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Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006

Editor on a mission for consumers

Some people sarcastically refer to journalists in Japan as "sarariman reporters." That's because even though the Fourth Estate potentially has enormous power and influence, its members are often timid, risk-averse and happy to cozy up with the politicians, government agencies and corporations they cover....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006

Ugly and macho or ultimate supercool on wheels?

The streets of central Tokyo are thronged with countless high-end automobiles, but one model above all others stands out from the crowd. Two meters high and 2.1 meters wide, with a mean, military-style mien, the Hummer H2 is hard to miss among the massed ranks of Toyotas, Nissans, Beemers and Mercs....
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 14, 2006

Legendary lensman of rock

Jim Marshall's credentials as "THE rock 'n' roll photographer" are secured.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Apr 14, 2006

Knight expands fashion empire

Eccentric British fashion designer Paul Smith is currently presiding over a rollout of stores across the globe. Following on from the December 2005 opening of a bubblegum-pink store on Melrose Avenue, L.A., last week he was in Tokyo to unveil a four-story flagship in the Aoyama district. Later this year...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 14, 2006

Graffiti robot drips technology

"Auto Portrait" is a weekend of "sonic and visual interludes" taking place at Information Gallery in Tokyo from April 14 to 16. The show features automated wall paintings by Hektor, a portable spray paint output device for laptop computers. There will also be a theremin performance by Yuri Suzuki and...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 12, 2006

Peacock butterfly

* Japanese name: Kujaku-cho * Scientific name: Inachis io geisha * Description: Instantly recognizable, with its chocolate-brown body, striking red wings and eye spots, the peacock is in the Nymphalid family of butterflies. In members of this family, the front pair of legs are reduced and useless for...
Japan Times
Features
Apr 9, 2006

Off the road from Damascus

Megumi Yoshitake's experience of living with the Bedouin is quite probably unique. Although her primary medium is photography, here she also offers some written snippets of memory and expression from her numerous sojourns in the Syrian Desert since the 1980s.
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2006

NPA seeks 20% cuts in road deaths

The National Police Agency will focus on cyclists and elderly people to achieve a national goal of reducing traffic deaths and injuries by 20 percent a year over the next five years, according to an action program unveiled Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Apr 7, 2006

Getting animated in Suginami

Suginami Ward may be known as a bed town, but the residents are restless. Butting up against Musashino and Mitaka cities and sharing a "west wing" location with Setagaya Ward to the south and Nerima Ward to the north, what appears to be a quiet residential area has always been a hotbed of activism.
BASKETBALL
Apr 4, 2006

All Super League teams to go pro

All seven corporate teams in the Super League have shown their intentions to join a men's professional basketball league, the Japan Basketball Association said Monday.
Japan Times
Features
Apr 2, 2006

Taking tanka to a new and timeless plane

Machi Tawara made a spectacular debut as a tanka poet at the age of 25 in 1987, and since then the Osaka-born artist has devoted her life to condensing her world into those neat, rhythmic but not rhyming, 31-syllable compositions.
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2006

New Tokyo Tower to be built in Sumida

NHK and five commercial TV broadcasters in the Tokyo area have decided to build a new radio and TV transmitter dubbed New Tokyo Tower, in Sumida Ward by 2010, sources familiar with the project said Saturday.
Japan Times
Features / JAPAN FASHION WEEK FALL/WINTER 06-07
Mar 26, 2006

Thoughts and images from fashionistas

With JFW distinctly short on overseas visitors, five foreign fashionistas who were there offer their thoughts and images of the flagging event:
Japan Times
Features / JAPAN FASHION WEEK FALL/WINTER 06-07
Mar 26, 2006

Half a century of fine memories made from an impeccable 'fusion'

A stroll around Hanae Mori's retrospective, being held until April 11 at the New National Theater in Shinjuku, is for me like wandering back down memory lane: I remember admiring the floral dresses -- peonies or wisteria -- when, in a flash of brilliant color, they burst onto the catwalk for the first...
Japan Times
Features / JAPAN FASHION WEEK FALL/WINTER 06-07
Mar 26, 2006

Rochas re-mixed

Among the new kids on the block at Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo this season, the only one in the menswear department was the Rochas line by Masatomo, whose elegant but unpretentiously tailored pieces are created under an agreement between Tokyo-based Renown Inc. and the venerable Paris-based Rochas.
Japan Times
Features / JAPAN FASHION WEEK FALL/WINTER 06-07
Mar 26, 2006

Virtual retailers forge fortunes with fashion

There's a revolution going on in the Japanese fashion world -- but it is nowhere near the catwalks. The revolution is happening on the web.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 26, 2006

Mystery and intrigue preserved in translation

MY NAME IS RED by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Erdag Goknar. London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 2002, 508 pp., £7.99 (paper). CROSSFIRE by Miyuki Miyabe, translated by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, 404 pp., 2,600 yen (cloth). "A city's intellect," soliloquizes...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2006

Suginami Ward can't just put willing residents' info on Juki Net: court

The Tokyo District Court dismissed a demand Friday by Tokyo's Suginami Ward that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government accept partial data on residents for the national resident registry network.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 24, 2006

Tokyo music festival to celebrate Mozart

Whether you are a classical music beginner, a hardcore addict or just a trend-follower, head's up! La Folle Journee au Japon Music Festival is coming to Tokyo during the Golden Week holidays and will be held from Saturday, April 29 to May 6.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 24, 2006

Chic 'n' sweet and right on the bull's eye

For many commuters, Yoyogi-Uehara is simply the name of a station at which they change for an express train home. It is also the kind of upmarket address which, if you live there, means you have arrived.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 23, 2006

Dueling kabuki in Shibuya

Currently at the Parco Theatre, a short distance across Shibuya from Theatre Cocoon, is further evidence of the vitality of contemporary kabuki. However, unlike Kazuyoshi Kushida's re-imaginings of "Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (Tokaido Ghost Story)," "Ketto! Takadanobaba (Duel in Takadanobaba)" at Parco is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 23, 2006

Tokyo Museum of Photography puts the private out in public

Conceived during the optimism of the bubble era, but built in the mid 1990s, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography's development was stunted by budget cuts, less-than-impressive attendance and an unfocused raison d'etre.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Mar 22, 2006

Black-spotted frog

* Japanese name: Tonosama-gaeru * Scientific name: Rana nigromaculata * Description: Males of this handsome frog grow to about 70-mm long, while females are slightly larger at 77 mm. They vary in color, from lime green to gray-brown, but they all have a pattern of black spots down the flanks of their...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Mar 19, 2006

Creative expression is the need of their souls

Reciting in a rap rhythm, a young man read his poem in a low, strong voice as 10 others around him listened intently.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Mar 19, 2006

Toys that transformed the world's way of play

What is it with Japan and robots? For whatever reason, they have been an integral part of the national psyche for decades. While Toyota's automated production lines might be the first thing that springs to mind, robotic creatures, from Astroboy to Aibo, have also become an integral part of the nation's...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Mar 19, 2006

Take note of how to sort out your life

Despite working late every day, Yukihiro Misawa always felt he wasn't getting enough done.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 17, 2006

It's time to get healthy

The mirror does not lie, and nor do the bathroom scales. All that rich, stick-to-the-ribs winter food has inevitably stuck to the waistline too, leaving us sluggish and out of balance. So now, with the ume (plum) in bloom and spring nigh, it seems like the right moment to take stock, lighten up the diet and shed a few kilos. Time to get back in balance.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Mar 10, 2006

Bisty boys invade Omotesando Hills

Nothing makes my heart skip a beat like the discovery of a great new wine. Yet the prospect of paying for a full bottle of something new, only to discover on first sip that it's definitely a not- for-me style, can prove daunting for even the most adventuresome. Fortunately for wine lovers in the Tokyo...

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