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COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 5, 2014

Japan's 'zombienomics'

The hard reality is that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's vaunted economic reforms will not work unless he shows more guts, much more imagination and a lot more humility in dealing with a modern economy that cannot be commanded by fiat.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Dec 2, 2014

Finding comfort in a Belgian bowl

The mercury has dropped and the nights are getting longer. As the temperature plummets so does the need for culinary sophistication. Filigree garnishes, amusingly carved vegetables and light bonito broths frankly no longer cut it. To put it another way: December is less about yuzu-infused shoyu, and...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2014

Putin's risky gamble on a weakening ruble

Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting Russians will weather worsening economic conditions, if only because the cost of revolt is so high.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Nov 30, 2014

Video shop worker jolted into career as diversity advocate

When the Great Hanshin Earthquake hit in January 1995, Taro Tamura, then 23, was quick to sense the need in foreign communities for disaster-related information.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 29, 2014

Newspapers take sides on 'Abenomics'

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's dissolution of the Diet has become another point of contention between right- and left-leaning entities in Japan. One of the more revealing responses involved a website set up by a member of a nonprofit organization called Bokura no Ippo ga Nihon wo Kaeru (Our One Step Will...
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Nov 25, 2014

Grand Prix Final places on line at NHK Trophy

Yuzuru Hanyu's expected return to the ice won't be the only drama unfolding this week in the NHK Trophy at Osaka's Namihaya Dome, where spots in the Grand Prix Final will also be on the line.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 22, 2014

Hihōkan: Japan's vanishing sex museums

The real world ends beyond a thick, black curtain. On the other side is one of Japan's last remaining hihōkan (sex museum, literally "treasure palace") in the faded resort town of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture — a strange, dimly lit space of questionable morals and dated fantasies.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 22, 2014

NTV's ideal announcer proves problematic

The current government wants women to demonstrate their full potential in the workplace, which means transcending gender roles and achieving occupational parity with their male counterparts.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2014

The next trade breakthroughs

The North American Free Trade Agreement is proof that properly designed free trade agreements spur global growth.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Nov 20, 2014

Komeito's 50 years of losing its religion

Back in 1964, when the lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai founded Komeito, many people looked on warily: They believed it violated the Constitution's separation of religion and politics.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Nov 19, 2014

San Francisco's huff with Hashimoto over 'comfort women' reveals double standards

San Francisco's reaction to Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's comments about 'comfort women' says much about equality between nations, about how we judge each other through cultural lenses and blinders, and how we have to keep finding ways to address grievances from our past.
Reader Mail
Nov 19, 2014

Teach more about the Ainu

Why hasn't LDP Hokkaido prefectural assembly group member Masaru Onodera been asked to resign? The Ainu are among the most indigenous of people to ever dwell in the archipelago now called Japan since the Jomon era. It's believed by many cultural anthropologists that the Ainu have lived in northern Japan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 19, 2014

Emoto's 'Shrew' questions to provoke

"If I were a man doing the same work, no one would make any special mention of my gender, but I find I'm always being referred to by the media as 'the female director, Junko Emoto.' I don't want to say that's right or wrong, but it reminds me that this is today's reality," the Tokyo-based artist said...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2014

Adolf Eichman: a murderer's warped idealism

A biography on Adolf Eichmann rebukes those who refuse to see the Holocaust as proof of the power of the most dangerous things — ideas that denigrate reason.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 15, 2014

Laughter the best medicine for humanity

What a comical species we are. The proof? Laughter. We laugh. At what? Why?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Nov 12, 2014

Mayor blazes trail with radical child-friendly vision for local government

Every time I try to read or write about local government in Japan I get so easily distra— say, is that paint drying over there? You see the problem?!
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2014

A world beset by divisions

Whether once divided by physical walls or currently split by political ones, today's leaders in Asia, the U.S. and Europe — including newly elected members of the U.S. Congress — should think about how much has been and can be achieved when the barriers of economic inequality come down.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2014

What goes around, comes around in American politics

Both the Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. are going to have to swallow their pride, bid a fond farewell to their dreams of perfect ideological purity, and figure out how to work with the other side if they want to get anything done.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Nov 7, 2014

Readers' letters: carrying ID, subway 'saviors,' JA rackets, Taiji alternatives and goats

A selection of emails received in response to recent Community articles.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 5, 2014

A more potent beauty, a more complex beast

Some people under 40 are likely to think "Beauty and the Beast" is a classic story created by Disney in 1991. But that animated movie, which has enthralled millions of little girls and boys (and many of their parents, too), was actually based on a hefty novel by France's Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve...
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Nov 5, 2014

Let's ensure no happy returns to Japan for this vile 'dating coach'

After bragging on a YouTube video about degrading assaults on women in Tokyo, Blanc says he's coming back.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 5, 2014

Spain's ballet powers in

After many years at the Paris Opera Ballet, Jose Carlos Martinez left that fabled company in 2011 when he reached its age limit of 42 for an etoile (principal dancer) — and took up the post of artistic director at the Spanish National Dance Company (Compania Nacional de Danza).
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 4, 2014

Ahead of anticipated electoral drubbing, Obama faces pressure to reboot presidency

A reshuffling of President Barack Obama's staff looks all but certain after Tuesday's congressional elections, which were likely to bring humbling losses to his Democratic party and could add to pressure on him to reboot his presidency.
BASKETBALL
Nov 3, 2014

Happinets' team of sharpshooters sink B-Corsairs

The Akita Northern Happinets have assembled a roster that has an abundance of players capable of knocking down a 3-point dagger at any moment.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 1, 2014

Hello Kitty: still fabulous at 40

Who is only five apples high and has no mouth — yet is one of the country's biggest cultural ambassadors?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 1, 2014

Media whips up fuss over S&M bar claim

First came what the tabloids referred to as "W-jinin," the resignations of two female Cabinet members — Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yuko Obuchi and Justice Minister Midori Matsushima — on the same day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 1, 2014

Hokkaido Highway Blues

Sake and sakura can be a dangerous combination. Drunk on both, English teacher Will Ferguson made a bet that he could hitchhike the length of Japan, from the southernmost tip in Cape Sata to the northernmost in Cape Soya, while following the cherry blossom as it burst into life in each part of the country....
WORLD
Oct 31, 2014

Get your facts right: Italy, U.S. come bottom in modern life survey

Italians and Americans score worst when it comes to correctly assessing basic facts of modern life, such as what proportion of the population are immigrants or what percentage of teenage girls get pregnant.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers