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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2007

'Air Guitar Nation'

What is it that makes a man, in the heat of the moment of an Yngwie Malmsteen or Iron Maiden guitar solo, grimace, thrust their crotch, and place hands on an imaginary guitar? "Air Guitar Nation" — is a documentary that seeks to answer that burning question.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 25, 2007

Nobuaki Kakuda

Nobuaki Kakuda, 46, is a karate fighter with the Seido Kaikan organization and the executive producer of K1, the Japanese sport that matches up practitioners of a variety of martial arts, such as karate, kickboxing, kung fu, tae kwan do and boxing. One of the world's strongest fighters, Kakuda is in...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Sep 25, 2007

Tokujin Yoshioka, Nosign Design etc.

A drop of light
EDITORIALS
Sep 23, 2007

Beautifying Kyoto, at last

In early September, the Kyoto city government began enforcing regulations against ugliness in the city. Yes, ugliness. The mayor of Kyoto, Yorikane Masumoto, and his municipal government found the political will to think beyond the immediate concerns of day-to-day business demands, and to consider how...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 23, 2007

Nomura deserves credit for making Eagles respectable

A few words of praise this week for the 2007 performance of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.
BUSINESS
Sep 20, 2007

Rebate system must stay: KDDI chief

KDDI Corp. President Tadashi Onodera criticized on Wednesday a government panel report urging the mobile phone industry to end its marketing practice of offsetting heavy discounts on handsets with higher phone service charges.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 19, 2007

Automatic sushi machine, simple soba noodle maker

Many of us possess all the culinary abilities of an aardvark. Bandai Namco is not about to have Michelin knocking on our doors to try out for its restaurant guide, but it at least promises to enable us to make sushi. The toy maker does this with its new automatic sushi roller. The little orange machine...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Sep 18, 2007

What will Prime Minister Abe be remembered for?

BUSINESS
Sep 17, 2007

'IClones' steal market share as Apple bides time in Asia

SANCHUNG, Taipei
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 16, 2007

A night out — with divorce on the rocks

Ask a friend to name a detective, and legendary sleuths such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Kosuke Kindaichi will probably figure in their reply. Regardless of nationalities, detectives seem to be familiar to many — provided they are fictional characters.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 16, 2007

Is it right to judge creativity by its 'correctness'?

"Brute! You brute! You beast!" Gloria exclaimed. "You haven't changed, have you? You haven't changed a bit. You're still the little Jew who sold rags and scrap metal in New York, from a sack on your back."
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 12, 2007

Burn CDs from old records; copy audiotapes to computer

They don't make 'em to last any more. Well, in truth, capitalism never intended any product to last forever; making things that never need replacing is after all a lousy business strategy. While that may be understandable, one of the more insidious tricks of capitalism is to get consumers to indulge...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 11, 2007

Toru Otsuka

Toru Otsuka, 67, is the president of Live Coffee, a coffee importer and roaster known for selling the best beans for the least dough. Otsuka is a treasure hunter: he handpicks only the highest quality from small growers around the globe, and considers his best finds the people who work with him. His...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 9, 2007

Taking a good look at Tokyo's eclectic fashion

The Tokyo Look Book: Stylish To Spectacular, Goth To Gyaru, Sidewalk To Catwalk by Philomena Keet, photographs by Yuri Manabe. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2007, 224 pp., profusely illustrated, ¥3,000 (paper). It was the philosopher George Santayana who penned these wise words: "Fashion is something...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2007

'The Cats of Mirikitani'

"He seemed all alone, and I had never seen such an elderly man out on the streets. There was something about him that compelled me to talk . . ." That was how New York documentary filmmaker Linda Hattendorf describes her meeting with Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, one snowy day in New York in January 2001....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Sep 7, 2007

Booking uphill in Bunkyo

Walkers in Bunkyo Ward won't get far before their legs let them know the place has hills — lots of them. A Bunkyo Civic Center official concurs: "We've named 113 slopes, but there are even more."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Sep 7, 2007

Ramen shop boss inherits, sheds recipe for disaster

Monday, May 26, 1997, is a day forever etched in the memory of Naoki Kusano.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 6, 2007

Japanese tattoo art carves its mark in the mainstream

"It seems like every two or three days we are doing a koi (carp) half-sleeve or a dragon tattoo. People in the States are going nuts for Japanese. It's really blown up over the last two years," says American tattoo artist Lewis Hess of Atlas Tattoo in Portland, Oregon.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2007

'Because I Said So'

As a longtime fan of Diane Keaton, it's always disheartening to see her in roles that seem inadequate for the Oscar-winning, lean and brainy hipster icon of the 1970s ("Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and "Interiors," to name just a few). But her most recent foray into mainstream rom-com is just plain painful....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2007

McCafe aims for slice of coffee shop pie

McDonald's fans thronged Wednesday to be the first to taste cappuccinos, croissants and vegetable soups at McCafe, the fast-food giant's new chain of cafe-style eateries.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 26, 2007

It's ladies first now in Japanese love hotels

Japanese Love Hotels: A Cultural History, by Sarah Chaplin. London/New York: Routledge, 2007, 242 pp. with photos, figures and tables, £85 (cloth) The love-hotel industry is one of Japan's most profitable. It accounts for more than ¥4 trillion a year, a figure nearly four times than that of the profit...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2007

'Oyaji'

Action stars in Hollywood tend to have long shelf lives. Jackie Chan, born in 1954, is still making slick kung-fu moves in "Rush Hour 3," while Sylvester Stallone, born in 1946, returned to the ring this year in "Rocky Balboa." And Harrison Ford, born in 1942, is back again for a fourth round as Indiana...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 17, 2007

Summertime and the grazing is easy

It's holiday time and the Food File is off for a break, but not before tidying up a few loose ends. This column is a summer miscellany — call it a chop suey (from the Cantonese shap sui, meaning "odds and ends") — on a few of the places we've visited and enjoyed in recent months.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 16, 2007

Flying high and free

On a sweltering summer day recently, members of the Condors dance troupe were pouring with sweat as they practiced for their upcoming national tour. Choreographer and lead dancer, Ryohei Kondo, was in the center of a circle of the dancers, who were voicing their opinions freely.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?