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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 11, 2004

Pink Cow princess with two feet firmly on ground

In the early 1990s, artist-sculptor Traci Consoli left her native California to see a bit of the world. "I made a life in Tokyo, married to a Japanese guitar player, but found I was still not happy. Something was missing."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2004

Photographer captures images of youths on death row in U.S.

The subjects of photographer Toshi Kazama -- all young boys and girls -- stare straight into the lens of his camera, some smiling shyly, others looking serious.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Nov 4, 2004

Captivity conundrum over spared bear

In August 1985, I was in Tokyo awaiting the birth of my youngest daughter. One evening, I got a telephone call from Yoshio Kazama, my friend and next-door neighbor in Kurohime -- the beautiful corner of Nagano Prefecture where I live.
Japan Times
Features
Oct 24, 2004

Kitty collector plans afterlife together as well

Some have ridiculed her taste. Others have called her infantile. Yet Asako Kanda, a 31-year-old receptionist at a crafts and culture school in Tokyo, has never had any qualms about her long-running love affair with Hello Kitty.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 16, 2004

Good Day Books to touch base with literary icon

My husband does not often bow to me. But when I announce that I am off to meet the renowned scholar and translator of Japanese literature Edward Seidensticker, Significant Other is so impressed he near bends in half and instantly offers up half a dozen questions he himself would like to ask.
Japan Times
Features
Oct 3, 2004

Teddy bares all

Long before baseball's Ichiro Suzuki or soccer's Hidetoshi Nakata became stars overseas, in 1987 a 15-year-old boy from Asahikawa in Hokkaido flew to London on his way to taking the ballet world by storm just a few years later.
Japan Times
Features
Sep 26, 2004

Disillusioned bard of a bygone Japan

In the century that has passed since the death of Lafcadio Hearn on Sept. 26, 1904, the Japanese people have studiously formulated and maintained a myth -- and they have done it with all the tools and vigor of nostalgia at their disposal.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 26, 2004

Japan's abandoned kids live with the label

The murders of 4-year-old Kazuto Hayashi and his 3-year-old brother Hayato by an acquaintance of their father two weeks ago in Tochigi Prefecture has sparked outrage over Japan's insufficient child-welfare system. Though local police and child-welfare officials were aware the two boys were being beaten,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004

You can't beat an old master

Coffee Jiko Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hou Hsiao- hsien Running time: 103 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Yasujiro Ozu's trademark style -- the low camera angles, the straight cuts, the actors talking at the camera in medium closeup...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 2, 2004

"A Gathering Light," "The Coldest Day in the Zoo"

"A Gathering Light," Jennifer Donnelly, Bloomsbury; 2004; 383 pp. "Tell the truth!" It's not just children who get that all the time: Writers do, too. The only difference is that writers don't have to treat the truth too literally, as Jennifer Donnelly shows us in "A Gathering Light."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 21, 2004

Beat the heat -- get out to the islands

It has been one of the hottest years on record in Japan, especially in Tokyo. Something about too much pavement and too many high-rise buildings blocking the breeze. It makes you wonder, why don't those people in the high-rises just open their windows to let the breeze through?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 4, 2004

No winners or losers in 'The Face of Jizo'

In the early 1960s, Hisashi Inoue, the author of the original play "The Face of Jizo," was working under contract as a writer at NHK. The idea for the play came when he was sent to Hiroshima in the summer to do a program about the anti-nuclear movement.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 9, 2004

Recovery shows benefits of letting foreigners in

Like many other Japanese investors, Hiroo Sato got burned a decade ago when the nation's speculative bubble burst. These days, he's finally getting some of his money back via a rebounding stock market.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jul 4, 2004

Blaming referee for England's loss to Portugal pathetic

LONDON -- When Urs Meier disallowed Sol Campbell's last-minute goal against Portugal last week the Swiss referee had no idea he was to become the latest recipient of the English media's revenge on a Johnny Foreigner who had, in the words of most tabloids, "cheated us" out of victory.
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 16, 2004

If you go into the woods today . . .

Whether "Into the Woods" works as meaningful entertainment for adults rather than just a musical confection of assorted fairy tales for children is the question hovering over this clever and complex Broadway musical scripted by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. First staged and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 30, 2004

Freedom in a feudal land

FINDING MONJU, by Earle Ernst. Key West: Eaton Street Press, Inc., 186 pp., 2000, $19.95 (paper). The late Earle Ernst was the author of that seminal work, "The Kabuki Theater," first published in 1956 and still in print, and the editor of the 1959 "Three Japanese Plays." While a member of the Allied...
JAPAN / POLITICS IN FOCUS
Apr 27, 2004

Firms now balking at political donations

Kenji Watanabe spent the last year preaching and begging business leaders around Fukui Prefecture to donate to the Liberal Democratic Party. He was always received politely, but company presidents kept their wallets closed.
Features / LIFE OR DEATH
Apr 25, 2004

Debate heats up over legal reform

The maximum legal penalty in Japan is death. Locked alone in their tiny cells, 56 death-row prisoners are now awaiting their fate. Last year, one person was executed. No one knows how many will be this year.
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2004

U.S. insurers prod Koizumi on 'kampo'

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) A U.S. life insurance industry group has sent a letter to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urging him to reform the "kampo" postal life insurance services.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Apr 4, 2004

Robert Whiting: Outside the box

Back in 1972, a 30-year-old New Jersey native who had recently graduated from Tokyo's Sophia University was in New York City, trying to talk to anyone who would listen about politics and life in Japan. Nobody was interested.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 3, 2004

F.A. gives Eriksson new deal, but how long will he stay?

LONDON -- "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him."
BUSINESS
Apr 2, 2004

Mitsui Mutual becomes stock firm

Mitsui Mutual Life Insurance Co. converted itself into a stock company Thursday, with the aim of strengthening its management base and increasing its creditworthiness by boosting its fundraising capabilities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 31, 2004

Science advances with age

Something's Gotta Give Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Nancy Meyers Running time: 128 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] I used to think that science-fiction meant aliens and giant meteors, but with each passing year I become convinced...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 24, 2004

Room without a view

No Quarto de Vanda Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Pedro Costa Running time: 178 minutes Language: Portuguese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Behold Vanda's face. Presumably, she's still in her early 20s but her skin already has the swarthy lifelessness of a junkie's,...
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2004

Mitsui Mutual, SMBC to tie up

Mitsui Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. said Monday they have agreed on a tieup in mortgage loans.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 24, 2004

McEnglish for the masses

American sociologist George Ritzer coined the term McDonaldization to describe how a method of production that originated in fast food restaurants is sweeping through every aspect of society.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Feb 23, 2004

Critical war questions beg for an answer

NEW YORK -- First, my historian friend George Akita sent me a clipping of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's article that appeared in The Honolulu Advertiser (Aug. 7, 2003). Titled "We need rules for waging war," the piece begins with McNamara remembering the night of March 9, 1945, when...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 22, 2004

A second generation apart

INVISIBLE GARDENS, by Julie Shigekuni. St. Martin's Press, 2003, $23.95 (cloth). Lily Soto Quinn is starting to have an affair. At the first sexual encounter, she ponders the significance of her lover's body: "Part of him so clearly missing. A gap between his kneecap and the ground, filled with nothing...
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2004

Families of brain dead patients getting offered more choices

An increasing number of families of people declared brain dead are playing a greater role in deciding the fate of their loved ones, and some are opting to stop unnecessary life-prolonging treatment.

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