Search - entertainment

 
 
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 25, 2001

Hot rod 'tribes' roar into the night

It's 2:30 a.m. on a Friday night outside the Shibaura parking area, a thin strip of concrete and pavement stuck to a pillar under the belly of Tokyo's Rainbow Bridge. There's a flash of red taillights as vehicles speed in. New arrivals are greeted by leather-clad bikers revving their engines, spitting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 23, 2001

How diplomats express Japan

An Australian diplomat found modern Japanese weddings exciting and representing of the adaptability of the nation's culture, while a British participant described how much he loves "onsen" hot springs. And both did so in smooth Japanese.
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2001

Tertiary industry index slips

The government said Wednesday that an index designed to gauge economic activity in Japan's tertiary industries slid 0.5 percent in January from the previous month.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2001

U.S. warships not welcome in Hokkaido

While U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley was receiving an award Jan. 9 aboard the USS Blue Ridge for his contribution to increased visits by U.S. naval vessels to Japanese ports, the mayor of Tomakomai, Hokkaido, was expressing opposition to a planned February visit to his town by the flagship.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 20, 2001

Gion's coolest geiko carves out her own funky groove

She's small, she's cute, she's lively and at 14 she used to do Deep Purple covers fronting her brother's rock band.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2001

State funds lavished on Diet members

Japanese diplomatic establishments in foreign countries used discretionary government funds to wine and dine visiting Diet members, a Foreign Ministry internal document revealed.
BUSINESS
Mar 18, 2001

Kansai mulls ways to attract U.S. cash

OSAKA -- Discussion on America's relationship with the Kansai region generally centers on business investment or the lack thereof.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 15, 2001

Time for NHL to quit whining and get the red out!

The National Hockey League general managers wrapped up their annual meetings in the California desert last week. As usual, one major topic of conversation was how to speed up the game and increase the flow of play.
BUSINESS
Mar 9, 2001

Average household expenditures drop 0.5% in January

Average household spending fell a real 0.5 percent in January from a year earlier to 307,952 yen following a 2.1 percent gain in December, the government says in a preliminary report released Thursday.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 9, 2001

Michio Imazato finds another shade of blue

When Michio Imazato first heard Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," a record he checked out from the public library in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, he couldn't have known he'd be leading his own quintet 10 years later in New York City. After all, he was a typical rock 'n' roll-loving high-school kid playing...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 6, 2001

Carefully controlled exoticism

THE ORIENT STRIKES BACK: A Global View of Cultural Display, by Joy Hendry. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2000, 256 pp., 40 illustrations (16 color). 42.99 British pounds (cloth), 14.99 British pounds (paper). A century ago, the West used to entertain and educate itself with random views of the East. World's...
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2001

Jobless rate stays at 4.9%; spending remains in a lull

Dour economic indicators released Friday provided further evidence that Japan's economic recovery is stalling, with unemployment staying at a record-high level of 4.9 percent in January and consumer spending remaining flat.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2001

Obara pleads not guilty to drugging, rape charges

Joji Obara, a suspect in the death of a British hostess whose dismembered body was discovered earlier this month, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of drugging and raping three Japanese women.
BUSINESS
Feb 27, 2001

Dreamcast nightmare to cost Sega 300 jobs

Moving along with its decision to quit production of its Dreamcast game console, Sega Corp. said Monday it will solicit applications from 300 of its 2,600 employees to leave their jobs.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2001

Ode to the Oedo Line

You don't really notice it unless you go looking for it. Mostly, it's hidden away underground, catching the eye at street level only in places where its irrational exuberance breaks through: as a funky glass-tiled box at Akabanebashi, say, or huge, alien-looking metal leaf shapes at Iidabashi. Even the...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 25, 2001

Metal chaos and the forces of artistic evil

Love him or loathe him, you just can't ignore him. That old cliche certainly rings true with Marilyn Manson. Rap might have thrown up its first genuine white rapper, Eminem, to get up the establishment's nose, but metal has the ghoulish Goth freak to take care of the other end.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 25, 2001

Love Psychedelico hits the blue notes

It's every struggling musician's dream: One moment you're scrounging around for gigs and a record deal while trying to keep food on the table and pay the rent, and the next moment, you've got a hit record on your hands and suddenly the talk of the town.
BUSINESS
Feb 24, 2001

PCCW to buy U.S. firm's game arm

Game software developer Pacific Century CyberWorks Japan Co. said Friday it has agreed to buy VR1, the network game software division of U.S. Internet business and entertainment provider Circadence Corp., for about $38 million.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2001

Otaru racism controversy lingers on

OTARU, Hokkaido -- The controversy over some "onsen" (hot spring) bathhouses banning foreigners from their facilities in this northern port town, which is frequented by Russian ships, lingers on more than a year after the issue was first raised.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 21, 2001

Who's napping now?

As any music fan knows, the future of Napster, the biggest free lunch of MP3s on the Net, is still very much in legal limbo. Last week a San Francisco appeals court confirmed a decision made this summer: Napster is knowingly infringing the copyrights of recording artists. The court asked U.S District...
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2001

Japan-the-liberator remark lands criticism upon Norota

A top official of the Democratic Party of Japan on Monday lashed out at a remark made the previous day by the House of Representatives Budget Committee chairman that Japan purged Asia of colonialism during World War II.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2001

Japan-the-liberator remark lands criticism upon Norota

A top official of the Democratic Party of Japan on Monday lashed out at a remark made the previous day by the House of Representatives Budget Committee chairman that Japan purged Asia of colonialism during World War II.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 17, 2001

They came from Zeta Reticuli

Mudvayne are often said to be the "new" Slipknot. Slipknot wear masks and are very famous; Mudvayne wear makeup and are getting there. And they both fit snugly into the new-fangled rock genre known as nu-metal. What's nu-metal? It's old metal but louder, faster and much more pretentious: It makes the...
LIFE / Digital
Feb 16, 2001

From video game to big screen

HONOLULU -- Aki, the scientist/heroine of Square Picture's new movie "Final Fantasy," steps from the door of her space shuttle and surveys the wreckage that is Old New York.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Feb 16, 2001

Keeping it pure and personal

There are people who have character and there are people who are characters. Coppe, the coolest musician you've never heard of, is both.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2001

'Japan 2001' fest set to take center stage in U.K.

Several years ago, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono and former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind came up with an idea. Why not try, they asked, to think of ways for Japan and the U.K. to promote each other's image in a better light?
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2001

Police determine body found in cave to be Blackman's

Police have confirmed that the remains discovered Friday in a cave in Kanagawa Prefecture are those of Lucie Blackman, the 21-year-old British hostess who went missing last July.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Body found in cave identified as Blackman's

Police said Saturday the remains discovered Friday in a cave in Kanagawa Prefecture are those of Lucie Blackman, a 21-year-old British hostess who went missing last July.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Body found in cave identified as Blackman's

Police said Saturday the remains discovered Friday in a cave in Kanagawa Prefecture are those of Lucie Blackman, a 21-year-old British hostess who went missing last July.

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