Search - entertainment

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2007

Midtown -- Roppongi just got loftier

Move over, glitzy Roppongi Hills. There's a new kid on the block in Tokyo's Minato Ward -- an even taller landmark testament to the spoils of wealth.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2007

'Black Book'

When Stephen Spielberg resurrected the World War II war movie back in 1998 with "Saving Private Ryan," he did so by upping the level of battlefield intensity and perceived realism. One thing he didn't lose though, was the moral certainty that has long been a staple of the genre -- it's hard not feel...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 23, 2007

B-girl boppers

'Maybe they can smell something on us!" says Halca, 18, one half of hip-hop- meets-J-pop duo HalCali.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 18, 2007

From profession to prostitution

Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan, by Janet R. Goodwin. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007, 208 pp. with maps, $48 (cloth) Prince Genji was apparently among the few to resist the charms of those bands of young women who made a living by offering themselves....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 16, 2007

Full-color business and pleasure

If there's one thing that's drawing the eyes of the world toward Japan, it'sanime. From "Akira" to "Spirited Away," through years of moving, high-concept beauties and "video nasties," and right down to the plethora of sprawling half-hour cartoon series, animation is widely regarded as Japan's key artistic...
Reader Mail
Mar 14, 2007

Rules needed against hateful rants

Regarding Grant Piper's Feb. 25 letter, "Freedom to dislike anything": True, short of libel, Americans have the right to express politically incorrect hateful, twisted thoughts. And, indeed, consumers can (and sometimes do) vote nay against entertainment and sports personalities by withholding dollars....
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Mar 11, 2007

Takamatsu's Nakagawa reaped benefits from time spent playing pro ball overseas

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league -- Japan's first professional basketball circuit -- which is in its second season. Kazuyuki Nakagawa of the Takamatsu Five Arrows is the subject of this week's profile.
EDITORIALS
Mar 11, 2007

Long road to rehabilitation

The announcement last June by Yubari, Hokkaido, a former coal-mining town now known for the Yubari brand of melon, that it had effectively gone bankrupt sent shock waves throughout the nation because many cities, towns and villages face a similar financial crisis. The city has adopted, and the government...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 9, 2007

Ethereal beings

Twenty years ago when he was in his mid-20s, Yukikazu Kano founded the Hanagumi Shibai Theater Company to start what he called "neokabuki." His idea was to bridge the gap between the traditional and contemporary theater fields in Japan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 3, 2007

That's OK. I thought it was the horse

Here's a joke I once read in a worn volume of rib ticklers. A bit off color, but my ribs loved it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 2, 2007

'Matsugane Ransha Jiken'

Nobuhiro Yamashita is one of the great comic talents working in Japanese films and also one of the most unusual. Unlike the many directors and actors here who equate "funny" with "over the top," Yamashita is low-key, ironic and very sharp. If he were an American he might have written for "Curb your Enthusiasm,"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 24, 2007

Young ice crystals on their best behavior

What do you think Hokkaido people do in the wintertime for entertainment? Being such a cold place, you'd think they'd specialize in trips to Tahiti. But no, all over Hokkaido during the coldest months of the year they hold snow and ice festivals.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2007

Mag on foreigner crimes not racist: editor

"Now!! Bad foreigners are devouring Japan," screams the warning, surrounded by gruesome caricatures of foreigners who look like savages, with blood red eyes and evil faces.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Feb 21, 2007

Kimura fulfills dream in bringing pro hoops to Okinawa

"Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.'' --
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2007

From rackets to real estate, yakuza multifaceted

The yakuza have long played a powerful, if often unseen, role in society. Romanticized in literature and film as noble outcasts replete with punch-perms, extensive tattoos and severed pinkies, the underworld is one of archaic language and secretive rituals and customs as well as extreme violence and...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 11, 2007

Gore's charge unlikely to skewer Japan's traffic plans

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was in Japan a few weeks ago promoting "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary film version of his traveling power-point presentation on the dangers of global warming. He made the rounds of the news shows at the time, but due to the extra time required to edit entertainment...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 9, 2007

Treading on thick ice

Among the places in Japan where, over the years, my trusty old backpack and I have poked about in Japan -- from the southern tip of Okinawa Island, to the far-flung Ogasawaras 1,000-km south of Tokyo, and to Wakkanai and Rishiri Island in northern Hokkaido -- very high on my list of top 10 destinations...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 7, 2007

Magic drops ball with on-air comments

NEW YORK -- Better to be a wise ass than a dumb ass, that's my policy. Magic Johnson takes the opposite approach.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 2, 2007

Song, story and shamisen

The International House of Japan in Roppongi, Tokyo, will bring a 270-year-old genre of music to life when it presents "Song, Story and Shamisen: Tokiwazu and the Soul of Japanese Music" on Feb. 9. Tokiwazu, a type of music known mainly for providing the accompaniment to kabuki, dates from the mid-18th...
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2007

Sony aims to break even despite PS3 price cuts

Price cuts for the PlayStation 3 are among the factors Sony is studying as it seeks to break even in its money-losing gaming segment in the next business year, a company executive said Wednesday.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan