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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2014

The New Yorker is bad for cartooning

Writer-cartoonist says The New Yorker magazine prints a lot of awful cartoons, yet uses its reputation in order to elevate terrible work as the profession's platinum standard.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2014

The India democracy show

Indians are just days away from the start of the greatest democratic show on earth, as 814.5 million of them prepare to cast ballots at 930,000 polling stations between April 7 and May 12.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 1, 2014

LA lifestyle gives starRo a new take on making music

Video-chatting with Los Angeles resident Shinya Mizoguchi toward the tail end of a particularly testing Tokyo winter, it's hard not to feel a twinge of jealousy. I deliberately avoid defaulting to my typically British weather-related opening gambit of small talk, but it's not long before the topic is...
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Mar 31, 2014

Do you feel like people have been deceived about issues surrounding Fukushima? And if so, by whom?

I'm suspicious about the whole thing. I don't know who is covering what up, but I definitely feel there's a lot we're not being told about. There's absolutely no way that everything could be as fine as we are being led to believe after such a massive disaster.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 31, 2014

The Fukushima disaster: Three years on, who's fooling whom?

Japan's new Basic Energy Plan sees nuclear power as an important base load energy source. But whatever 'base load' means politically, the public is lulled — fooled — into a sense that, despite Fukushima, nuclear will remain a logistically viable long-term option.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Mar 31, 2014

Call the sitter: Parents resort to online services out of economic necessity

Most Japanese parents who use babysitters do so because of work obligations.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 30, 2014

Chinese grabs $14.5 billion in assets linked to Zhou probe

Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security czar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the center of China's biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, two sources said.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 29, 2014

Fashion takes a baby step in right direction

The fashion industry has been criticized for promoting impossible body images by pressuring models, directly or indirectly, to remain as skinny as possible. Nevertheless, so-called plus-size models have become well-represented in the industry over the past 30 years. In the beginning, it was a necessary...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society / FOCUS
Mar 27, 2014

Behind doors, drinking thrives in Iran

"Have a shot of tequila first, cheer up!" Shahriyar tells guests gathered at his luxury apartment in Tehran. His girlfriend, Shima, says they party every weekend.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 27, 2014

Okinawa film fest gives fans an up-close view of the stars

Why go to Okinawa for movies? For anyone familiar with the international festival circuit, especially at its higher, artier end, the Okinawa International Movie Festival may well prompt this question — and a negative answer. "It's not a real film festival!" a fellow foreign journalist exclaimed to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 25, 2014

Babymetal aren't the latest chapter in the 'wacky Japan' story

The British are mad, aren't they? That Kate Bush with her crazy gyrating around a cello in the video for "Babushka," that daft loon Robbie Williams with his funky skeleton costume, those kerrr-azy Tellytubbies with their wacky dance routines — what is it about the British that makes them so totally...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2014

Spelling ace Bostrom wins 2014 bee

Michaella Bostrom has been crowned winner of the 5th Japan Times Spelling Bee after besting 37 other students from around the country, booking a ticket to the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington on her third try.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 23, 2014

Germans finally start poking fun at the Fuhrer

If Hitler were alive today, would he become a standup comic? Incredible though that may sound to anyone who lived through World War II, that is the scenario sketched out in "Look Who's Back," a satirical novel by Timur Vermes, which topped the best-seller lists in Germany after its publication in 2012...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2014

'Tank girls' lead the charge

Being a soldier in Japan after World War II was seen as a job for failed police recruits and unemployed youths from depressed rural towns.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 16, 2014

U.S. senator's criticism of bitcoin is misguided for playing down investors' love of the game

It isn't clear why bitcoin deflation matters to the U.S. economy. Goods and services aren't priced in bitcoins. The buyer who 'spends' bitcoins at a restaurant or store is just exchanging them for dollars, which do the buying.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 15, 2014

Lost Malaysia passenger jet was diverted deliberately, premier says

Investigators believe someone aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 turned the jetliner around and flew for nearly seven hours after it vanished.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 15, 2014

Olympics highlight the need for foreign blue-collar laborers

In a recent column, Tokyo Shimbun sportswriter Masaru Ogawa called on past and future Olympic athletes to come forward and talk about what he sees as the biggest problem facing the Tokyo 2020 Games: lack of construction workers. Next year, work on venues will start in earnest, but Japan is already burdened...
Reader Mail
Mar 15, 2014

Western products might look better

Another word for xenophobia, of course, is racism. (Just look at the photo for the March 9 article.) What's so "normal" about anti-foreigner rhetoric and hate speech in an island nation dependent on international trade for its economic well-being, even for its daily bread?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Mar 15, 2014

West prepares sanctions as Russia presses on with Crimea takeover

Six hours of crisis talks between Washington and Moscow ended with both sides still far apart Friday, and dozens of Russians linked to Russia's gradual takeover of Crimea could face U.S. and EU travel bans and asset freezes on Monday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Mar 13, 2014

BitSummit reveals tantalizing homemade worlds of play

After a successful debut last year, former Q-Games producer James Mielke once again shone a light on Japan's independent gaming scene with the second edition of BitSummit, a gathering of independent developers.
Reader Mail
Mar 12, 2014

Hong Kong likes Japanese tourists

I would like to mention something that the Hong Kong media never puts out when it comes to problems regarding Japan: Youths such as myself have no problem with Japan.
Reader Mail
Mar 12, 2014

Great divide over animal rights

When I read Philip Brasor's Feb. 23 Media Mix article, "Japan takes baby steps toward a proper debate about animal rights," I again felt regret that the gap of understanding between the two sides doesn't seem to be getting any narrower. I agree that the most important aim of the animal welfare movement...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Mar 7, 2014

Abuse of Dolphins trainer Inoue revealed in NFL report regrettable

The alleged harassment in the Miami Dolphins locker room became one of the biggest off-gridiron topics in contemporary NFL history.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 6, 2014

All-genre focus is the key to Art Fair Tokyo's success

It is difficult to criticize Art Fair Tokyo, the commercial art fair that celebrates its ninth edition at Tokyo International Forum in Yurakucho this weekend. Truth be told, it's a wonder that the event has reached nine editions at all, what with the inherent fickleness of the art market and Japan's...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 6, 2014

China's civilian fleet is a potent force asserting sovereignty in disputed seas

From harassing Filipino fishing boats and monitoring oil exploration off Vietnam to playing cat-and-mouse with the Japan Coast Guard, China's expanding fleet of civilian patrol vessels have become the enforcers in disputed Asian waters.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2014

China gives U.S. ambassador a racist send-off

What could've ignited the state-owned China News Service to bid farewell to the ethnically Chinese, outgoing U.S. ambassador with a pseudonymous news item referring to him as a 'yellow-skinned, white-hearted banana man'?
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 2, 2014

Hundreds in Hong Kong protest meat cleaver attack on journalist

Hundreds of people took to Hong Kong's streets to show support for press freedom and to demand police step up efforts to catch the assailants who critically injured the former chief editor of a newspaper in the city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 1, 2014

Doraemon, the robot cat, gets your tongue

An earless blue robotic cat, one pocket bulging with gadgets from the future and a lifelong fear of mice: Who is he? Japan roars the answer — but English readers may be stumped. Because, even though he's a government-appointed "cultural ambassador" and a familiar face in more than 30 countries, with...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Feb 28, 2014

The lesson of the long-distance runner: 'There are no impossibles'

Maickel Melamed was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and his parents were told he would not live long. Almost four decades on, Melamed has crossed marathon finishing lines in New York, Berlin and Chicago — and conquered Venezuela's highest mountain.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear