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BUSINESS
Jan 11, 2007

PlayStation 3 shipments off global target

Sony's long-awaited PlayStation 3 may have missed its global shipment target and been beaten in its home market by rival Nintendo's surprise hit Wii video game system, new figures show.
BASKETBALL
Jan 8, 2007

Broncos down Apache

TOKOROZAWA, Saitama Pref. -- Double-overtime games dramatically raise the blood pressure of every coach -- and often cause insomnia.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 6, 2007

Bear with me on this

Hiker beware. For the woods are full of bears. And they will get you if you don't watch out.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2007

Cinema goes back for the future

Cinema is on the ropes. So much so that a cabal of top Hollywood moguls are putting their faith in a very old idea -- one usually dismissed as a fad -- to save the day.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 31, 2006

Shaping our future along with robots

Yoshiyuki Sankai is a professor of engineering at Tsukuba University in Ibaraki Prefecture and a front-runner in the field of "cybernics," which combines robotics with a wide array of academic disciplines, including neurology, information technology, behavioral science and psychology. Now aged 48, he...
JAPAN
Dec 27, 2006

Air guitar champ fans out the hits

On Sept. 8, Yosuke Ochi walked out to the spotlight in front of approximately 3,000 screaming fans to perform at the 11th Annual Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 27, 2006

Air guitar champ fans out the hits

On Sept. 8, Yosuke Ochi walked out to the spotlight in front of approximately 3,000 screaming fans to perform at the 11th Annual Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 23, 2006

Artist of movement takes it to the next generation

Steve Tomlinson is feeling pretty wretched, but having staggered from his bed in Tokyo's Koto Ward, puts on a brave face. The show must go on, right? Tomlinson is what he calls an entertainment artist -- instructor, choreographer, dancer, singer, actor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 22, 2006

2006: The year that hip-hop finally grew up

The idea that rock is exclusively a young man's game hasn't held water for three decades. While there's still something off-putting about Mick Jagger's determined athleticism in the service of a catalog that's older than Justin Timberlake, there's no denying he can still fill football stadiums, and not...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 22, 2006

Go the whole hog this New Year's

It's almost time to whoosh your tush to the tunes of world-class DJs as we welcome in another new year. Next up in the Chinese zodiac's menagerie is the wild boar, or inoshishi, as it is known natively in Japan. The boar is best characterized by the single-minded determination and speed with which it...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 14, 2006

Camping it up: The pride of pop's history

Scissor Sisters have been described as a band who play "camp pop." The camp bit is arguably a redundant designation since it derives from the French "camper," which means to pose in an exaggerated fashion. All pop music is a pose -- a good deal of it an exaggerated one. A narrower definition of camp...
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2006

Accused in Blackman trial denies all charges

Joji Obara, accused of fatally drugging two women, including British hostess Lucie Blackman, and raping eight others, made his final plea Monday at the Tokyo District Court, denying all charges against him.
EDITORIALS
Dec 10, 2006

Our words of the year

Once again, it's the season when the dictionary and language people are hard at work winnowing words -- new ones, catchy ones, much-looked-up ones, over-used ones -- in preparation for crowning their latest Word of the Year (WOTY). This year, we thought we might do a bit of winnowing of our own.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 5, 2006

Shelter reaches out to abuse victims

Her hands were clenched into fists, and patches of lightened skin mottled her skin up to her elbows. Addressing the four foreign women sitting in the office of the domestic violence shelter in Okayama City, the young woman quietly told us of the years of abuse she endured at the hands of her husband....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2006

Al-Jazeera media revolution turns 10

JERUSALEM -- From its first appearance, the new satellite channel broadcast from Qatar lived up to its name. Al-Jazeera -- Arabic for "the island" -- represented a haven of professional, independent, current-affairs programming in a sea of one-sided, government-controlled Arab media.
BUSINESS
Nov 15, 2006

PS3 stumbles again with revelation it won't play all of the older games

Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, which went on sale in Japan over the weekend to lead off a global launch, can't play some of the older games for the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2, a company official said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2006

Ultraman . . . forever

The "Ultraman" live-action science-fiction series has been a rite of passage for Japanese boys (and a few girls) and their families for four decades now, since the first show was aired in 1966.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 5, 2006

Another week, another new low for Chelsea's Mourinho

LONDON -- Jose Mourinho would probably moan if he won the lottery and it wasn't a double rollover.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 5, 2006

Radio rivals are a turn off by playing it safe

In the United States, media critics bemoan the homogenization of FM radio, which has become dominated by a handful of corporations dictating what music is played. Meanwhile, AM radio is considered the exclusive domain of the right wing, filled with talk shows that badger so-called Middle America into...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 3, 2006

Singer beats the boys at their own dirty games

Peaches emerges from the Creston Hotel in Tokyo's youth mecca of Shibuya dressed in a gold one-piece swimsuit, black stockings, silver thigh-high platform boots and a black cape with the Judas Priest logo on the back. Her eyes are rimmed with thick black mascara and there's a silver lightning bolt painted...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2006

International role of NPOs

All over the world, culture is being pushed to the sidelines. I am not referring here to commercialized, globalized culture produced purely for entertainment. By "culture," I mean the provision of culture as a public good, such as through foreign-language education, intellectual exchange or groundbreaking...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 22, 2006

Dragons grab Game 1

NAGOYA -- Once Kenshin Kawakami remembered how to be himself, the game was in the bag.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 17, 2006

Why is Japan kept in dark?

For tourists and residents alike, the quintessential image of Tokyo is of a city lit by artificial light. As soon as twilight gathers, the central shopping and entertainment districts of Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi are awash with neon, shining from each shop and office, even turning the night to a...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 17, 2006

Sony readying plan to challenge iPod

Sony Corp. has vowed to fight iPod's domination in portable digital music players by featuring superior sound quality and simple music downloads that won't require a computer.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 12, 2006

Sony's battery fiasco a symptom of bigger woes at legendary firm

It was a fine day at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. 16 when a passenger's ThinkPad laptop, containing a Sony Corp. battery already recalled by other companies, was suddenly wreathed in smoke and started emitting sparks.

Longform

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