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JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 26, 2015

JR Tokai begins landowner negotiations for maglev train line

With construction of a magnetically levitated train line connecting Tokyo to Osaka via Nagoya in the works, Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) has started negotiating with landowners for property rights around Nagoya Station.
Japan Times
Places
Oct 23, 2015

Halloween events in Japan 2015

Halloween in Japan ... can it get any bigger or crazier. Thanks to a perfect storm of cosplay and consumerism, Japan's major cities have embraced the Western holiday in a big way over the past five years. And this list of Halloween events in Tokyo and elsewhere is just the tip of the big orange iceberg.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Oct 22, 2015

Fuji TV announces Japan-first lesbian drama, but attracts criticism for 'outdated' portrayal

Fuji Television has announced a drama series featuring a lesbian love story as its central theme — a first for Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Oct 22, 2015

A relaxing hotel experience for women; fair celebrates food from Down Under

A relaxing hotel experience for women
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2015

Europe may be on brink of disintegration

It is often argued that the EU progresses through crises, but the ingredients needed for such breakthroughs are now lacking.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2015

Female fears at the dead center of J-horror

Japan is a scary place. It has inspired masters of horror over three centuries, from Akinari Ueda in the 1700s ("Ugetsu Monogatari") to Lafcadio Hearn ("Kwaidan") in the late 1800s, all the way to the 1990s, when Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cure" and Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" were released, spawning a new homgreown...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2015

Androids and the avant-garde: The best Japanese films screening at TIFF

The Tokyo International Film Festival offers a once-a-year chance to see Japanese movies, both new and classic, with English subtitles. Getting tickets, however, especially for the films in the Competition and Special Screenings sections, may not be easy. With that caveat, here are my personal picks...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 20, 2015

Monet's experiments meet his masterpieces

To anyone familiar with art exhibitions in Japan, it is clear that Impressionism is one of the most well-known and most-loved of all the "isms" and movements of Western art. The name of the movement is believed to have come from a 1872 painting by Claude Monet titled "Impression, Sunrise." When it was...
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 20, 2015

Japanese business software maker embarks on rare U.S. foray

Having become the biggest Japanese vendor of business software for payroll and human resources by taking on Oracle Corp. and SAP AG in its home market, Works Applications Co. is now adopting an even more ambitious plan: breaking into the U.S.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 19, 2015

Barbecue sets made by Mie prison inmates proving a hit

Barbecue sets made by inmates at Mie Prison in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, are gaining popularity for their durability and ease of use.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 18, 2015

Radio personality Peter Barakan brings the world to Tokyo for Live Magic!

'I'm going off track again. Wait a minute." Midway through a lengthy digression about an "amazing" New Orleans band named Boukou Groove, Peter Barakan pauses, ever so briefly, to check the conversational signposts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 18, 2015

Taquwami takes familar sounds into his own distinct territory

Taquwami
 "Moyas”
 (Self-released)
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 18, 2015

Beijing's lighthouses in South China Sea buttress maritime claims

The next time the United States sends warships by China's man-made islands in the disputed South China, officers aboard will have to decide how, if at all, they will engage with a pair of giant lighthouses that Beijing lit up there this month.
Japan Times
JAPAN / FUKUSHIMA FILE
Oct 18, 2015

Fukushima skating rink to reopen in anticipation of residents' return

A well-known skating rink in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture, that closed after the triple core meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in 2011 will reopen in January, giving a shot in the arm to the disaster-stricken area.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 17, 2015

Fired up about Gifu's pottery industry

Toki, a small town in Gifu Prefecture, 37 km from Nagoya, sits above a huge clay basin. Pottery has been made here since ancient times.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Oct 16, 2015

Tokyo plugs into Google Play Music

JAPAN / HOTEL SPECIAL 2015
Oct 16, 2015

Japanese hospitality marks Tokyo Station Hotel's centenary

The Tokyo Station Hotel, the only hotel in Japan in which guests can stay inside one of the country's Important Cultural Properties, will mark its 100th anniversary on Nov. 2.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 15, 2015

Theater legend Harold Prince brings 'Prince of Broadway' to Japan for a world premiere

With a smile beaming from his face, Broadway legend Harold Prince enters the room I'm waiting in and cheerfully declares, "I'm not jet-lagged at all — they're just working me to death."
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 13, 2015

Chinese tourists spill into business hotels along Aichi highway as Nagoya hostelries full

Business hotels located on expressways in Aichi Prefecture are seeing a sharp rise in Chinese customers as those touring the Tokyo-Kansai route seek a place midway to spend the night.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2015

The strongholds of history and geography in the Mideast

Turkey and Iran are destined to be dominant powers in the Middle East.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
Oct 11, 2015

Language-learning Watson looks to change the face of computing

It's hard to predict what the next big thing will be in technology.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 10, 2015

Getting back to Japan's old-fashioned erotic values

The good news is that for two years in succession Tokyo has staged shunga (erotic woodblock print) exhibitions — one at Toyo Bunko in 2014 and the ongoing show at Eisei Bunko — and there doesn't appear to have been a marked surge in moral decadence or signs of civilization crumbling.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Oct 9, 2015

The future for aged Japanese whisky and traditional kaiseki

'This will surprise you," says chef Kenichi Hashimoto as he hands me a glass of what appears to be beer. This serious-faced chef — who leads the kitchen at Kyoto's Ryozanpaku, a two-Michelin-starred kaiseki (Japanese haute cuisine) restaurant — waits for me to take a sip. He then explains that this...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KYOTO RESTAURANTS
Oct 9, 2015

Sobaya Nicolas: Michelin-starred soba that belongs in your memory, not your camera's

If taking pictures of a meal is one of highest forms of flattery in the modern age, then what to make of the restaurants in Japan that forbid photographing what you are about to eat? The best answer I can come up with is that I'm not sure — nor do I have enough space in this review to decipher the...
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Oct 7, 2015

Red flags and exit strategies: advice for English teachers in Japan

It's important for new instructors in Japan to know when they are being exploited, and, if so, how to improve their lot or extricate themselves from the situation as painlessly as possible.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 7, 2015

Asia's most important film festival reasserts its independence

Celebrating its 20th year, the 2015 edition of the Busan International Film Festival, held in South Korea's southern port city from Oct. 1 to 10, has a lot to brag about, as it has definitely become the most important film festival in Asia in terms of the quality of its programming, the size and reach...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2015

U.S., Russia prep for Arctic warfare

Russia and the U.S. are training thousands of ground troops for Arctic ops — just in case the Cold War turns hot in the thawing polar region.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan