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Japan Times
CULTURE / OTAKOOL
Sep 27, 2007

Akihabara's awful truths

While the Establishment packages Electric Town as a mecca for manga and anime obsessives, and a magnet for camera- toting tourists, the reality differs: 'Akiba' is alienating the geeks who once made it great
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 25, 2007

Pachinko seeks to shed shady image as market shrinks

Filled with noise, bright lights and cigarette smoke, the attraction of the pachinko parlor is hard for many to fathom.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 23, 2007

Nomura deserves credit for making Eagles respectable

A few words of praise this week for the 2007 performance of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 22, 2007

Battle with Abramovich one of the few Mourinho lost

LONDON — Jose Mourinho left Chelsea by mutual consent.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Sep 20, 2007

Soccer pitchman scores big in small-market Niigata

Sunny but not too hot, the weather on the afternoon of May 6, 2001, was perfect for watching a soccer match. But there were only 4,800 people on hand to see Albirex Niigata take on Yokohama FC in the 18,671-seat Niigata City Stadium.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 19, 2007

Automatic sushi machine, simple soba noodle maker

Many of us possess all the culinary abilities of an aardvark. Bandai Namco is not about to have Michelin knocking on our doors to try out for its restaurant guide, but it at least promises to enable us to make sushi. The toy maker does this with its new automatic sushi roller. The little orange machine...
BASKETBALL
Sep 17, 2007

'Samurai' spirit drives AND1's Morishita

Determined and fearless on the court, Yuichiro Morishita exhibits a work ethic that basketball coaches want every player to possess. And yet it's his nickname, "Samurai," that's made him a household name far, far away from his hometown of Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 16, 2007

Postmodern sports for all

One night last month, while I was lazily channel-surfing at home, I happened on shot-putters doing their thing at the IAAF's World Athletics Championships in Osaka.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 14, 2007

'Sukiyaki Western Django'

In the late 1950s and early '60s, the Japanese studio Nikkatsu had great success with its "borderless action (mukokuseki action)" films. The best known was the nine-part "Wataridori (Birds of Passage)" series (1959-62) starring Akira Kobayashi as a drifter who has most of the accouterments of a Western...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 14, 2007

Concubines unite

In China, she is regarded as one of the four great beauties of world history; in Japan she is one of three similar icons — along with Cleopatra and the Heian Period poet Komachi Ono-no. Her name was Yang Guifei (719-756), and she was the favorite concubine of the emperor Xuanzong, revered not only...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 6, 2007

'Merchant' for modern times

One of the world's foremost directors of Shakespeare, one of Japan's most outstanding translators of the Bard and a star-studded Japanese cast have teamed up to bring "The Merchant of Venice" to Tokyo this month.
LIFE / Language
Sep 4, 2007

Garnish your Japanese with some 'humble pie'

Second of two parts
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 31, 2007

A great escape to Biwako

Jasmine, a writer who hails from Hiroshima and is much older than me but has a refined magnetizing beauty that cannot be ignored, pours me a cup of green tea on my first ever junket. It's just before the world turns blue; just before I'm dropped into a Marc Chagall painting by an invisible but all-seeing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 24, 2007

Out of darkness

The Sept. 18 worldwide release of "Suimou Tsunenimasu (A History of DJ Krush)," DJ Krush's three-DVD retrospective, certainly gives fans quite a bit to chew on. Stretching back to the mid-1990s, when the turntablist/producer Krush (real name Hideaki Ishii) first toured overseas, this documentary sews...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 22, 2007

Can others save Earth despite Big Oil's blinkers?

How can an economic superpower founded on progress and innovation be so averse to change that would cut the greenhouse-gas emissions that are spurring global warming and climate change?
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Aug 22, 2007

Multitasking watches and solar iPod rechargers

No craze is complete without its own gadgets. This new Sudoku aid looks just like another Japanese obsession — the "keitai" — with players using the number keypad to enter their sudoku answers. It costs ¥1,029, with more information available at item.rakuten.co.jp/wnd-minakuru/4582256_900052/. If...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2007

Putting the fun back into feeling fit

Although you may be a typically busy worker, in Japan there's no shortage of easy exercise options to help keep you in shape — whether "10-minute fitness" clubs where you can have a quick workout without even changing your clothes, varieties of home exercise videos or machines and, of course, any number...
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2007

Nintendo scores with brain-training, etiquette games

Since March, Natsumi Takita has spent 10 minutes daily on a Nintendo DS hand-held game machine, undergoing daily quizzes using "Otona-no Joshikiryoku Training DS" ("Common Sense Training for Adults").
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 14, 2007

Abuse, racism, lost evidence deny justice in Valentine case

In 1999, a Brazilian resident of Japan named Milton Higaki was involved in an accident that killed a schoolgirl. Rather than face justice in Japan, he fled to Brazil fearing "discrimination as a foreigner in Japanese courts."
Events
Aug 12, 2007

KANSAI: Who & What

English tour takes in Koyasan temple town
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2007

'Transformers'

A drinking bet made the other night involved me writing an entire review in verse. "Transformers" seemed a likely candidate, and while still nursing a good buzz, I plunged into it . . .
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 29, 2007

Keeping abreast of developments on the small screen

Arts and entertainment criticism of the sort practiced in the West is still relatively sublimated in Japan, where pop-culture hyoronka (critics) tend to be either pundits or PR flacks who rarely say anything overtly negative about the things they review.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past