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Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 25, 2005

Niigata taiko troupe taps ancient traditions

One of Japan's best-loved taiko (Japanese drumming) groups, Kodo, is performing throughout Japan in December. Based on Sado Island, Kodo started out in 1981 and has since performed all over the world. Each year, Kodo ushers in the end of the year with a bang with their "December Concert" series. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 24, 2005

Artifacts so old they're modern

Civilization seems to have its own enormous bell curve. If you go back a few hundred years, everything looks old, quaint, dated. The aesthetic of those times immediately tells you that people were looking at the world in quite a different way from you. However, if you keep the pedal of your time machine...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 24, 2005

Stand-outs at TDW

With TDW taking over the city, there were plenty of chances to get lost among the abundant design goodies while exploring some of Tokyo's most noteworthy design addresses. From the massive lineup of concepts and products, here are a few that stood out:
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2005

Developers wed something old, new

Central Tokyo is undergoing an office redevelopment boom that in part includes restoring structures from the Meiji to Showa eras and sometimes incorporating them into new high rises, and making replicas of historic buildings, including famous Western-style ones.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2005

Tackling juvenile crime

In 2004, adults committed 3.42 million criminal offenses, a decline for the second year in a row from the postwar record set in 2002. Still, the number of criminal incidents remains disturbingly high. The situation is similar for juvenile delinquency, as shown by the National Police Agency's white paper...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2005

LDP at 50 still rules, Koizumi permitting

The Liberal Democratic Party celebrated its 50th anniversary Tuesday and vowed to press ahead with reforms.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2005

Hot baths may cause sudden death: study

It is well known that the Japanese love to unwind in hot baths, but what perhaps is not so well known is that about 14,000 people die each year from taking them.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2005

Putin, Koizumi bolster economic ties, skip isles

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed Monday to increase security and economic cooperation despite the 60-year territorial row over the four Russian-held islands off northern Hokkaido.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 21, 2005

Takahashi wins in Tokyo

Sydney Olympic champion Naoko Takahashi overcame a career-threatening leg injury to win the Tokyo International Women's Marathon in a dramatic comeback to full marathon racing on Sunday.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 21, 2005

Tweedle-George, tweedle-Jun and their futures in Wonderland

In Alice's world through the looking glass, Tweedledum has "Dum" embroidered on his collar and Tweedledee has "Dee" embroidered likewise. Alice assumes they both have "Tweedle" written on the backs of their collars as well. In our world of 2005, "Dum" would read "George W." and "Dee" would be "Junichiro,"...
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2005

Asbestos drug gets fast-track status

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to shorten the review period for a drug to treat mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure, it was learned Saturday.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Nov 20, 2005

Update beckons for 'lucky' feline

A retired mannequin sculptor who fashioned his entire career out of observing women's curves is now eyeing curves of an even more mystical kind: those of the manekineko, the good-luck "beckoning cat" statues found all over Japan in the corners of bars, restaurants and lottery-ticket booths, where their...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 20, 2005

The good, the bad and the cliched

A RABBIT'S EYES by Kenjiro Haitani. Vertical, 2005, 288 pp., $14.95 (paper). On first publication, the mellow and delightful 1974 novel "A Rabbit's Eyes," out now in English for the first time, brought Kenjiro Haitani a great deal of fame and a wide following.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 19, 2005

Play of Wigan Athletic is story of Premier League season

Here's a good trivia question -- name a Wigan Athletic player.
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2005

2,252 suits filed against usurious consumer lenders

are crying because they cannot pay the money," he said. "But I want people to know there are interest charges they don't need to pay, and there is a way to get that money back. . . . I hope these lawsuits will help (borrowers) rebuild their lives." Attorney Kenji Utsunomiya told the media the suits...
BUSINESS
Nov 19, 2005

Meiji Yasuda execs take pay cuts for skimping on claims

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. on Friday announced disciplinary actions against incoming top executives and other employees over the company's failure to pay insurance benefits to legitimate claimants, bringing the number of employees punished over the practice to 90.
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2005

Roh raps Koizumi anew on Yasukuni

and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun meet Friday in Pusan, South Korea, at the APEC leaders' summit.
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2005

IC tags eyed to curb accidents involving kids

NTT Data Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and three other companies have developed a safety system using a wireless integrated circuit tag to help prevent traffic accidents involving children.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 19, 2005

Pan-Asianism central to exile activist's ideology

Author, artist, thorn in the flesh of America's political right and confirmed pan-Asianist M.T. Karthik is taking time to return to his roots in Madras. Preparing to make the first of several trips to India, he will then move on to Portugal before returning to Japan, where he is in self-imposed exile...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Nov 18, 2005

Trying very hard to be trendy

Building a brand spanking new store from the foundations up is usually the preserve of European luxury brands, but down in Harajuku, a huge new concrete monolith called Tokyo Hipsters Club is an exception to the rule.
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2005

More arrests over mushroom claims

Seven people, including an executive of a Tokyo-based publishing company, were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of advertising "meshimakobu" mushrooms as an anticancer drug in 2003 in violation of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, investigation sources said.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2005

Koizumi, Bush stress strong ties

KYOTO -- U.S. President George W. Bush, in reaffirming his close personal ties Wednesday with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, praised the latter's recent election win as a model for democracy and underscored that the close Japan-U.S. relationship is important for all of Asia and beyond.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 17, 2005

A new art center, in Kiyosumi

This week brings some good news and some bad news to Tokyo's contemporary art scene. The good news is that a group of galleries that have been sharing a building in Shinkawa since January 2003 have relocated en masse, and now all boast significantly bigger spaces. The bad news is that the galleries vacated...

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