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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.
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2007

Consumers are wary as new Windows Vista goes on sale

Microsoft's Windows Vista hit store shelves Tuesday, but consumers were not snapping them up as the computer industry had hoped.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2007

TV entertainer voted Miyazaki governor

," said Higashi, 49, an apprentice of comedian Beat Takeshi, after learning he had won. "We must change Miyazaki together." Higashi, 49, whose real name is Hideo Higashikokubaru, apparently attracted voters by shedding his image as a comedian and receiving no backing by any political party.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jan 21, 2007

IBL looking to become part of basketball boom in Japan

It's an exciting time for basketball in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 21, 2007

Dig in at this genuine cantina

OSAKA -- Osaka likes to brag that it is the kitchen of Japan, where the stomach is the most important body organ. But as the guidebooks might say, "Cheap and cheerful is the rule" when it comes to establishing a decent greasy spoon in this city, which prides itself on its working-class, merchant roots....
Reader Mail
Jan 14, 2007

Wrong motive to study English

I agree with Gregory Clark's idea in his Dec. 30 article, "English should be an elective." Nowadays we often hear of the importance of English education in primary school. But I don't think we should attach great importance to it. Certainly, children can learn languages faster than adults, but in...
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2007

NHK chief has doubts about Suga's fee-cut plans

came up with the figure," Hashimoto said. He suggested, however, that NHK's austerity policy would make it difficult to reduce fees.
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...

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