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Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2007

Pop star Utada divorces video director husband

Hikaru Utada, the U.S.-born pop star whose debut album "First Love" set a sales record in Japan and sold millions more across Asia, said Saturday she has ended a 4 1/2-year marriage to the director of her music videos.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 4, 2007

Nagai goal lifts Reds in opener

SAITAMA -- Urawa Reds coach Holger Osieck sees something in Yuichiro Nagai not many others do. His faith in the forward paid off Saturday when he crashed in a brilliant late goal to secure a 2-1 win over Yokohama FC as the new J. League season got underway.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 18, 2007

Yoshu Chikanobu: the neglected master of Japanese prints

Chikanobu: Modernity and Nostalgia in Japanese Prints, by Bruce A. Coats, with essays by Allen Hockley, Kyoko Kurita and Joshua S. Mostow. Leiden: Hotei/Brill Publishing, 2006, 208 pp., 280 color illustrations, $99 (cloth) This is the first monograph in English on the Meiji Era print-maker Yoshu Chikanobu...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 16, 2007

Enough to make a vampire drool

Belgian choreographer Jan Fabre's most controversial work, "Je Suis Sang (I am Blood)," will be performed for three stagings only in Japan at the Saitama Arts Center this weekend.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 4, 2007

Drawing on some humorous animal characteristics

A JAPANESE MENAGERIE: Animal Pictures by Kawanabe Kyosai, by Rosina Buckland, Timothy Clark and Shigeru Oikawa. London: The British Museum Press, 2006, 112 pp., £16.99 (cloth) The Meiji Era artist Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-89) is said to have had his first memorable encounter with an animal as a little...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 3, 2007

Patricia Hill

Patricia Hill says she is unused to looking backward. "But I see threads running through my life," she said. "I see my love of different sports and of flowers and gardens.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 2, 2007

Early works by Kitano, Kurosawa trace current J-film boom

Last year witnessed a boom in the Japanese film industry, with nearly 30 local films taking more than 1 billion yen at the box office. The trend doesn't look likely to end soon, either, with two much talked about films -- "Soredemo Boku wa Yattenai," directed by Masayuki Suo (who drew international attention...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 1, 2007

Chamber doors that shimmer with gold

Uuntil the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Kyoto's Gosho Palace, a rectangular compound of approximately 110,000 sq. meters, housed Japan's Imperial Family for more than 1,000 years. The buildings have been destroyed by fire on a number of occasions, but were rebuilt each time exactly in the original ancient...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 26, 2007

Jewel of the north country

At its northern tip, Japan's main island of Honshu sprouts what looks like a massive pair of pincers that reach up into the Tsugaru Strait toward Hokkaido. The point at the southern end of Hokkaido that the twin peninsulas seem to be homing in on is the port of Hakodate.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 23, 2007

Gender identity transformed from 'freak' into rights issue

'When I was a child, I had a feeling I wasn't satisfied with being a human being. To be a human being didn't seem like a beautiful existence to me," says Otojiro Toriyama.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 18, 2007

"Boroboro Dorodoro -- The Return of Japanese Subculture"

Watari-umCloses in 11 days
Reader Mail
Jan 14, 2007

Return to traditional uniforms

I have been watching with interest the recommendations made by the educational reform committee, and would like to make a suggestion that would, I think, really make an impression on all who became involved with its implementation. My suggestion is that all school uniforms be changed back to the kimono...
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Jan 9, 2007

"Happy Feet," "Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony"

"Happy Feet," Adapted by Kay Woodward, Puffin Books; 2006; 121 pp. Typically, the book comes first; then some smart film director gets his hands on it and turns it into a movie. With "Happy Feet," though, it was the film that came first. But if you haven't watched it -- or if you want the adventures...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 5, 2007

Donizetti's bel canto greats hit high notes

The Donizetti Theatre, one of Italy's best-known spaces for traditional opera, is currently touring Japan for the first time.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 26, 2006

Looking for just the right balance

Having trouble managing life, work and sundry commitments as 2006 speeds to a close? Looking for a refreshing resolution -- something challenging or even cultural -- to ring in the new year?
MORE SPORTS
Dec 25, 2006

Take rides horse to Arima Kinen triumph

FUNABASHI, Chiba Prefecture -- "He flew. He flew like never before." With words he has used race after race, Yutaka Take once again chose them to describe a titan of thoroughbreds -- Deep Impact.
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2006

Kremlin fears for its Far East

LONDON -- I don't suppose you read the piece in the Russian newspapers about customs officials' activities in the Russian Far East, at the Poltvaka customs checkpoint in Oktyabrsky County in southern Primorski krai on the Chinese border? It was a very interesting article about how a truck, which had...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 16, 2006

Kiyonori Kanasaka

Last October, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society conferred its Diploma of Fellowship upon Professor Kiyonori Kanasaka of Kyoto University.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 14, 2006

Plentitudes to show

'The thing that has been consistently with me is the notion of creating something today that didn't exist yesterday; to make things for me is a kind of curiosity," says the prolific 55-year-old artist Shinro Ohtake.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 13, 2006

Randolph's rep tarnished by mistakes

NEW YORK -- Last time Zach Randolph checked in with me late in his rookie year was also the only time . . . until we spoke by phone a few weeks ago.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Dec 1, 2006

Katsushika a cut above all your expectations

Many of Tokyo's award-winning swordsmiths choose to live in Ka-tsushika. Why? "Land has always been cheap here," said Shoji Yoshihara, 61, designated an Important Living Cultural Property of the ward and deputy head of All Japan Swordsmiths Association. "The process of making swords is noisy and smoky,...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 12, 2006

No ordinary guide to China

SHENZHEN: A Travelogue From China, by Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2006, 152 pp., $19.95 (cloth). Surely those dinosaurs who believed that comics were suitable only for stories of men in tights have all died off. With the popularity of comics growing by leaps...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2006

Ultraman . . . forever

The "Ultraman" live-action science-fiction series has been a rite of passage for Japanese boys (and a few girls) and their families for four decades now, since the first show was aired in 1966.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 9, 2006

An unexplained howl

I don't much care for those explanatory texts we call "artists' statements," because if an artist has to explain a work of art, then it simply isn't standing on its own. Artists who spell out what their art means (and, in doing so, establish parameters regarding how one should see it), only succeed in...
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2006

Revisionists damaging Japan

LONDON -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has the reputation of being a tough nationalist. So far, however, he has shown himself to be a pragmatist in foreign-policy issues. His early visits to China and South Korea demonstrated that he wants to improve bilateral relations, which have soured in recent years....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 19, 2006

Playing with energy

Though on the surface it's easy to think everyone else has got it sorted out, things are not always what they seem. From time to time we all feel like a blip in the universe, trapped by things beyond our control -- whether unbending social powers, finicky laws, monetary limitations or annoying office...

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