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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 24, 2006

Sony's Aquos line, Kaichiro Yamada's Tatami chair, Tokujin Yoshioka's PANE chair, MSG's Kakehouki broom

Slim and sleek
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 20, 2006

An intro to Tokyo's film fest

The Tokyo International Film Festival, Japan's biggest, glitziest film fest, opens Saturday, Oct. 21, and runs for nine days at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills in Roppongi, Bunkamura in Shibuya and other venues around the city. The selection is huge, beginning with the four main sections: the Competition,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 17, 2006

Visiting a theme park sure beats working, unless . . .

Japan has lots of young people who are out of work or not even in the hunt for a job. The government estimates that 850,000 people, from teens through to their 30s, fall into the category of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training). Then there are the "freeters," youths who only work odd jobs...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 15, 2006

Last rites for the memories as beloved dolls pass away

An opulent pair of Hime daruma prince and princess dolls from Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku has graced the living room of Tamiko Okamoto's home in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, since 1964. A wedding gift from a close friend, the dolls, side by side in a glass case, had been part of the family for all those...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 15, 2006

Top trimmer styles two leaders in a row

Japan's new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has declared he will continue his predecessor's reform policies. That's hardly a surprise, as Abe was Chief Cabinet Secretary under former leader Junichiro Koizumi, and before that was secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party when Koizumi was its president....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 15, 2006

Intimacy crusader strives to rekindle Japan's fires of marital passion

At first glance, 46-year-old Mayumi Futamatsu looks like a regular housewife. But as someone who's "seen both heaven and hell" in her two marriages, she's a woman with a mission to help all women to be happy -- through having better sex lives.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 14, 2006

Tetsuya Noda

The College Women's Association of Japan is holding its 51st Annual Print Show Oct. 20 to 22 at the Tokyo American Club. As well as exhibiting 211 new prints, the show features demonstrations, activities and lectures, and an associate show focusing on two young prize-winning women.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2006

G. Love and Special Sauce

Comprising guitarist Garret Dutton (Mr. G. Love himself), upright bassist Jimmie Prescott (Jimi Jazz) and drummer Jeffrey Clemens (Houseman), Philadelphia's G. Love & Special Sauce first began turning heads with the release of their nearly gold-certified, 1994 self-titled debut. Incorporating a mish-mash...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 13, 2006

Ensemble puts a new spin on the traditional

The Roppongi-based International House of Japan will hold a concert on Oct. 20 to mark the completion of the renovation of its new hall. The music ensemble Ora-J will perform as part of the IHJ Concert Series, "The Traditional & Contemporary in the Present," that features Japanese music performed by...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Oct 11, 2006

Spangle

* Japanese name: Kuro-ageha * Scientific name: Papilio protenor * Description: This is a stunning, exotic and beautiful butterfly with black-and-white forewings patterned almost like a zebra, and black hindwings with a delicate white border and deep red eyespots with black centers. The borders of the...
COMMENTARY
Oct 9, 2006

Easier way to emissions cuts

Generally speaking, innovation is driven by constraints and shortages. When Japan faced the first international oil crisis in 1973, it looked like the end of the world for the nation, since it depended on imports for 99 percent of its oil. However, Japan survived the oil crunch and used it as a springboard...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

When Japan's beleaguered textiles industry belatedly decided to invest in organizing a fashion week to rival the best of Paris, Milan, New York and London -- and persuaded the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to back it -- they hoped a slick new event would garner valuable worldwide media coverage...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

LONDON CALLING

Home to some 50,000 people born in Japan, London has been well served for some time with aspects of culture and lifestyle from the Land of the Rising Sun.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 6, 2006

Rock, dance collide at outdoor fest

Billing itself as an outdoor festival in Tokyo "under the sun," the seventh Nagisa Music Festival takes place Oct. 14-15.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Oct 6, 2006

Animal magic in the jungle of Setagaya

Taxi drivers claim that, unless you've lived there all your life, Setagaya is nearly impossible to navigate. Major thoroughfares pulse straight across the second largest of Tokyo's 23 wards, but off the highway a maze of tapering, winding one-way alleys will often as not dead-end you in someone's back...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 6, 2006

Oz wine, photography

In commemoration of the 2006 Australia-Japan Year of Exchange, Otemachi Cafe in Tokyo is currently hosting an Australia Festival. The festival features a wine evening tonight (Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.). The first 50 people to arrive can enjoy Australian wines for free.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 6, 2006

Go with the grain at Kokoromai

Shinmai-nyuka -- the new rice is in stock. Far more than just a statement of fact, it's a cry of exultation that has echoed down the centuries. Last autumn's rice is old and tired; this year's newly harvested grain is fresh and full of flavor. Is that not cause for celebration?
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2006

Half a glass in Turkey

The case of Turkish novelist Elif Shafak makes it hard to decide whether the glass that is Turkey is half-full or half-empty.
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Sep 29, 2006

Psychedelic radar 09.29

Mother Records: Sept. 30
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 29, 2006

Finding the finest foods from afar

Tokyo is not just one of the world's great restaurant cities, it's equally good for those who prefer to cook at home. Name the country or cuisine: Chances are you can find whatever ingredients you need, if not at your local supermarket, then certainly without having to leave the metropolis.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 29, 2006

J-cool factor struggles to woo NYC

For someone who stands to gain from the hot topic of Japan's "Gross National Cool," Taeko Baba ought to be the last to pop the phenomenon's bubble.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 28, 2006

Seeing Paris through Hokusai's eyes

In the often featureless landscape of Tokyo, a fleeting glimpse of Tokyo Tower in the distance can help to give a sense of direction and position. No matter how unfamiliar a particular street may be, seeing a familiar landmark in the distance often makes us feel strangely at home.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 28, 2006

'New Europe' has plenty of old problems

GENEVA -- The riots in Budapest, incited by leaked tapes that show Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany openly admitting that his government had lied for over a year about the country's dire finances, are but the latest evidence that things are going seriously wrong across Eastern Europe.
BASKETBALL
Sep 27, 2006

Evessa tops Korean hoops squad

The Osaka Evessa defeated the Samsung Thunders 87-80 Monday night at the Osaka City Central Gymnasium in the first of a two-game home-and-home series between the teams.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 27, 2006

Gigi catfish

* Japanese name: Gigi * Scientific name: Pelteobagrus nudiceps * Description: This is a rather small, 10- to 15-cm-long bottom-dwelling river fish that is remarkable for being one of the few aquatic organisms to have a voice. Fishermen report that when a gigi catfish is landed, it emits a "giiii-giiii"...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 25, 2006

Supreme Court ruling doesn't hold water

NEW YORK -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can't be serious. In a recent decision he penned, he quoted "a famous exchange" in the 1942 movie "Casablanca" and a tale about "an Eastern guru" exclaiming, "Ah, after that it is turtles all the way down." The first quote was intended to deride the...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 24, 2006

Dark tales of a neglected Tokyo underclass

ABANDON THE OLD IN TOKYO by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, edited and designed by Adrian Tomine, introduction by Koji Suzuki. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 200 pp., $19.95 (cloth). An old man is reduced by the debt that has ruined him to performing like a dog ("Why don't you spin around three times and bark?")....
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 24, 2006

Koizumi's Shake, Rattle & Roll

Elvis impersonator? Japan's Thatcher? Faction buster? Nah, as the curtain falls on the Koizumi show, he will be remembered above all for his missed opportunities and self-indulgent gestures at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo -- that, and steamrollering the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 into oblivion....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 23, 2006

Sony takes center stage at Tokyo Game Show

CHIBA -- The nation's biggest game exhibition kicked off at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba on Friday as industry officials and media reporters took a peek at the next-generation video-game consoles before they hit the stores later this year.

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