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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 14, 2007

Abuse, racism, lost evidence deny justice in Valentine case

In 1999, a Brazilian resident of Japan named Milton Higaki was involved in an accident that killed a schoolgirl. Rather than face justice in Japan, he fled to Brazil fearing "discrimination as a foreigner in Japanese courts."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 14, 2007

Manga frenzy proves that we're all kids at heart

That whole deal about growing up and behaving like an adult? Scrap it, you don't have to — at least not in the Japan of recent years. Adult responsibilities, adult worries, adult concerns — while we all know such things exist, it's become possible to dodge them well into your 30s and 40s, in a kind...
Reader Mail
Aug 12, 2007

Ridiculous rebuke of Asashoryu

The Aug. 4 editorial, "A grand champion is rebuked," makes me skeptical of the writer's sporting expertise. In my experience, one can still participate in relatively low-contact sports like soccer even with injuries if it is just for fun. Asashoryu was playing in a charity soccer game, which is not...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 10, 2007

Two fingers to the mainstream

"We were playing these 200-capacity venues that weren't really legal. There were just too many people in there, climbing on the bar, climbing on the speakers and jumping off," Chris Batten, the 20-year-old bassist from British post-hardcore band Enter Shikari tells The Japan Times.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 9, 2007

A sex trip that aims to ease our anxieties

The Japan Times gets up close and personal with director John Cameron Mitchell and actress Sook-Yin Lee about the sexiest film of 2007
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2007

A question of G8 legitimacy

Viewed from the media coverage of the Group of Eight Summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, the gathering was dominated by three main issues: environment, missile defense and clashes between demonstrators and police.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 5, 2007

Celeb candidates stung by real election hero

TV Tokyo began its summary coverage of last Sunday's Upper House election later than the other stations, and included some genuine theater: A short dramatization of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's "crushing defeat."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 4, 2007

Speech contest aims to pull nation together

Up until a few years ago, Tom Gerrard was an entrepreneur with an eye to mainstream business. He then underwent a radical shift of attitude and interest, changing the name of his company in 2004 from Comm Pro (Communication Professionals) to Global Learning.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2007

Resolution irks right wing but won't harm relations

OSAKA — The passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of a nonbinding resolution calling on Japan to apologize for forcing thousands of young women into sexual slavery during the war will further inflame Japan's rightwing politicians and media, according to experts on Japan's relations with the...
Reader Mail
Jul 29, 2007

The blame for nonacceptance

Roger Pulvers makes some valid points in his July 22 article, "Outsiders or not, that is the question," but misses the main one, which is that foreigners are excluded from the core workforce. In 10 years of living in Japan, I never met a gaijin salaryman. All...
Reader Mail / The Argument: radioactive water
Jul 29, 2007

Sumo fans deserved mention

Like most sumo fans, I followed the Nagoya Tournament with particular attention this year and was thrilled that it developed into such a close contest. Naturally the participation of two yokozuna for the first time in a while was a factor, but in particular, it was the phenomenal success of Kotomitsuki....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 29, 2007

Keeping abreast of developments on the small screen

Arts and entertainment criticism of the sort practiced in the West is still relatively sublimated in Japan, where pop-culture hyoronka (critics) tend to be either pundits or PR flacks who rarely say anything overtly negative about the things they review.
JAPAN / History
Jul 27, 2007

Is blunt-speaking Aso next act after Abe?

Foreign Minister Taro Aso looked satisfied on the evening of Sept. 20, 2006 — right after the results of the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election came in.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 24, 2007

Koreans speak out on schooling

Since the publication of my article about the Okayama Korean Primary and Middle School (Community, May 22), I have had several people ask me questions about the attitudes, opinions and beliefs of the people involved with the school.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jul 21, 2007

Orix, Lotte stars become reluctant teammates

Watching the Central League battle its Pacific counterpart has long been the main attraction of the Nippon Professional Baseball All-Star Game. While interleague play has diluted the novelty of seeing the league's battle, the story this year revolved around a few likely reluctant teammates.
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2007

Miyazawa knew economics

Obituaries for former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who died recently at age 87, agreed that he was a statesman and a genuine internationalist. But some — those from Nikkei, Japan's leading economic media group, especially — also criticized him as a Keynesian economist responsible for Japan's economic...
EDITORIALS
Jul 15, 2007

The wonder of wonders

The votes, 100 million of them, are all in. The most wondrous human constructions in the history of the world have been determined by an elaborate and multilingual online voting system. The results for these new Seven Wonders of the World, splashed across newspaper headlines worldwide, reveal a great...
JAPAN
Jul 10, 2007

Are SIA workers the pension scapegoat?

Naoyuki Haga, chief secretary of the Social Insurance Agency employee union, fears he and many of his coworkers will lose their jobs when a new government-backed corporation begins handling pension payments in 2010 and the SIA is closed down.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 10, 2007

Publisher gets writers to open up, bets on element of surprise

It was an amazing scoop, surprising even the tabloids.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 1, 2007

Immigrant workers in Japan caught in a real racket

The debate over whether Japan should allow foreign workers in to make up for current and future labor shortages is dominated by the so-called foreign trainee program, which is overseen by the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization (JITCO). The program is itself the subject of a debate,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2007

Einsteins of anime

Headquartered in a nondescript office building in Kichijoji, a Tokyo suburb with a bohemian flavor, Studio 4°C hardly looks, from the outside, like the epicenter of anything. Yet this animation production house, founded in 1986 by Eiko Tanaka, Koji Morimoto and Yoshiharu Sato, has made some of the most...
COMMENTARY
Jun 25, 2007

Ways to steer public opinion

Since last year, moves by the government to sway public opinion in favor of its policies have come to the fore one after another. On June 6, the Japan Communist Party revealed that the Ground Self-Defense Force's intelligence security unit had gathered information on the activities of organizations and...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 24, 2007

Big breasts, funny hair, anything dumb — the way to go on TV

Last spring, TV tarento Rei Kikukawa made news when she appeared in a bra commercial. TV commercials are the bread-and-butter of most tarento (media stars), and Kikukawa has done her fair share, but since gaining stardom she's managed to avoid overt exploitation of her sex appeal. That's because she...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 21, 2007

Asian artists echo biennale director's themes

VENICE, Italy — By the light of the setting sun, a skateboarder practices tricks on the edge of a seaside jetty. Heavy waves roll in and break against the shore in a constant motion in the background. The skateboarder keeps to a narrow radius and his movements are rhythmic and supple. The board appears...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 17, 2007

Bureaucrats discovered to be pathetically human

Few fixtures of civilization invite more derision than bureaucracy. We understand that government agencies are necessary for the smooth operation of civic life but bristle at the prospect of having to interact with them. Public offices are cold, monolithic things, operating on principles that have little...
Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2007

Warped sense of heroic action

I was disturbed to read the May 27 Associated Press article under the headline "Alabama boy kills monstrous wild hog after 3-hour chase." An 11-year-old boy is presented as a young hero for his achievement in finally shooting a wild boar point-blank in the head with a high-powered pistol.

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped