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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 30, 2007

'Byosoku 5 Centimeters'

As the boundaries between animated and live-action films blur and finally become meaningless (see the graphic-novel look of "300" for a recent example), perhaps a new category is needed -- call it live-mation. In any case, animators in Japan are breaking free of whatever limits on theme and treatment...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 30, 2007

'Une aventure'

When reviewing a movie, critics tend to trawl through the elements that made it work, things like clever plotting, intense performances, lavish set design and the like. But we often seem to overlook one of the most essential elements of cinema: sex appeal.
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2007

Crusading to cut carbon emissions

LONDON -- The obvious route is not always the best one. Throughout Europe the governments and political parties, as well as the central European Union Commission in Brussels, are all vying with each other to prove who is the greenest. The simplest way of doing this is to produce ever more ambitious plans...
MORE SPORTS
Mar 18, 2007

Golden girl Arakawa retains passion after Olympic glory

Time flies when you are on top of the world.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 18, 2007

As London shows, assimilation is what migration's about

LONDON -- I have been coming to this city every few years for more than four decades, and this visit, of 10 days' duration, has, in some ways, been the most startling. Not that the mid-Sixties weren't. The Beatles, with every challenge to staid British routine that they personified, were in the ascendancy...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 16, 2007

'Va, vis et deviens'

On the surface, "Va, vis et deviens" is a political story, drawing from a little-known chunk of history called "Operation Moses." In 1984, 80,000 Ethiopian Jews (known as "Falasha") were airlifted from their native land to Israel in an effort to save them from drought and famine. That incident is a starting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 9, 2007

Diva of the highest order

Sumi Jo first took the notoriously persnickety Italian opera world by storm two decades ago. Such was the hubbub over her performance as Gilda in Verdi's "Rigoletto" in Trieste that the Korean singer, then in her 20s and barely out of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, caught the notice of the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 9, 2007

'Aoki Ookami'/'Ryu ga Gotoku'

Selling Japanese movies abroad has never been easy -- the industry makes about 1 percent of its box office overseas, but Haruki Kadokawa and Takashi Miike are both working hard to raise that number, if in radically different ways.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 2, 2007

McCoy Tyner looks back on Coltrane and a lifetime in jazz

McCoy Tyner ranks as one of the most important piano stylists in post-war jazz. His recordings with the John Coltrane Quartet, such as 1964's "A Love Supreme," remain high points of musical improvisation and spirituality. The mid-'60s music created by Coltrane, Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 21, 2007

The Samurai Dolphin Man

Ric O'Barry is one of the world's best-known environmentalists. A former U.S. Navy diver, he later trained the five dolphins that played Flipper in the hit 1960s TV series of that name, before turning against dolphin captivity in 1970.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 18, 2007

Close your eyes, count to 10 . . . and play to your heart's content

It seems only natural that everyone should have a wild time, at least once in their life, because for the most part our mortal span is occupied with studying, making a living or raising a family. All that, of course, can be fun -- but it tends to be rather serious stuff as well.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 17, 2007

Niseko -- snowflake Mecca

It snowed 30 cm last night. And another 30 cm today. Nature is expressing herself.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 11, 2007

Remarkable return: Hingis happy with comeback

Former world No. 1 Martina Hingis won a record-breaking fifth Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo last Sunday, adding the title to the ones she won in 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2002. It was her third Tier 1 title since returning to the WTA Tour in January 2006 after coming out of a three-year retirement because...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 11, 2007

There is nothing two-dimensional about Japanese manga in the U.S.

Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S., by Roland Kelts. Palgrave, Macmillan, 2006, 223 pp., $24.95 (cloth) In "Japanamerica," Japanese-American writer Roland Kelts explores how and why Japanese manga and anime have become as familiar to Americans as sushi or karaoke in the 21st...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 10, 2007

Livng 'E.R.' on Japan's northern island

My current job as medical translator at a ski resort in Hokkaido means that most of my job takes part in the emergency room. I am living my own "E.R."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 8, 2007

Funny and dark, the Mori laughs

Known for its unique fare of thought-provoking and comprehensive exhibitions that give you the "greatest hits" of a theme or period, the Mori Art Museum is now tackling the complex topic of humor in a two-part exhibition running till May 6.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 2, 2007

'Shooting Dogs'

When Hitler got his collaborators together and proposed the genocide of Jews, one of the things he said to justify the act was that before long the world will forget the whole thing. He is famed for having cited the example of the Armenian Genocide (1915-1917, in which around a million people were estimated...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 1, 2007

Grown-up Hingis ready to move beyond comeback

Martina Hingis wants to shake off "the comeback kid" tag.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jan 30, 2007

Yoko Yamada

Yoko Yamada, 27, nicknamed Iron Beauty, is the 2005 women's arm wrestling world champion in the 45-kg weight class and has won more than 35 gold medals, in both the Left- and Right-Handed Divisions. Yamada failed to qualify for the 2006 world championship because the minimum weight was raised to 50 kg,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 19, 2007

'Marie Antoinette'

A recurring scene in "Marie Antoinette" shows the young princess (or "Dauphine" as she was referred to in the Versailles Court) with her head leaning against the window of her carriage, looking out at the passing scenery, or craning her neck to look at the sky. She doesn't speak, and the soundtrack is...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jan 16, 2007

Hiroo Onoda

Hiroo Onoda, 84, is a former member of an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence unit, an elite commando during World War II who was sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines in 1944 to conduct guerrilla warfare and gather military intelligence. Trained in clandestine operations, his mission was to sneak...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 7, 2007

Japan is 'beautiful' -- and don't you dare disagree

Japanese tradition has it that your first dream of the new year (hatsuyume) is a portent of what is in store for you in the 12 months to come. There are three hatsuyume (wouldn't you just know that the Japanese would even designate dreams) they hold to be symbolic: If on the night of Jan. 1 you dream...
JAPAN
Jan 3, 2007

Asia beckons for some skilled retirees

in Taiwan, as many people of the same generation speak Japanese, and Taiwan is generally friendly toward Japan," he said. The shortage of skilled engineers comes at a time when Asian economies are pouring vast sums into research and development in response to growing global competition.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 31, 2006

Test where you stand on 'shared Japanese values'

Perhaps it is fitting on this, the last day of 2006, to look back at the year and reflect on the state of Japanese culture, society and life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 28, 2006

Provocative plays in the quiet

Spending as much time as I do in theaters guarantees that I am treated to some brilliant productions, others that are dire, and plenty in between. However, ones truly astonishing and most "provocative" (to use a key word in drama criticism these days), are naturally not thick on the ground.

Longform

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