Search - features

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 24, 2012

Wi-Fi, Facebook and all that jazz

Fumito Fukuchi, owner and proprietor of Kissa Sakaiki jazz cafe in Tokyo's central Yotsuya neighborhood, grins as he puts the finishing touches to an online schedule.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 20, 2012

The wonder of feathers

A soft flake of seeming sky falls, wafts and floats earthward catching the light. Lightly, and soft as gossamer, it lands to add a splash of color to the greenery of spring. It may be no more than a tiny feather that's fallen from a passing bird, but it carries with it a message of mystery and miracle...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 20, 2012

The sky's the limit

After the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 last year, the performance of the spectacularly tall Tokyo Sky Tree going up in the capital's downtown Sumida Ward became a subject of heightened interest to experts, residents and the general public alike.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
May 19, 2012

Hot springs puffer fish enjoy taste of success

Innovative attempts to raise tiger fugu in water originating from hot springs have been a great success in Nagano Prefecture.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
May 18, 2012

Kyoto's Allred has unique perspective on game, life

The Japan Times periodically features interviews with players in the bj-league. Lance Allred of the Kyoto Hannaryz is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / IN THE RECORD
May 17, 2012

A Taut Line

Tokyo-based British DJ/producer Matt Lyne, aka A Taut Line, coruns the record label Diskotopia, with Brian Durr, aka BD1982. A Taut Line's melodic broken house, garage and techno productions are just as influenced by the Chicago jazz and postrock scenes as by the 1980s Chicago house scene. Meanwhile,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 13, 2012

Beware not the loud girls, but the plain ones

No one who remembers the ganguro (black-face) girls of the mid to late 1990s will be shocked by Friday magazine's little article on the hadeko (loud kids) of today, but it all gives rise to a bemusing question: How did the age-old quest for beauty become transmuted into a quest for weirdness?
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
May 12, 2012

Nagoya guide dog gets crash course in English

Canadian Lorelei Harada, a long-term resident of Japan with a progressive eye disease, will receive a guide dog from the Chubu Guide Dogs Association of Japan that has been trained to understand English.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
May 11, 2012

Hamamatsu, Ryukyu, Osaka favored to make Final Four

The Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix have a rookie head coach in Ryuji Kawai, but a veteran nucleus of players that captured consecutive championships in 2009-10 and 2010-11 under Kazuo Nakamura, the bj-league's elder statesman.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2012

Filmmaker says don't worry, be happy

"Wow, the weather turned bad quickly, huh?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 10, 2012

After flower-vase success, former D-Bros designers set to blossom

If you're the sort of person who likes art museums but loves art museum gift shops, then you're likely to be familiar with the work of Yoshie Watanabe and Ryosuke Uehara, two designers who are currently the subject of an exhibition at Tokyo's Ginza Graphic Gallery.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
May 8, 2012

Issey Miyake's innovations beat the Brits to win the Design Museum of London fashion award

Colloquially called "The Oscars of Design," the Design Museum of London Design Awards are prestigious accolades given in six categories to the most innovative and inspiring designs of the year — and this year's top honors in the fashion category went to Japan's own Issey Miyake and his team of boundary-pushing...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 6, 2012

New push should be for renewables

With the nation's last operating commercial reactor ceasing operations Saturday, The Japan Times interviewed two energy experts to explore the future of nuclear power in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
May 5, 2012

Observatory fills small Gifu town with pride

An official opening ceremony Sunday was held to celebrate the completion of a small astronomical observatory on the grounds of Tara Elementary School in Kamiishizu, Gifu Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 4, 2012

'Faces in the Crowd'

Here's something you don't see often: Milla Jovovich not battling zombies, and not wielding some impossibly menacing piece of artillery. In "Faces in the Crowd," we see Jovovich in a rare mode of vulnerability and fragility (in spite of those muscular shoulders) — even giving the impression that she...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 4, 2012

Nirvanam: Savor the subtle spice of South Indian cuisine

What's the best season for eating Indian food? Summer, when all the spices help you sweat out Tokyo's clammy heat? Or in the chill of winter, to put fire in your belly? The answer: Any time at all, if the cooking is as consistently good as it is at Nirvanam.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
May 3, 2012

Rizing's Palmer headlines bj-league's Best Five team

As the bj-league's rapid growth has infused new talent into the nation's first pro basketball league, those players and coaches have made a big impact on the sport.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 29, 2012

Foxtrotting around Asukayama

Rising amid flat farmland, Asukayama had long been an untended haunt of foxes and their small prey when, in 1720, Yoshimune Tokugawa, the eighth shogun to rule in Edo (present-day Tokyo), had the hilly upland planted with 1,200 cherry trees, 100 maples and 100 pines, to create a public park for flower-viewing....
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Apr 28, 2012

Taxis' internal surveillance cameras create stir over privacy

Taxi companies are installing video systems in their vehicles to reduce passenger conflicts in a move that is raising privacy concerns because of vague warnings that are leaving many unaware they are being recorded.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 27, 2012

'Thermae Romae'

Reading manga can teach you a lot, be the subject wine ("Kami no Shizuku [Drops of God]"), gourmet food ("Oishinbo") or the arcane world of feudal-era concubines ("Sakuran"). But the Japanese bath? Isn't that a subject Japanese are immersed in almost from Day One? Why would they need to read about it...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2012

Identifying the world's 'invisibles'

They have no twitter army, no righteous war being waged for their rescue. They are visible; they are out there on the streets. From ruthless lanes of Dhaka to dangerous dark alleys of Rio, tens of millions of children the world over are daily fighting hunger, violence and abuse just to survive and scratch...

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