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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 23, 2013

Photography buff behind Japan Camera Hunter thrives in Tokyo, the capital of cameras

Bellamy Hunt's name is part of his business: Japan Camera Hunter, a one-man enterprise supporting film photo buffs around Asia and the world. His work mainly involves hunting down vintage cameras, whether an elusive early model Nikon or a classic Leica.
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2013

Honorable human destination

Robert McKinney is an intelligent man. If he wasn't, then he would not be able to write as well as he does, and he does write well. But Jennifer Kim writes well also, and her March 17 response to his March 14 letter is a spot-on critique.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2013

Unable to return, Futaba residents fear becoming lost tribe

Makiyasu Matsumoto, 82, worries he may never be able to return to his hometown of Futaba, which was rendered uninhabitable by the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Mar 9, 2013

'Kony2012' and the fight for truth in the Internet age

A year ago, Jason Russell was a nobody. Not a nobody, precisely, but just ordinary. Normal. He was a healthy father of two, living in San Diego, and was happy in his work as a director for Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization he'd helped found.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 6, 2013

Awakening the desire for a home with personality

Bored with run-of-the-mill suburban Japanese apartments? Perhaps putting the grand piano in the center of the living room would improve the situation.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Mar 3, 2013

Say goodbye to the Buddha of the yakuza

Takahiko Inoue, yakuza boss and Buddhist priest, died Feb. 10 at age 65. The police determined that he fell from the seventh story of the building where his office was located. When the ambulance arrived, Inoue told the crew: "I'm fine. Just take me to the hospital. I'll walk to the car myself." Those...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 24, 2013

Osaka: Japan's latterday second city forever breaks the national mold

They're funny, finicky and feisty, not to mention being full of wicked mischief, with their own way of talking, too. Outside of Japan, think of Liverpool, not London; or Munich, not Berlin; or Mumbai, not Delhi. I'm talking about the people of Osaka.
EDITORIALS
Feb 24, 2013

Sportsmanship gone awry

Details of the brutal physical and verbal abuse by the basketball coach of an Osaka high school boy who committed suicide have finally been released. The external independent panel found that coach Hajime Komura repeatedly and consistently used corporal punishment and verbal abuse on the boy before the...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 24, 2013

Sharing films with a master critic

Donald Richie was my friend and mentor for more than 20 years and my inspiration before that. When I was preparing to come to Japan for the first time in 1975, I read many books about the place, but Donald's masterpiece "The Inland Sea" was the one that entranced me. My first long trip after my arrival...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 23, 2013

The stalking cure: rehabilitating an all too common menace

When forensic psychiatrist Frank Farnham first meets a stalker, he doesn't judge. Some of his clients have done awful things. They have intimidated, pursued and terrified their victims.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 17, 2013

Tracing time's passing through faces of Tokyo

Petri Artturi Asikainen would regularly accost strangers in Tokyo, on the streets, in parks or bars and on trains. With a high-end Nikon D3 digital SLR in his hands, the lanky and bespectacled Finn would ask — somewhat timidly summoning one of the few Japanese phrases he had memorized: "Can I take...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 17, 2013

Hiding from strangers in the global village

In his 1993 novel "Hanauzumi," Junichi Watanabe pictures a prosperous farming village in Saitama. The year is 1868. The Meiji Restoration has just occurred. The shogun has been overthrown. The teenage Emperor Meiji has been conveyed from the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto and installed in Tokyo. Great...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 7, 2013

Tadasu Takamine's not so 'Cool Japan'

In May 2011, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry promoted the idea of "Cool Japan," presenting Japanese culture as a product amid the confusing circumstances after the Great East Japan Earthquake. As Japan continues to suffer a declining population and weak economy, it was a government attempt...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2013

Seeing the wood for Enku's Buddhas

While a golden age for secular arts, Japan's Edo Period (1603-1867) is broadly dismissed by art historians as a period of stagnation for Buddhist sculpture.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 28, 2013

The first family: ordinary yet extraordinary

As President Barack Obama took the stage to deliver his acceptance speech on the night of his re-election, his younger daughter nudged his arm. He bent down to listen to 11-year-old Sasha. "Behind you," she mouthed. The president nodded and promptly turned to wave to the supporters at his back. Sasha...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jan 22, 2013

Rag-and-bone man Kei Ochiai

Kei Ochiai is a rag-and-bone man for the Kanto region. He drives his small truck through neighborhoods in Tokyo and Yokohama, circling the areas while sounding his pitch with a loudspeaker: "Furniture, bikes, fridges, anything big and heavy, I'll take it." His jovial demeanor instantly wins him hearts...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 19, 2013

Why spider's silk is becoming man's best friend

Up on the roof of professor Fritz Vollrath's lab in the zoology department at Oxford University, there is a makeshift greenhouse in which he nurtures his favorite golden orb web spiders. Walking into the greenhouse is a little like finding yourself inside one of those Damien Hirst vitrines that dramatize...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 13, 2013

Beate Sirota Gordon: An American to whom Japan remains indebted

Beate Sirota Gordon passed away on Dec. 30. She was 89.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2013

Failures of governance spawned the rape crisis

The shock waves from the pack-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi continue to reverberate in India and around the world. The pathology of rape is not rooted in local culture. A nation does not rise in collective revulsion at normal but rather at unacceptable behavior.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2013

'The Future'

Facebook is so awash in shared quotes and clever little sayings attached to graphics, ranging from heartwarmingly New Age to hipster snarky, that few make an impression beyond the time it takes to read them. Still, every now and then you'll hit one that sticks; for me, it was one of those faux 1950s...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 6, 2013

Frederik Schodt: pop culture ambassador to the world

Quick quiz: Who was the first Japanese civilian to be issued a passport?
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2012

How waxing nostalgic can boost mental health

Do you indulge in sentimental memories? Do you enjoy perusing your photo collections? Do you like listening to "oldies" songs on the radio, YouTube, or other popular venues?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 3, 2012

Aimless Romney tends wounds in seclusion

The man who planned to be president wakes up each morning now without a plan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 1, 2012

The best-ever tips on learning Japanese

If you want to learn Japanese the fastest way possible, read on. Notice I did not say the easiest way possible. If you think learning Japanese is easy, well, you can stop reading now. Presuming you want to learn Japanese, I offer the following best-ever tips:
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Nov 13, 2012

Print engineer slows down international nomad

Nara native Atsushi Takagi and Mihaela Serbulea from Bucharest met in 2003 when Mihaela gave a lecture on SARS for an international exchange organization in which Atsushi is a member.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 9, 2012

'Poulet aux Prunes'

Iranian expat author/artist Marjane Satrapi had a breakthrough hit with "Persepolis," her graphic novel about growing up in revolutionary Iran, and she teamed up with director Vincent Paronnaud to bring her story to the big screen in 2007. It worked fantastically well, fully retaining the unique black-and-white...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Oct 13, 2012

Manga artist wields 'fude' brush in samurai epic

Illustrator and comic book artist Mulele Jarvis came to Tokyo just as he reached adulthood. It was five years after he had first discovered manga near his home in San Francisco, at Kinokuniya Bookstore, next door to Japantown: "That's where I found Katsuhiro Otomo's 'Akira.' I was so impressed by it,...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Oct 9, 2012

Call to stop dolphin hunt in Taiji makes waves

Some of the many readers' letters The Japan Times received in response to the Sept. 11 Hotline to Nagatacho column, "Stop the annual Taiji dolphin massacre, make your children proud" by Deb Bowen-Saunders:
EDITORIALS
Sep 30, 2012

Spirituality on the rise

Is Japan a spiritual-oriented or materialistic society? The answer is definitively spiritual, according to the most recent national livelihood survey by the Cabinet Office. The highest percentage of Japanese ever — 64 percent — said they are now placing priority on "spiritual fulfillment" rather...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Sep 25, 2012

Cheers! Wine shop serves as a bridge for couple

Jamie Paquin and Nozomi Mihara, who jointly own an all-Canadian wine shop that opened in Tokyo last year, met by chance at a cafe six years ago.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years