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LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Apr 1, 2001

Misunderstanding in the shadows, five flights up

Like many, I initially confused Gokai with Go, another fifth-floor hideout on Meiji-dori going toward Shibuya. Having ascertained that it is in the building next to the crepe shop on the corner of Takeshita and Meiji-dori, I then thought people meant Bar Poor, another cavelike perch with hobbit-sized...
JAPAN
Mar 30, 2001

Court reverses ban on used software sale

OSAKA -- The Osaka High Court on Thursday overturned an October 1999 Osaka District Court order barring chain store Act Inc. in Okayama Prefecture from selling secondhand computer games, a decision that echoes a Tokyo High Court ruling rendered Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 25, 2001

Covering Japan on foot, for abused women, kids

In late 1999, photojournalist Mary King and IT systems analyst Etsuko Shimabukuro began to get itchy feet. Back in 1996 they had completed a two-year trip that took them through three continents. This time they decided to stay closer to home.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 21, 2001

Confessions of an outsize fashion cretin

If it is true that clothes make the man, then I confess to being poorly constructed.
JAPAN / GREENING PAINS
Mar 20, 2001

New appliance recycling plan poses question of where the buck stops

With the Home Appliances Recycling Law coming into effect April 1, Japan is taking a significant step in changing its waste disposal policy from burying discarded appliances to recycling as much as possible.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 20, 2001

Drop in on Kanemura's Tokyo

SPIDER'S STRATEGY: Photographs by Osamu Kanemura, with a text by Arata Isozaki. Tokyo: Osiris Co. Ltd., 102 pp., 80 b/w plates, 3,780 yen. In his text accompanying this portfolio of photographs of Tokyo, architect Arata Isozaki writes of the difficulty of deciphering this city. Paris was finally properly...
COMMUNITY
Mar 18, 2001

For top U.K. ceramics, no need to see Cornwall

Koichiro Isaka was traveling with his wife in the south of England when he first became aware of a ceramic tradition. Like many Japanese, he knew the name Bernard Leach, who studied with Shoji Hamada in the early 1900s as part of Japan's folkloric revivalist movement and helped establish Mashiko as a...
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2001

Saving the forests through photos

KYOTO -- The blue mushrooms in the Australian state of Tasmania seemed like windows onto the soul of the forest to French photographer and environmentalist Jerome Hutin.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2001

Strange world of parasites on display

While the Meguro Parasitological Museum may at first seem little more than a freak show, visitors soon learn more about the profound nature of these strange creatures.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 11, 2001

Discussing Dylan's recent concert

Just after Bob Dylan's March 3 concert at Tokyo International Forum, music maven and broadcast personality Peter Barakan met with entertainment writer Philip Brasor at a Tokyo coffee shop to reflect.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 11, 2001

How Klimt's Vienna changed the world

There are two paintings of artist's studios that say it all. The first is part castle, part Old Curiosity Shop, packed with statues, bearskins and whatnot, where a successful Viennese artist of the old school sits in gloomy splendor. The second is filled with light. There is no artist, but a woman's...
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2001

Are falling prices that bad?

LONDON -- Economists like limited inflation. They reckon it helps growth. Perhaps it may in some circumstances. It also benefits those who have borrowed against assets, which rise in value in an inflationary environment. But even limited inflation can be damaging, especially to those on fixed incomes,...
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2001

Gynecologist takes sex crusade to Roppongi streets

When Tsuneo Akaeda opens his mouth to speak about the sex culture of Japan's younger generation, a tirade of sexual slang all the more surprising because of his professional and smart-suited exterior flows out.
JAPAN / BENCH REFORM
Feb 28, 2001

Fight gets under way to increase public's access to legal aid

Lawyer Masaki Kunihiro had never dreamed his life would be so busy in the small city of Hamada, Shimane Prefecture.
JAPAN / BENCH REFORM
Feb 27, 2001

Battle to change closed-shop legal system hits poignant note

Had it not been for the death of her newborn baby, Fukumi Kushige would have shared the apathy of most Japanese toward the nation's legal system.
JAPAN / BENCH REFORM
Feb 27, 2001

Battle to change closed-shop legal system hits poignant note

Had it not been for the death of her newborn baby, Fukumi Kushige would have shared the apathy of most Japanese toward the nation's legal system.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 25, 2001

Funakoshi: Two heads are better than one

What distinguishes an artist from a craftsman? An obvious difference is the pricing of their work. Whereas craft products can sometimes be expensive, this usually reflects the time and trouble taken to make the piece. Art prices, however, are arranged on an exponential scale starting at almost nothing...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 25, 2001

Japan studies has explosive effect on U.S. kids

Recently I gave a presentation on Japan to a class of preschoolers in the United States. This month, these 4 and 5-year-olds were studying Japan. Last month they studied Pakistan. They can write their names in Urdu.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 22, 2001

Fukuoka's waterfront looks west again

FUKUOKA -- Fukuoka Harbor's public foreshores grew again last October with the opening of a new designer outlet and shopping mall, Marinoa City Pier Walk, in the city's west.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Feb 21, 2001

Spud the magic surfer

www.geocities.com/Baja/4954/ This is how Spudster entertained himself this past weekend, trawling through sites like Internet Magic and challenging the online wizard to do things like figure out what Pokemon character he was thinking about. The wizard can also tell you who you were in a past life and...
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 18, 2001

Unusual body shop fills in the blanks

OSAKA -- After dealing with the usual prewedding chores of choosing venues, flowers, dresses, menus and guests, the young bride-to-be was faced with one final task: find a finger to go with her ring.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2001

Trio nabbed over pirated movies

Police said Friday they have arrested three men on suspicion of selling illegal copies of such Hollywood films as "Dinosaur" and "Toy Story 2" on video CDs via Internet auctions in November and December.
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2001

Filling in Bush's Asia policy

With one notable exception, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's Senate confirmation testimony outlining the Bush administration's Asia policy signaled a remarkable degree of continuity. Powell identified America's bilateral-alliance network, and particularly the U.S.-Japan relationship, as the bedrock...
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...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 11, 2001

You haven't seen Japan till you've been in a bus

The bus is one of the best places for observing Japan. It's different from the train, where people pack in and do "gaman" till they get to their destination.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2001

New alcohol sales law invoked

Police will soon send papers to prosecutors on the owner and an employee of a convenience store in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, for selling alcoholic drinks last week to a minor who died in a scooter accident soon afterward, police sources said Thursday.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan