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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Sep 6, 2005

What would you do if you were Prime Minister of Japan?

Edwin Webb English teacher, 24 There's too much money being spent in the outer prefectures on concrete. I would focus on promoting tourism. I've seen too many natural features defaced with concrete.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 4, 2005

NHK's "Dramatic Earth" offers a history of New York City and more

It's generally agreed that New York City is the most dynamic and important metropolis in the world. A global center of economics, entertainment, media and sports, as well as being the home of the United Nations, the Big Apple is peerless as a center of attention.
Japan Times
Features
Sep 4, 2005

Nagano's champion of change

He is perhaps the most well-known governor in Japan, largely because he has been breaking with tradition ever since he took office in Nagano Prefecture in October 2000.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 4, 2005

Selective thinking devalues the V-word's worth

There is a six-letter word so abused and perverted these days that I wouldn't blame the media for banning it altogether. It is the V-word and, I must confess, I hesitated to write this column about it myself. But journalists must not be daunted by trends that pollute . . . and so, here we go. The word,...
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2005

Women-only salons offer refuge after last trains

There is good news for weary women in Tokyo who stay out late and miss their last trains after working long hours or hanging out with friends.
Features
Aug 28, 2005

Surrender seen close up

Col. Hervey Bennett Whipple was made logistics officer for U.S. Forces in the Southwest Pacific, operating from bases in Australia, in February 1942. In the following month he came to work for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who had arrived in Australia after a daring escape from Corregidor in Manila Bay.
Features
Aug 28, 2005

Unique memoirs saved by chance

It is one thing to witness history being made and quite another to stage-manage it. Such was the task entrusted to a 31-year-old U.S. Army colonel who was assigned by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to plan the Japanese surrender ceremony 60 years ago this coming week. It was, in short, Col. H. Bennett Whipple's...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2005

Art show by visually impaired offers a hands-on experience

Seeing with their hands -- that is what young visually disabled artists did to create works for an ongoing exhibition at Gallery Tom.
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2005

Matsushita 65-inch PDP TV under 1 million yen

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Thursday it will offer the world's first full high-definition 65-inch plasma display panel TVs with a price tag of less than 1 million yen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Aug 26, 2005

Weekend trance party picks 08.26

Saturday, Aug. 27-28
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Aug 25, 2005

River grasshopper

* Japanese name: Kawarabatta * Scientific name: Eusphingonotus japonicus * Description: This is a grasshopper with a mottled, stone-gray or brown body that is very difficult to spot. Males are between 25-30 mm long, females between 40-43 mm. The large hind legs (femurs) have a herring-bone pattern,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 24, 2005

The best from a bygone era

I was recently tempted to term the handsome old Bridgestone Museum as "the last of a dying breed." But that hardly seems appropriate any more, considering the Nihonbashi art space's ongoing evolution. Instead, the Bridgestone might be better described as "a survivor" -- and one of the best -- from a...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

Not fade away

On stage, Takashi Ugawa, 47, feels lighter than air. One reason is that the young and pretty tarento (showbiz personality) Eiko Koike has just flashed his band a smile. Another is that for a whole month now, he's avoided food and beer after 9 p.m.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

End of an era in Shibuya style

Where did all the gyaru (trashy girls) go? With their carroty tans, shoveled-on makeup and bleached hair, the kogaru (high gals), ganguro (black faces) and yamamba (ogresses) were a style phenomenon the likes of which may never be seen again.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2005

The Steve Kimock Band: "Eudemonic"

After years of subsisting on commercial releases of live shows, The Steve Kimock Band has finally recorded a studio album. "Eudemonic," produced by the eclectic guitarist himself and his 13-Grammy-winning drummer Rodney Holmes, loses none of the band's live power and suppleness. The tracks have a wealth...
Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

Hot ice tops massif menu

In Nagoya City, so I heard, there's a mountain that is really tough to conquer. But as Nagoya is on the lowland Nobi Plain straddling Aichi and Gifu prefectures, how could that be, this trained observer wondered?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 19, 2005

Shimauta Paradise, Phuket Aroyna Tabeta: Urban oases for summertime dining

Trapped in Tokyo through another steamy summer and, not surprisingly, we are dreaming of south-sea islands. Sun-dappled beaches of pure white sand lapped by the calm, azure ocean; the wind soughing through fields of sugar cane; and a plate of stewed pigs' ears and goat sashimi washed down with high-octane...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Aug 19, 2005

Weekend trance party picks 08.19

Full Moon parties on Saturday, Aug. 20:
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2005

7.2 Tohoku temblor injures at least 58, even rattles Tokyo

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 struck the Tohoku region just before noon Tuesday, injuring at least 58 people, mainly in Miyagi Prefecture, and giving areas as far away as Tokyo a good long jolt.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 14, 2005

Tried to the limit and beyond

He was born in America, raised in Japan, and felt like a misfit in both societies. Had he lived somewhere else in some other time, he might have been a renowned scholar of Chinese classics, in which he was an outstanding student. Or an artist in the United States, like his daughter is now.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 14, 2005

Author's 'sense of mission' shines on through the flames

At age 13, in total despair after losing her parents and two sisters, Toshiko Takagi tried to kill herself. But now, 60 years later, she stresses she never consciously tried to commit suicide.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 14, 2005

He hops onto a shuttle, jumps off to a media shuffle

Last Tuesday's landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery in the deserts of California capped a tense two weeks in which the safety of the vehicle and the seven astronauts it contained was never 100 percent assured. The loss of foam insulation during liftoff was eerily reminiscent of the last shuttle mission...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 14, 2005

Caught in the middle: an 'enemy' in service of the Emperor

Life in Japan during the war years was not easy for foreign-born persons of Japanese parentage, but relatively speaking it would seem that I had a fairly easy time.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 14, 2005

Spared suicide pilot fights in cause of peace

Every Sunday evening finds Masamichi Shida among a group of antiwar protesters outside the train station in Kamakura, south of Tokyo, singing songs opposing Japan's participation in the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq.
Features
Aug 14, 2005

Looking back on brainwashing

Koya Azumi leans over the living-room table at his home outside Tokyo on a warm afternoon, stirring coffee. Birds twitter outside, but otherwise there is only silence. It is a tableau of serenity, of peace.
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2005

Nostalgia wave sees '60s 'anime' hits going DVD

A string of animations aired during Japan's miraculous economic boom of the 1960s is gradually regaining popularity with people in their 40s to 50s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Aug 12, 2005

Weekend trance party picks 08.12

Friday 08.12
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Aug 12, 2005

A little more love is in store for you

It's not often that I get to write about a shop that really gets me excited, but Colour By Numbers pushes more than a few of my buttons. It debuted in Daikanyama two weeks ago, one year to the day after the opening of its Aoyama sister store Loveless, and carries a big selection of creations by Japan-based...

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