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COMMENTARY
Nov 9, 2008

McCain's heart wasn't really in it

LOS ANGELES — History's losers can emerge later as history's winners, especially in U.S. politics. John F. Kennedy lost his bid to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1956, but his televised concession speech helped to propel him into the White House four years later.
Reader Mail
Nov 9, 2008

Friendlier sports may kill sumo

Regarding the Nov. 2 article "God forbid if sumo goes the way of pro wrestling": I doubt that sumo will ever be legally listed as an entertainment, because I think it's on the up and up most of the time. As for yaocho (match-fixing) and dekiyama (predetermined...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 9, 2008

Life in Burma: an expatriate's point of view

BURMA CHRONICLES by Guy Delisle. Quebec, Canada: Drawn and Quarterly, 2008, 208 pp., $19.95 (cloth) Over the past 20 years Burma has sunk ever further into an abyss of political oppression and economic malaise under a brutal military junta that shot monks on the streets of Yangon during the Saffron Revolution...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 9, 2008

Wrestling with a guilty verdict

Kazuhiko Togo, a retired career official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former Ambassador to the Netherlands, is the grandson of Shigenori Togo, Japan's foreign minister at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Nov 9, 2008

From heroes to zero, and lasting scars

Nov. 12 marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), commonly known as the Tokyo Trial, which in terms of judicial procedures is now widely regarded as having been fundamentally flawed and biased against the defendants.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2008

'Freeter' marchers get leg up online

Thwarted in the real world in their attempt to glimpse Prime Minister Taro Aso's famously grand Tokyo mansion, a group of young people is finding better success at getting their message out in cyberspace.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 8, 2008

What's all the shouting about?

I boarded the shinkansen the other day and couldn't believe what I saw: everything! Yes, things I never used to see in the shinkansen are now extremely visible, in your face, in big, bold letters making it very hard to avoid reading them. The aisle and seat numbers were all in much larger fonts. Even...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 8, 2008

Wenger won't compromise beliefs despite struggles

LONDON — If Arsenal loses to Manchester United on Saturday the Gunners can forget about winning the Premier League.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 8, 2008

Translating in the spirit of samurai

Iehiro Tokugawa arrives at the publishing house Kobunsha, for which he works on occasion as a translator, accompanied by his Vietnamese wife. He is all in black; she is in blue jeans with a waterfall of shining hair down her back, and very lovely too. Speaking in fluent English, he extends his hand to...
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2008

H&M new darling of Tokyo fashion scene

Hennes & Mauritz, which drew long lines with its first Japan store, is hoping to repeat that success by opening a second shop Saturday with collaborative designs from fashion icon Rei Kawakubo.
BUSINESS
Nov 8, 2008

Nippon Steel sees global turmoil delaying iron ore negotiations

Nippon Steel Corp., the world's second-biggest steelmaker, expects iron ore suppliers including BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group to delay price talks as financial turmoil damps the outlook for steel demand.
BUSINESS
Nov 8, 2008

Free loans give Toyota edge in U.S.

Toyota Motor Corp., rocked by a sales slump that led it to project the biggest annual earnings drop in at least 18 years, may win market share with its ability to fund car loans as cash-strapped U.S. competitors seek government aid.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2008

'Tropic Thunder'

Hollywood has been feeding on itself a bit lately, with a string of comedies that parody its own predictable tendencies. "Scary Movie" sent up the slasher genre: "Team America" took on the jingoistic, kick-ass action movie; and "Meet the Spartans" speared "300," while also digressing into about a kazillion...
MORE SPORTS
Nov 7, 2008

Ishii asks Dalai Lama for guidance

Even Olympic gold medalists sometimes need a little spiritual guidance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 7, 2008

No more riots — Kaiser Chiefs get serious

In a few short years, Kaiser Chiefs, the cheeky indie-pop five-piece from Leeds in northern England, have seen their success on home turf swell from zero (as pre-Kaiser incarnation Parva) to their rebirth as stadium-ready, worldwide superstars. For this they can thank a string of chart-bothering singles...
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2008

Japan asked to join new Arctic shipping regime

Japan should join hands with the United States and other Arctic states in ongoing multilateral efforts to create a new shipping regime in the Arctic Ocean, a U.S. official said Thursday in Tokyo.
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2008

Teacher can't swim in a pool

I studied at Oita University as an exchange student. One thing that was very disappointing about my stay was that I visited many onsens only to be turned away. I couldn't even swim in the local pool. Why? Because I have tattoos. After getting a grant from Japan's government to study in Japan, I was still...
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2008

Pro-whaling case self-serving

I read with interest Dan Goodman's Nov. 2 letter, "Bogus arguments about whaling." The Institute of Cetacean Research, with which Goodman is affiliated, is a "unique organization in Japan specializing in the biological and social sciences related to whales . . . whose legal status is authorized by the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2008

A place for women

Seian Shima's "Untitled" (1918), in "Women Artists in Osaka" at the Osaka City Museum of Modern Art till Dec. 7, is a remarkable work. A self-portrait — uncommon in Japanese painting generally — it conforms to no ideal form of beauty, unlike images done in the bijinga (beautiful woman pictures) genre....
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2008

Major slowdown in the offing

When the Bank of Japan cuts rates in an era of increasing inflation because of imports for the first time in seven years in the vain hope of boosting the Japanese economy via domestic consumption, you know that there is going to be a very bad storm to weather ahead.
BUSINESS
Nov 6, 2008

Great Depression different

In a bid to stabilize financial markets, Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa denied Wednesday that the current global economic crisis is similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes