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JAPAN
Jul 15, 2006

Horie's next feat: trans-Pacific trip via wave power

Adventurer Kenichi Horie said Thursday he will embark on a two-month voyage in March 2008 from Hawaii to the Kii Channel in southwestern Japan in what would be the first attempt in the world to sail a boat propelled by waves.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 13, 2006

Antiestablishment for all

Founded in 1970 by director Sho Ryuzanji, the Engekidan company was a natural bridge between two major theatrical movements in postwar Japan: the 1960s underground scene of dramatists such as Shuji Terayama and Juro Kara and the so-called "small-scale theater movement" started in the 1980s by the likes...
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jul 12, 2006

Jewelwing damselfly

Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 9, 2006

Japan fashions a menswear coup d'etat

For a week in July, Paris becomes an outpost of Tokyo as Japanese designers and buyers throng the catwalks, parties and cafes where business is done at the biannual men's clothing collections
LIFE
Jul 9, 2006

Fashionistas relish rumor over top job

Paris last week was rife with gossip over whether the menswear world's leading light, Hedi Slimane, was about to exit hyper-cool brand Dior Homme when his contract expires at the end of the month.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Jul 7, 2006

Reach for the sky

Sumida Ward spans an area that has endured ruinous fires, floods, plagues, and seismic as well as economic jostlings. Residents of this battered part of the city nonetheless have always kept their pride buoyant and their spirits aloft. Even when the chips are down, residents of Sumida Ward insist that...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 7, 2006

Film fest explores digital format

The 3rd Skip City International D-Cinema Festival takes place in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, from July 15-23, and aims not only to unearth the next generation of filmmakers working in the digital format, but also to serve as a forum for discussion on the latest trends in digital cinema.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 7, 2006

Foreign carmakers cash in as the rich get richer

One Sunday in June, a man in his 30s visited the spacious BMW showroom in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 6, 2006

An animist explores old themes

Over the last few years, the traditional art form of nihonga has emerged as a player on the Japanese contemporary art scene. I can only guess why this is -- something connected to nostalgia or nationalism perhaps? Or could it be that growing social and economic uncertainty has led Japanese to regard...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2006

Lawson opens test stores tailored to elderly shoppers

Convenience store operator Lawson Inc. has opened outlets tailored for the elderly in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, and in Awaji, Hyogo Prefecture, the first attempt of its kind among major convenience store operators.
LIFE
Jul 2, 2006

Showdown at Budokan

The rightwing reactionaries were arriving in their menacing black-and-white trucks, blasting military music. The politicians were shaking their fists and telling people to go to a garbage dump. The police had locked down all entrances to the Imperial Palace grounds. Riot police lined the road leading...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 2, 2006

Journeys across turbulent waters

MAD ABOUT THE MEKONG: Exploration and Empire in South-East Asia, by John Keay. HarperPerennial, 2006, 294 pp., £8.99 (paper). The long-lasting conflict in Vietnam made the name of the Mekong familiar to people in other countries, but to those who live along its banks and tributaries it is known simply...
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2006

Halted reactor in Shizuoka yields broken turbine blades

Fifty turbine blades have been found cracked or broken in a Chubu Electric Power Co. nuclear reactor in Shizuoka Prefecture, the Nagoya-based company said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 1, 2006

Mike Price

Tokyo International Singers, conducted by Marcel L'Esperance, will present its 104th concert on July 9 at Suntory Small Hall, Akasaka, Tokyo. This "Summer Serenade 2006" features Latin-American music. Guest artists on the program will be the Mike Price Jazz Ensemble.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jun 28, 2006

Eight-barbel loach

* Japanese name: Hotoke-dojo * Scientific name: Lefua echigonia * Description: Loaches are in the family of ray-finned fish. They have a flattened body, and four pairs of sensory organs, known as barbels, around the mouth, like whiskers. Catfish have similar sensory organs, but belong to a different...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 27, 2006

PBJ's SmartCaddie, Kai's kitche shears, Dainippon Type Organization's writing accessories, Nussha Japanware

This month, we are turning the spotlight on another eclectic array of goods that have been popping up in some of Tokyo's best design and interior shops recently, and are just begging to be included in any aficionado's arsenal of stylish accouterments. From portable computers to kitchen accessories, here's...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

Goodies to let you live with the Y

The pea-green artery pumping shoals of company staffers into the heart of Japan Inc. every morning, and funneling them home by night, perfectly exemplifies Japanese efficiency.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

No end is an end in itself

Endurance riding on the Yamanote Line soon gives you a numb bum.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

Smiles on retail's fastest track

Triple-A-size batteries, cigarette packs, and evening papers with screaming headlines are all at her fingertips. Kiyomi Okita knows exactly where they and hundreds of other items are, as well as their prices and what is flying off the shelves to whom.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

Simulated calamities

We would be the envy of every railway otaku in Japan: JR East had invited us to try out the company's driving simulator outside Tokyo, where real JR drivers hone their skills at the controls of a virtual train.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

Lives in their hands

Uniformed officials of East Japan Railway Co. are solemnly but methodically at work. Their train has just made an emergency stop after running over a middle-age man, who is either unconscious or dead. The driver radios the control office in central Tokyo, from where police and an ambulance are alerted....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 23, 2006

The garden of earthly delight

An air of seclusion still hangs over Shikoku. This is despite the building of Japan's greatest civil-engineering white elephants -- three grandiose and grandiosely debt-ridden bridge systems that span the Inland Sea and connect the island with Honshu.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 18, 2006

Dress-fest for a warming world thaws political chill

These days, between blasts of hot air over disputed gas fields and outbursts condemning "revisionist" history books, it's rare to hear praise from China for its geopolitical rival to the east.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 18, 2006

Retro's where the future's at

Japan's talking heads of a liberal persuasion are clearly troubled by a rising nationalistic sentiment they detect throughout the land. But while speculation on the geopolitical consequences of any such shift may be an absorbing topic, trends in the world of culture -- and the changing tastes of consumers...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 18, 2006

Have you heard the one about . . ?

Maybe it's simply down to human nature, but stereotypes about foreigners seem to be joke-fodder the world over. In the corners of bars, in huddles at parties, in books and movies, countless laughs have been had, for example, at the expense of supposed American boastfulnes, "uptight" British, "humorless"...
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2006

Demarcation of troubled waters

Japan and South Korea failed to make any progress in their two-day meeting aimed at determining the boundary of their exclusive economic zones in the Sea of Japan. An early breakthrough in the dispute is unlikely, although both countries agreed to hold another round of talks in September. Blocking progress...
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2006

Diet enacts strengthened construction safety laws

The Diet enacted four construction-related laws Wednesday in response to the building scandal involving fake earthquake-safety data that has rocked the nation since November.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami