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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2003

Chinese deserve grown-up party leaders

SEOUL -- The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party want the world to believe that the government they control is fit to be accepted as a full-fledged mature member of the global community. But is it? There have to be some doubts.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2003

Astro 'birthday' Boy is staging a comeback

Astro Boy, the futuristic robot who was the focus of a television cartoon boom in the 1960s and who just had his "birthday," is making a comeback on film and television screens and in new and reproduced comic books.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 6, 2003

The grand illusions

Since celebrity is more a matter of exploiting opportunities than exploiting talent, this week's "Friday Showtime" (NHK-G, 8 p.m.) can be seen as an object lesson in cross-disciplinary synergy. Billed as an "astonishing entertainment" program featuring "music, comedy and illusion," the show brings together...
BUSINESS
Apr 5, 2003

Walt Disney gets set to broadcast in Japan

Walt Disney Co. will enter the Japanese broadcast business later this year, sources at the Japanese unit of the U.S. entertainment and media giant said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2003

South Korea food, culture site to open in Osaka in '05

OSAKA -- A South Korean food and cultural complex will open in the Rinku area near Kansai International Airport in February 2005 to promote friendship between Japan and South Korea, it was announced Monday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2003

Miura case came to define sensationalism

In January 1984, more than two years after his wife was gunned down in a Los Angeles parking lot, a major weekly newsmagazine began a series of articles titled "Bullet of suspicion," suggesting Kazuyoshi Miura arranged his wife's murder for the insurance money.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 30, 2003

Setting music free on the open road

While major record labels battle Internet file-sharing to preserve the sanctity of music delivery media (CDs and whatever the hell will take their place), major artists challenge their contracts and less-than-major artists avoid the "entertainment industry" altogether. The consequence of technological...
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2003

Record 5.77 million visitors in '02

The number of foreigners entering Japan hit a record 5.77 million in 2002, up 9.2 percent from the previous year, the Immigration Bureau said Friday.
BUSINESS
Mar 28, 2003

Sony robot upgrade can sing and feign dialogue

Sony Corp.'s toddler-size singing and dancing robot has expanded its vocabulary and musical repertoire and now avoids pinching human fingers with its metal joints.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2003

Talent agency exec gets 30 months

Tetsuo Taira, 56, who used to run Rising Production Co., was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison for evading some 1.1 billion yen in corporate taxes. Taira had for the most part owned up to the charges, saying he wanted to set aside money for the future, as the entertainment world was full of uncertainties....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Mar 20, 2003

Walking on waters that were

Tsukiji, now famous as home to the world's biggest fish market, was reclaimed from the sea in the 17th century. Its transformation from seabed to seashore came after the magnificent first city of Edo, designed by Shogun Ieyasu in 1603 and completed around 1650, was destroyed by a fire in 1657. Then,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2003

Firms plug their toys' ability to lick stress

It seems as though everyday life is getting more and more stressful, and toy manufacturers are coming up with new products they say can soothe mind and body of young and old alike.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 9, 2003

Kissaten culture still on the boil

At 3 p.m. precisely, a staffer in meikyoku kissa Lion in Shibuya quietly announces the start of today's "concert." Silence descends as she places a record on the player. A gray-haired customer puffs on a cigarette at his corner table.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2003

Takenaka denies wrongdoing in banker meeting

Financial Services Minister Heizo Takenaka on Friday denied he violated Cabinet guidelines by meeting with the chiefs of U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., as reported by a magazine.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2003

Key gauge above 50% for first time in three months

The key gauge of the current state of the economy was above the boom-or-bust line of 50 percent in January for the first time in three months, the government said Friday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Mar 6, 2003

The mayor's conundrum

"SimCity 4," a new and entertaining city-planning simulation for PC from the Maxis division of Electronic Arts, is a nightmare, and I mean that in the best possible way.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2003

Household spending continues slide

Kyodo News
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2003

Tokyo CPI continues record-breaking fall

Kyodo News The key gauge of Tokyo consumer prices fell 0.7 percent in February from a year earlier, declining for a record 41st straight month, the government said Friday, underscoring persistent deflation and no signs of an improvement in the economy.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2003

Hello Work job centers a hotbed of false listings

An increasing number of bogus job listings and unscrupulous employers are exploiting the government-run Hello Work job centers as high unemployment continues to grip the country.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 1, 2003

Seven riddles suggest a secret city beneath Tokyo

During the Gulf War in 1991, Shun Akiba was one of only two foreign journalists reporting from Baghdad, along with Peter Arnett of CNN. With such experience and expertise, it would be reasonable to imagine him in great demand right now. Wrong.
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2003

Singing the karaoke blues

Japan has given much to world culture. Kimono, anime, sushi and ikebana are just some of the words that have become so well-known abroad they don't even need translating. But one pastime has come in the past few decades to represent Japan perhaps more authentically than any other activity -- and that's...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2003

Victims' families sue over Kabukicho fire deaths in 2001

Relatives of 25 of the 44 people who died in a 2001 fire in Tokyo's Kabukicho entertainment district filed a 1.25 billion yen compensation lawsuit Friday with the Tokyo District Court against six people and the company that manages the building.
BUSINESS
Feb 21, 2003

Toshiba creates new automotive LAN

Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it has developed new fiber-optic receivers and transmitters for an automotive local area network.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2003

Japan Telecom Co. buyer sought

Japan Telecom Holdings Co., a unit of British wireless giant Vodafone Group PLC, said Wednesday it is in talks with several firms, including U.S. investment fund Ripplewood Holdings LLC, over the sale of its fixed-line subsidiary, Japan Telecom Co.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2003

Mitsubishi robot seen as family friend

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. unveiled a robot Tuesday that it claims will become a future house-sitter, caretaker, nurse and family friend.
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2003

Key consumer-prices gauge slides for third consecutive year

The key gauge of consumer prices fell a record 0.9 percent in 2002 for the third straight year of decline, the government said Friday in a preliminary report.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan