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BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Sep 5, 2016

Fighters set up ace Otani as trump card in PL pennant race

For the past several weeks, Pacific League hitters have lived a blissful Shohei Otani-free existence. Forget the strikeouts, the 160 kph-plus fastballs and the array of knee-buckling breaking pitches. Since early July, Otani has been one of them, focused on hitting pitches instead of throwing them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 4, 2016

Takashi Niigaki emerges from the ashes of a scandal with a symphony to call his own

On Feb. 6, 2014, composer Takashi Niigaki faced a crowd of reporters at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo and took a deep and apologetic bow. He had just revealed that he was ghostwriter for Mamoru Samuragochi, who was celebrated as "Japan's Beethoven" before being exposed as a fraud. Niigaki confessed to...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 3, 2016

Strolling the quiet alleyways of Nara, Japan's forgotten capital

It's hard playing second fiddle when you used to be first chair. Just ask Nara, Kyoto's underpraised southern neighbor.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 3, 2016

New horse lodge signals the way ahead

On July 15, 2016, just a few minutes' gentle canter from our splendid Afan Trust Centre here in the hills outside Kurohime in northern Nagano Prefecture, we officially opened our brand-new, first-ever horse lodge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2016

'Your Name.': Makoto Shinkai could be the next big name in anime

Japanese animators have good reason to hate the label "new Miyazaki," meaning successor to animation genius Hayao Miyazaki, who retired from feature filmmaking in 2013. First, it saddles them with fan expectations that their films will resemble — or imitate — the master's. Second, their box-office...
OLYMPICS
Aug 30, 2016

Japan's judo gold medalists praise country's efforts with eye on 2020 Games

Japan's Rio Olympic judo gold medalists believe their country has reclaimed its rightful place as the sport's world No. 1, but warned the pressure to succeed at the 2020 Tokyo Games will be enormous.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Aug 30, 2016

Shared homes offer respite for Japan's struggling single mothers

The government talks about creating a society where every woman can play an active role, but the chronic shortage of day care is pushing some entrepreneurs to take things into their own hands.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 29, 2016

Silver-winning 4x100 relay team looks to future with confidence

Wearing the official Japanese Olympic team uniform, a pinstriped sports coat and gray pants, and with silver medals hanging from their necks, the Japanese 4x100-meter relay team gave an impromptu demonstration of their baton-passing skills for a curious crowd of onlookers. They swung their arms as if...
LIFE / Language
Aug 29, 2016

The Emperor's speech: lucid but appropriately indirect

Emperor Akihito's choice of words and presentation speak volumes about how the relationship between the Imperial family and the people of Japan has evolved since his father's address to the nation in 1945.
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Aug 29, 2016

'Kakeru' and 'kakaru': two very useful Japanese verbs worth hanging on to

Introduce some meanings and usages of the verbs u639bu3051u308b and u639bu304bu308b (both 'to hang').
LIFE / Language / MORNING ENGLISH
Aug 29, 2016

Let's discuss the men's 4x100 relay at Rio

Japan came close to sabotaging Usain Bolt's bid for Olympic immortality but settled for a first-ever silver medal in the men's 4u00d7100-meter relay at the Rio Games.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Aug 28, 2016

Gardner shines in debut but fails to lead Rise to win

Devin Gardner's X League debut turned out to be a bittersweet experience.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 27, 2016

Bears encroach on blurred human boundaries

It is puzzling that the black bears have become aggressive recently, given their previous inclination to retreat when confronted by humans. My theory is that winters are shorter and that means shorter hibernations and more active time spent consuming dwindling supplies of food. They love beech nuts but,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 27, 2016

Shiraishi isn't afraid to ask the tough questions about life

August honors the dead in Japan, so it's fitting that Kazufumi Shiraishi's raw discourse on mortality makes its English debut this month. Originally published in 2008, "Me Against the World" breaks from Shiraishi's fictional works, offering the author's undiluted musings on life. As told The Japan Times...
Japan Times
JAPAN / TICAD VI SPECIAL
Aug 26, 2016

Summit seeks expanded investment and development

African nations and Japan will be seeking a new type of win-win partnership at the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI) that will be held for the first time in Africa when it kicks off in Nairobi on Aug. 27 amid uncertain situations in Japan and the region.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / B. League / B. LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Aug 25, 2016

Osaka brings in Harrellson to help man the middle

The Osaka Evessa enter a new era with two new big men patrolling the middle.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Aug 25, 2016

Koenji's Awa Odori festival celebrates 60 years

For the past few weeks, visitors and residents in Koenji have been haunted by a song — a plaintive, pentatonic melody that seems to circle endlessly, never quite resolving. You can hear it playing over speakers on the station platform just before the train doors close. It's there again as you walk...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2016

Nuclear developers have big plans for small power plants in U.K.

Miniature nuclear power plants could help solve Britain's looming power crunch, rather than the delayed $24 billion Hinkley project, companies developing the technology say.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 24, 2016

Foreign ministers condemn North Korea launch, pledge work on trilateral summit

The foreign ministers of Japan, China, and South Korea together rebuke the North's firing of a submarine-launched missile.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Aug 24, 2016

Beyond silence: lessons learned from a Japanese spouse

You see it often in Tokyo: the attentive Japanese woman and the Western man filling silence. In fact, a lot of them end up married, sharing a house and 1,000 meals, albeit hardly a life of the mind.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 22, 2016

In the electronics doldrums

The main culprit of Japan's economic doldrums during the past quarter century is the stagnation of its electronic equipment manufacturers.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS / OLYMPIC VIEW
Aug 21, 2016

Bolt ascends to true greatness with 'triple-triple' Olympic haul

"More than the greatest" was how Yohan Blake described his Jamaican teammate Usain Bolt after Friday night’s 4×100-meter relay final at the Rio Games.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2016

Koike, Tokyo 2020 chiefs promise not to leave 'white elephants'

New Tokyo governor, 2020 Olympic organizers vow not to saddle taxpayers with venues that cannot be reused following games.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 20, 2016

Inside Japan's racehorse breeding empire

Harry Sweeney has his hand up a horse's backside. The mare looks put out by this intrusion. Her eyes dart about nervously and she shifts her weight before accepting five thick human digits probing her insides. After feeling the uterus and the swelling of the ovaries, Sweeney's arm, slick with mucus and...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 20, 2016

Bears: close encounters of the furred kind

As my wife and I listened to a news bulletin in June about bears killing four people in Akita Prefecture, she gave me one of those silent looks pregnant with meaning. Let me try to translate as best I can: It was one of those looks that say, "You see, you are nuts!" I am guilty as charged, but claim...

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