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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.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 10, 2007

Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door — but no answer

Two deaths made headlines on May 28. Izumi Sakai, the lead singer of the pop group ZARD, was found at the bottom of an outdoor staircase at Keio University Hospital, where she was undergoing treatment for cancer. Her management quickly released a statement to pre-empt media speculation that the death...
COMMENTARY
Jun 8, 2007

Vanity in spinning a legacy

LONDON — Leaders of the summit countries have been changing. Gerhard Schroeder, the German Social Democratic chancellor of Germany, was the first to go. His replacement, Angela Merkel, is a Christian Democrat but leading a coalition with the Social Democrats.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 5, 2007

Headline-grabbing gun crimes mar safe image

Japan, whose strict gun controls have long helped its image as the safest industrialized nation, has recently seen its reputation slip in the wake of headline-making shootings.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2007

Let Japanese film out of the forest

Naomi Kawase's Grand Prix at the 60th Cannes Film festival last week for "Mogari no Mori" put the Japanese film industry once again on the front page. Kawase's honor is another in a series of reminders about how rich and rewarding Japanese films can be. But at the same time, it is a reminder of how little...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 1, 2007

Giants' Ogasawara talks softly but wields a big stick at plate

If you are a kid playing baseball and attend an instructional clinic at which a professional player teaches his elaborate techniques, you naturally become interested in absorbing those.
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2007

Doing it her own way — Kawase's determined path to success

Naomi Kawase has been tagged as "Japan's leading woman director" since her first feature film, "Moe no Suzaku (Suzaku)," won the Camera d'Or prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.
LIFE / QUEUING
May 27, 2007

All together now: Let's form a line

It is 11:15 on a sunny Sunday morning across the road from Shinjuku Station in central Tokyo. The Southern Terrace there is already thronged with shoppers like all the city's other retail districts. And then, as you walk past fashion stores and coffee shops, a long line of men and women of all ages materializes...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 22, 2007

Seeing from the Korean side

In February this year over 300 people attended the performing arts festival at a junior high school in Okayama. It was much the same as any other arts festival at any other junior high school in Japan; the students sang, danced, played music and performed skits for an audience made up of family and friends....
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 13, 2007

5,000 victories, throwback uniforms and the oiribukuro

In commemoration of their 5,000th victory in the history of the franchise, the Yomiuri Giants will wear throwback uniforms during some interleague games next month.
JAPAN
May 12, 2007

State wants Murakami to forfeit 1 billion yen

Prosecutors on Friday asked the Tokyo District Court to send Yoshiaki Murakami to prison for three years, fine him 3 million yen and make him forfeit 1.1 billion yen to cover the estimated profit he made in 2004 and 2005 on alleged insider trading involving Nippon Broadcasting System Inc.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2007

'Just for Kicks'

It's funny how sometimes a film will think it's one thing when actually it's something else entirely. Take, for example, "Just For Kicks." This MTV-affiliated documentary directed by Thibaut de Longeville is under the impression that it's about sneakers, sneaker mania and hip-hop. But anyone who watches...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 10, 2007

Looking at the garish and the free

Let's face it, there really is nothing like the face. Lovers dream of faces, poets stretch and struggle to juggle the words so that they might capture and communicate a countenance. Even businesspeople, the ultimate pragmatists, will travel across towns or oceans — when a telephone or e-mail could...
SUMO
May 8, 2007

Hakuho for yokozuna or Asashoryu to block his path?

In the days leading up to the May 5th Yokozuna Soken training session at the Ryogoku Kokugikan the Japanese media was abuzz with things sumo.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 6, 2007

Baseball federation and schools cause student players to suffer

Some scandals shock the public and others don't. The latter type usually involves organizational malfeasance that people suspect is a normal fact of life. However, in some rare cases a scandal of this type will actually strike people in a contradictory way: The purported malfeasance is not a surprise,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 3, 2007

Photos of preteen girls in thongs now big business

Asuka Izumi was modeling for a DVD in July 2005 when the director asked her to put on a string bikini. She was just 12 years old.
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2007

Japan holds the line against gun violence

On the morning of April 17, I received an apprehensive telephone call from a Japanese friend, a former employee of a foreign TV news bureau here.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 2, 2007

Commissioner Kawachi guiding bj-league in right direction

Two seasons down and a bright future ahead. That's the view from here on the bj-league.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Apr 24, 2007

Conof, One Percent and Panasonic's new mini-speakers

Shredding mystery When I first laid eyes on the Conof by n.o.l., I had no idea what it was but immediately developed a unprovoked yearning for it. So when I eventually figured out that it was a paper shredder, there was a moment of disappointment -- secrecy and sensitive documents play no part in my...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 21, 2007

The cherry blossom in a court of its peers

Imagine a clearing in the forest, where several species of flowers are blooming.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 15, 2007

LDP fuddy-duddies' social engineering hits women and the birthrate

Earlier this month, the ruling coalition put together a bill to change part of the Civil Code that determines the paternity of a child under certain circumstances. The planned revision, which editorial writers supported for its acknowledgment of practical reality, nevertheless split the Liberal Democratic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2007

'The Queen'

"The Queen" is, in one sense, a film like so many others these days, trading in the currency of celebrity, using the hook of quality actors doing fine impersonations of famous people to show its pedigree. This is a successful and award-winning proposition for films -- see "Ray," "Capote," et al. -- but...
BASEBALL / MLB'S EFFECT ON JAPAN
Apr 13, 2007

NPB needs major reform, vision to prosper like MLB

This is the third installment in a four-part series.
BUSINESS
Apr 12, 2007

Dodge cars to make Japan debut in June

DaimlerChrysler Japan Co. on Wednesday showed off the four cars that will launch the Dodge line in the Japanese market in June, part of the automaker's campaign to turn Dodge into a global brand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 12, 2007

Something for everyone

Fine art collecting being widely regarded as a pursuit of the privileged, one can appreciate the trepidation of the everyman regarding the auction and gallery scene.
BUSINESS
Apr 11, 2007

Pentax board stops Hoya merger

Pentax Corp. said Tuesday that its board of directors scrapped a planned merger with leading optical glass maker Hoya Corp. and replaced its president.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 10, 2007

Reported stalking cases likely just tip of iceberg

The day started like any other. The alarm clock rang at 7 a.m. and Laura Fitch, a Canadian then 28 years old, made her sleepy-eyed way to the shower to freshen up before brewing her first coffee of the day.

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