says he's excited to introduce a new person to the instrument. In fact, his love for the shamisen is so strong, he clings to it as if it were his...
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2011

A life in the coal mines

This May brought unexpected news of the selection by UNESCO of annotated paintings and diaries by Sakubei Yamamoto of life in the Japanese coal mines for entry in its Memory of the World Register.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 12, 2011

Eccentric wanderer discovers his destiny in Meiji Japan

"Japan," asserts the fictitious character Lafcadio Hearn on page 97, "has chaos at its core. The closer one approaches that core, the deeper one fathoms the world of illusion and warped contradiction. Such a country is begging for citizens such as Yakumo Koizumi, that is, me."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 10, 2011

"People Who Lived in the Azuchi-momoyama and Edo Periods: Portraits, Genre Paintings and Ukiyo-e"

Nara Prefectural Museum of Art has in its collection nihonga (Japanese painting) works mainly from the Edo Period (1603-1867), which were donated to Nara Prefecture by Kanpo
CULTURE / Art
Jun 9, 2011

World's third-largest art fair ups profile of Asian works

For Japanese artists in need of international exposure, Hong Kong, it seems, is their closest window to the world. Last month, the city's international art fair, ART HK 2011, now in its fourth year, attracted art-lovers from all over the world, including many from mainland China, where the booming economy...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 5, 2011

Doomed self-obsessive remains iconic to some in the Japan of today

"It's not that I'm weak, it's that the suffering weighs down on me too heavily."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 3, 2011

"The 30th Anniversary of Ito Cultural Foundation — Highlights of The Donation"

The Ito Cultural Foundation was established in 1981 according to the wishes of Denzo Ito, the founder of Itoham Foods. Itoham Foods' headquarters is in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and the foundation was set up near Himeji to help Hyogo museums and cultural facilities offer the public better access...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2011

Postdisaster reading

Unsurprisingly, Japanese readers are seeking books about the March 11 disaster and about how to overcome it spiritually. In bookstores now can be found many works of reportage — for example, volumes in which major newspapers have reproduced their pages devoted to the disaster.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 29, 2011

Electrifying one-act lives

The late Meiji Era (1868-1912) to early Showa Era (1926-1989) saw the creation of a body of short, one-act dramas akin in their electrifying impact to the 1960s in Japan, with its upsurge in theatrical experimentation. This book begins with a telling quote from the playwright and director Osanai Kaoru,...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
May 29, 2011

Evessa's Washington is greatest player in bj-league history

Six years is a long, long time in professional sports. In a word, it's an era.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 27, 2011

Farming without chemicals — or radiation

Yasunori Toyoguchi peers under the netting protecting a small rice paddy. "See," he says, pointing to some grassy shoots, "here's this year's crop, just starting to emerge." He scoops up a little of the water trickling over the mud with one hand. "See how clear and clean this is?" he asks. "The frogs...
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
May 26, 2011

'Golden age' of kayoukyoku holds lessons for modern J-pop

On April 21, 2011, the actress and singer Yoshiko Tanaka, aka Sue from 1970s idol group the Candies, died after a relapse of the cancer that she had been living with for 20 years. A tragedy, at the relatively young age of 55, and one that comes during a period of deep soul-searching for the Japanese...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 22, 2011

Untouchable lays bare a divided nation

With ebooks increasingly dominating the publishing market, it is a pleasure to hold a printed book so gorgeously designed as this one; the cover alone would make it a welcome addition to any Kenji Nakagami collection.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 22, 2011

One of a kind: Bob Dylan at 70

Bob Dylan, the single most important artist in the history of popular music, will be 70 years old on Tuesday, May 24.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 22, 2011

Up close and personal: Why Dylan is so big in Japan

It was the fall of 1963, when — in what seemed like a flash of lightning — I became a fan of Bob Dylan the moment I heard "Blowin' in the Wind" on the radio. I was in my first year of high school.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight