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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 4, 2014

Kenya Hara: the future of design

Sitting at a plain white table in a meeting room high up on the 12th floor of a narrow building in central Tokyo, product designer Kenya Hara asks me to picture a shallow plate in my mind. "Now imagine a slightly deeper plate," Hara says, "that gets deeper and deeper and eventually becomes a bowl."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 4, 2014

Back and forward: Asia in 2013; predictions for 2014

Crystal-ball gazing is a notoriously inexact science, so before getting to that, let's lessen the potential exposure to ridicule by starting with a roundup of the last 12 months' key trends and events in Asia.
JAPAN / YEAR IN REVIEW 2013
Dec 25, 2013

A look back at the year's top 10 Japan news stories

Japan Times editors selected the following domestic stories as the most important in 2013.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2013

Is wife Abe's main opposition rival?

Akie Abe is Japan's first lady of conviction and action, describing herself as an 'opposition force at home' who doesn't shy away from speaking out in public against the policies of her husband, Shinzo.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 14, 2013

A 3/11 drama with cast from Tohoku; robots of the future; CM of the week: Rabure

NHK's Sendai branch produced the drama "Katsuo" (NHK-G, Wed., 7:30 p.m.) as a tribute to the survivors of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. All of the actors are originally from the Tohoku area.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2013

Protesters voice alarm over state secrets bill

More than 1,200 protesters gathered outside the Diet building Thursday in a last-ditch effort to thwart the controversial state secrets bill, which the Diet is expected to pass Friday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 3, 2013

Japan's secrets bill turns journalists into terrorists

The Japanese public supports Prime Ministe Shinzo Abe's bid to defeat deflation and stand up to China, but it's not with him on the secrecy bill.
Reader Mail
Nov 23, 2013

Nuclear evacuees deserve better

Regarding the Nov. 17 article "Fukushima evacuees' housing units crumbling": It is not acceptable that these people should be in shabby temporary housing so long after the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
EDITORIALS
Nov 18, 2013

Poor use of reconstruction funds

The government must make better use of reconstruction funds to help the hundreds of thousands of people who have yet to rebuild their lives after the Tohoku disasters.
Reader Mail
Nov 16, 2013

It's no country for doing battle with windmills

Regarding the Nov. 10 editorial, "Winds of energy independence": Wind power is expensive and will take decades longer to pay off than new Shinkansen rail lines. Energy independence? More like debt dependence. Japan has long passed the 200-percent-debt-to- GDP point. How much more can the state spend...
Reader Mail
Nov 16, 2013

Can't bank on dams in a quake

Regarding the Nov. 10 editorial, "Winds of energy independence": In fact there was a failure of a dam on March 11, 2011. The Fujinuma Dam in Sukagawa City, Fukushima Prefecture, collapsed in the quake, leading to flooding and eight deaths.
COMMENTARY
Nov 15, 2013

Mentor Koizumi shows protege Abe how to reboot

By lending his popularity to the anti-nuclear chorus and exciting the public about a pro-growth energy future, Junichiro Koizumi isn't just counseling a better way. He's offering his protege Shinzo Abe an invitation into the pantheon of true Japanese reformers.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 11, 2013

FCCJ slams 'vague' state secrets bill as direct threat to journalists

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan plans to lodge an official protest with the ruling LDP on Monday over a bill to protect state secrets.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 31, 2013

Anti-nuclear lawmaker tries to get Emperor's attention

Upper House lawmaker Taro Yamamoto, an anti-nuclear activist who was formerly an actor, creates a public stir when he apparently approaches Emperor Akihito for political purposes at a garden party hosted by the Imperial Couple.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 31, 2013

Festival/Tokyo pushes a return to storytelling

In 2009, when Festival/Tokyo took over from the annual Tokyo International Arts Festival, it burst forth with the slogan "Towards a New Real" and the resolve to stamp the city's name on the global arts map.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 30, 2013

Anti-nuclear Koizumi agitating for comeback?

Long out of the public eye, ex-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's recent rumblings against nuclear power are causing many to wonder if the most popular leader of recent decades seeks a political comeback.
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2013

Two tasks for the opposition

The Diet must thoroughly scrutinize the Abe administration's rationale for pushing to restart some of Japan's 50 nuclear reactors that have been offline for more than two years.
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Oct 27, 2013

Atomic waste piles higher at U.S. plants

U.S. lawmakers have debated for decades where to put all the spent fuel generated by the nation's nuclear power plants. The dithering means that an unintended site has emerged: Illinois.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 24, 2013

Kawasaki has a plan for Tokyo Designers Week

Born in Toyama Prefecture in 1948, Kenji Kawasaki is the founder and producer of Tokyo Designers Week (TDW), as well as chairman of Design Association, an NPO seeking to create a new culture of “innovation” in Japan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 22, 2013

Japan's 'helplessness' crisis

The biggest crisis in Japan's democracy today is that people know the prime minister is telling lies — intentionally or not — but they've given up even imagining alternative ways of politics.

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?