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Japan Times
LIFE / Language / MORNING ENGLISH
Apr 3, 2017

Let's discuss the cherry blossom season

Every spring, people across Japan are enraptured as the cherry trees explode into bloom, clothing the country in pink.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Apr 3, 2017

Treatment for mentally ill elusive at Japan's medical prisons

When a 21-year-old woman was sentenced to life in prison on March 24 for killing an elderly woman, the Nagoya District Court acknowledged that the defendant's mental illness — a developmental and bipolar disorder — was part of the reason for the heinous crime and that she should be treated in a medical...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 1, 2017

Matohu: Observing tradition in modern design

Design duo Hiroyuki Horihata and Makiko Sekiguchi have been making the case for the inclusion of Japanese aesthetics in contemporary fashion for more than a decade.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 31, 2017

Yoronto: A small island with unique culture where time and space expand

The sea is only as blue as the sky permits. Even in the deep southern islands of the Nansei-Shoto, an overcast day can turn the sub-tropics into a mirror image of some of the more relentlessly dreary resort towns of my own country, England. One thinks of the ingloriously named Minehead, the estuary wilderness...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 30, 2017

'Glorious feelings' are in the forecast as 'Singin' in the Rain' returns to a Tokyo stage

When Adam Cooper launched into the first verse of "Singin' in the Rain" on the stage of Tokyu Theatre Orb back in 2014, a palpable ripple of excitement ran through the Tokyo audience — and this writer, who was there, certainly felt it, too.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA
Mar 28, 2017

Battles with Jordan, Pippen put Krause in tough spot

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame next week probably will announce that former Chicago Bulls general manager Jerry Krause will be enshrined later this year. Perhaps it will wait another year.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Mar 25, 2017

More than fare trade: backstreet by taxi

A combination of rain showers and tax prep in March signal Tokyo's segue into spring.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Mar 25, 2017

Designer Mikio Sakabe: 'Fashion itself is the creation of newness'

Fashion designer on why there's no real difference between being young or old.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 24, 2017

Kyoto University professor does the math and finds that sperm swim to a beat

We know that the upshot of sex between a man and a woman is more than 50 million sperm racing to reach one egg, though exactly how sperm swim through a woman’s body and how just one survives the journey to fertilize an egg is full of mystery.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 22, 2017

'Passengers': Futuristic, but the same old fairy tale

A lot of feminists hate Morten Tyldum's "Passengers," and for good reasons. Though it's set in a bright, high-tech future where luxury space travel is the norm, where women are concerned the story's underlying sentiments hail straight from the Middle Ages. On the other hand, just as many other filmgoers...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2017

The happiest nations don't focus on growth

The world's happiest nations rank low in economic growth but high in social trust.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2017

Why people still live, and die, on garbage dumps

In the developing world, huge open dumps loom as one of this century's most pressing health and environmental challenges.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Mar 19, 2017

Black Women in Japan group gears up for its first big bash

Back in the summer of 2015, I did a series of articles where I profiled black women married to Japanese men, discussing the highs and lows of building and maintaining such relationships, as well as the rewards and challenges of raising biracial children here in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 18, 2017

Taiwan: Where Japanese go to feel at home on vacation

Taiwan was Japanese soil for about five decades until the end of WWII. Amazingly, this is the one country where the Japanese imperialists managed to do more good than harm when they colonized it in 1895.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Mar 18, 2017

Playground legend 'Bone Collector' brings his talent back to Japan

Streetball fanatics revel with delight when rattling off names of legends who competed at New York's famed Rucker Park in the 20th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 16, 2017

Radwimps were the perfect choice when it came to soundtracking 'Your Name.'

Yokohama Arena feels special on this chilly Tuesday night in early March. It's here that Radwimps — a rock outfit from Kanagawa Prefecture whose members could bike to this very venue when they were teens — are playing the first of two sold-out shows.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 15, 2017

Finding a family in Japan's foreign drag scene

Western drag queens living in Tokyo, Kansai and Nagoya discuss the differences between the scene in Japan and back home.
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 15, 2017

Looking back on the 'trial of the century'

Everywhere you look these days, it feels like it's just Trump, Trump and even more Trump. It's worth taking a moment to recall that 23 years ago many people were just as sick of O.J. Simpson when the amiable American football star-turned-TV/movie celebrity became the main suspect in the brutal murder...
BUSINESS
Mar 15, 2017

China's Anbang Insurance denies investment in Kushner property

China's Anbang Insurance Group said it is not investing in a flagship Manhattan office tower owned by the family of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 14, 2017

U.K. judge probing whether Russian mafia whistle-blower was killed by poison in 2012

A British judge investigating the sudden death of a Russian mafia whistle-blower heard on Monday that he might have been murdered by eating poisoned soup.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2017

Japan's decluttering guru Kondo now has an app for tidying up

The newest tool for internationally acclaimed organizing guru Marie Kondo in her global battle against messy rooms is an app.
EDITORIALS
Mar 10, 2017

Six years after the 3/11 disasters

Efforts to reconstruct the lives of people thrown out of their homes by the 3/11 disasters remain woefully uncompleted.
Japan Times
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 10, 2017

Wenger's long run with Arsenal likely near the end

When you are a multimillionaire and you are two years past the retirement age with most of those who judge your work urging you to leave your job, why not call it a day?
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 10, 2017

Fukada's filmmaking a breath of fresh air

Koji Fukada's black comedy "Hospitalite" ("Kantai") won best film in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Japanese Eyes section in 2010 and since then he has become accustomed to stepping up on stages to receive prizes for his work.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 7, 2017

Top China official says Beijing has right to 'step in' to Hong Kong election

China's third most powerful leader said Monday that Beijing has the right to "step in" to Hong Kong's leadership contest, according to local politicians who met him, in remarks fueling fears of meddling from Communist Party leaders.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2017

Kim assassination a wake-up call

North Korea is not a curiosity to ignore, it is a danger to be confronted.

Longform

Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?