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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 13, 2008

'Juno'

For a long time I was of the opinion I'd see anything with French actress Beatrice Dalle in it. My obsession dated back to 1986's "Betty Blue," which featured a performance by Dalle of such typhoon-like passion and intensity that nothing she's done since even comes close. Still, I indulged her, out of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2008

One man, two worlds

Ryosuke Hashiguchi is one of the few gay filmmakers in Japan to have had a measure of popular success making films with gay themes. His third film, "Hush" (2002), about a gay couple whose life changes when one of them is drafted into becoming a father by a desperate woman, was an indie hit, as well as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 29, 2008

Cannes: sobriety and great excess

BUSINESS
May 28, 2008

TCI rethinks J-Power strategy

TCI, the U.K. hedge fund whose bid to increase its stake in J-Power was blocked by the government, bought shares in Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Kajima Corp. to get major shareholders to prod the utility to boost returns.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 27, 2008

Home alone

When Web designer Soko Hirayama moved to Tokyo five months ago, she did not expect to be living solo.
LIFE / Language
May 27, 2008

Mastery of kanji takes time to build, just like Rome

If you want yuyujiteki no seikatsu wo suru, to live the life of Riley, in Japan, then you should learn as many four-kanji expresssions as you can. (Yuyujiteki implies living in unsurpassed comfort for the rest of your days, an admirable goal if there ever was one.)
LIFE
May 25, 2008

Sonoko

"You're a strange girl!" muttered my mother, shaking her head.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 24, 2008

Nature eases journey back to one's true self

In 2002, James Heartland found himself unexpectedly on Mount Shasta in northern California. There he fell into conversation with a young Japanese woman on a journey of her own.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 21, 2008

A nature sanctuary for the ages

Regular readers know that my usual sphere is the biosphere and that I typically pursue wildlife in the wilds. Occasionally, though, one should step beyond home turf and try dipping a toe into a new stream of consciousness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 16, 2008

Fight vs. apartheid through foreign eyes

Danish director Bille August never had personal ties to South Africa, but he remembers what a "powerful force" Nelson Mandela was throughout the 1980s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2008

Julie madly, deeply

It's always interesting to meet someone you've seen on the screen so many times. You always wonder: Are they like their movie image? I know, I know — actors are just playing a role, that's not really them up on the screen.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Apr 29, 2008

Yasujiro Tanaka

Yasujiro Tanaka, aged 65, is a turnaround expert and volunteer guide in the city of Nagasaki, in Kyushu, where walking is often the only form of transportation. Born and raised in this beautiful port city famous for its steep hills and the winding steps that weave through its houses, Tanaka has always...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2008

Kamei seeks to undermine death penalty

Japanese politicians are generally not very vocal when it comes to their views on capital punishment, mainly because a large majority of the public supports the death penalty.
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2008

Sony decides to delay Home virtual world showcase for PlayStation 3 until fall

Sony is delaying the start of Home, its virtual world for the PlayStation 3 video game machine, until the latter half of this year — the second time the online interactive service has been postponed.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 20, 2008

Helping newcomers settle in Japan

HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANTS TO JAPAN, by Arudou Debito and Higuchi Akira, 2008, 376 pp. ¥2,300 (paper) In this important and necessary book the authors address migrants and immigrants to Japan in saying that "we believe that your life in Japan should be under as much of your control...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 5, 2008

Breaking the bubble of pain and isolation

Nobuaki Kobayashi is a phenomenally kind and dedicated man. Life has never been easy, however. Now his wife is chronically unwell and he too is feeling his age.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 16, 2008

Car industry hitting the bumps as wheels lose their cachet of cool

Anew TV commercial for insurance company Tokyo Kaijo Nichido features two newborns lying next to each other in a hospital maternity ward, telepathically discussing the "pleasures" that await them in life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 29, 2008

'Breach'

It's a joy to see an actor who once seemed nothing more than a bimbo, a pretty face, mature into a real actor of far greater range.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2008

Why's Japan grown so ugly?

YUNOMINE, Wakayama Pref. — My brother wanted to create a new room in the loft of his house in an English provincial city, actually Kingston upon Hull (population 250,000), a place of passing interest to Japanese because two centuries ago it was one of the world's biggest whaling ports. Today, the whales...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2008

Loss of father to ALS inspires play about disease

The death of their father a decade ago gave Rumi and Takuya Iryo a new goal in their lives — raising public awareness of the disease he died from, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
Reader Mail
Feb 7, 2008

No place for official 'revenge'

Following the approval of the execution of three condemned convicts in December, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama announced that he authorized the three executions that took place Feb. 1. Many of those who agree with those hangings cite their sympathy with the feelings of the families of crime victims...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 5, 2008

Indian IT workers feel pull of home

My wife was finally beginning to show signs of despair.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2008

New magazine takes aim at wrongful convictions

A court ruling last fall changed a man's life. After Hiroshi Yanagihara was found guilty of rape in Toyama Prefecture and served about two years in prison, the Toyama District Court's Takaoka Branch officially found him not guilty.
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 2008

The 'keitai' generation

Nearly 100 percent of high school students, 50 percent of junior high, and a third of those in grammar school now own cell phones. Even the word "cell phone" already sounds out of date, replaced even among foreign residents by "keitai," the shortened form of the Japanese word for portable phone.
Reader Mail
Jan 27, 2008

Adjunct to mental health care

I am writing in response to the anonymous Jan. 17 letter, "Far-fetched claim on 'life force,' " which commented on Angela Jeffs' profile of me in the Jan. 12 Japan Times.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 27, 2008

In memory of one for whom Japan was a muse

A month ago I lost a very close friend. This would not be the proper place to write about it, except for the fact that despite her not being Japanese, her profound understanding of Japan and her love for the country were the lifeblood of her artistic career.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

A woman who cared

A low-budget film about a woman who operated Japan's first school for disabled children in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) is currently enjoying a long run in Japan and is also being shown in the United States.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

Justice Minister talks in death-penalty riddles

What does Japan's justice minister, Kunio Hatoyama think of the looming introduction of citizens' juries, also known as the lay-judge system — which is potentially the most revolutionary change set to affect Japan's trial system since World War II?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 19, 2008

Canadian garden of unity and reconciliation

"Hello," wrote an old Japan buddy back on her native British Columbian soil. "I've met a woman — Rumiko Kanesaka — who's helping build a Japanese garden on Salt Spring Island where I live. Would you like to talk with her?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2008

'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'

On many other actors Victorian period costumes would look like, well, costumes, but on Johnny Depp, they cover his physique like a second skin — merging with his persona as if he had a spent his life wearing lace cuffs and with his feet, encased in heavy boots, treading on nothing but mud and cobblestones....

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