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COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Jun 22, 2016

Japan's koseki system: dull, uncaring but terribly efficient

Family registry system can seem schizophrenic but its authority keeps citizens out of the courts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 22, 2016

Keeping it real: Naomi Kawase on filmmaking

Naomi Kawase has always been an outlier in the Japanese film world, if a very successful one. Born and raised in Nara Prefecture, the site of Japan's ancient capital, she started making documentaries while a student at the Osaka School of Photography in the late 1980s, taking as subjects her natural...
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 22, 2016

Chinese internet regulator to 'cleanse' websites of 'harmful comments'

China's internet regulator has launched a new campaign to clean up the comments sections on websites to prevent the spread of what it calls harmful information and to encourage what it considers more helpful, well-intentioned comments to appear.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 21, 2016

Hate crimes often have way of making it harder to hate

The desire for social order is a powerful reflex that hate crimes only reinforce.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 21, 2016

Dramatist speaks up for the downtrodden and new thinking in Japan

Fifty-three year-old Oriza Hirata unexpectedly arrived early for our 9 a.m. interview in a Tokyo family restaurant one recent Sunday morning. Not only that, but the famed playwright and director turned up alone without the squad of minders such people's managers generally send along to stop them making...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 20, 2016

How about killing schools' economics departments?

The humanities and social sciences are vital to analyzing the complexities of economics, a fact the education ministry would be well-served to remember.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 20, 2016

Bodies pile up as Philippine police show new boss they're tough on drugs

Philippine police killed 11 suspected drug dealers during operations at the weekend, police said on Monday, adding to a surge of drugs-related killings since Rodrigo Duterte swept an election last month on promises to wipe out crime.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 18, 2016

Drawing on the past of Osamu Tezuka

In 1977, American author and translator Frederik L. Schodt and three friends formed a manga-translation group in Tokyo, with the then-quixotic dream of introducing Japanese comics to a global readership. Schodt had arrived in Japan in 1965, courtesy of a father in the United States Foreign Service. He...
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Jun 18, 2016

Hashimoto backs away from confronting Tokyo's fierce media pack

With Tokyo Gov. Yoichi Masuzoe having resigned, who will replace him is a matter of interest not only in Tokyo, but a question likely to impact the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito's fortunes in next month's Upper House election.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 18, 2016

Big in Japan? Faux Trump ad video goes viral

Donald Trump is tangling with Japan again.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Jun 17, 2016

June 18, 2016

EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2016

The horror in Orlando

Despite some efforts by Democratic lawmakers, if the past is any precedent the massacre in Florida will have no effect on U.S. gun control laws.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2016

How Trump gets away with no actual policies

Who needs detailed policies when name-calling works just fine? For Donald Trump, this has worked so far.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 16, 2016

Jo Kanamori and Oriza Hirata retell 'La Bayadere' with a dose of political awareness

The atmosphere at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, must have been electric on Feb. 4, 1877. That was the day Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus premiered "La Bayadere" — the latest masterpiece of classical ballet by French choreographer Marius Petipa — to some of Europe's...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jun 13, 2016

Aichi students take cruise ship crews on quick Nagoya tours

University students from Aichi Prefecture are volunteering to show crew members of luxury cruise ships around Nagoya when the vessels visit the port.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 11, 2016

The peacemakers of Okinawa

Sixty years ago this week, the U.S. government released the controversial Price Report, triggering mass protests on Okinawa that gave birth to leaders who, while renowned in the prefecture, remain little known outside it
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Jun 11, 2016

Sweet times at Tokyo's monster cafe

Maybe it is Nasty's electric blue hair, cascading in braids around her doll-like face. Perhaps it is the gothic-style black lipstick of her friend Candy. Or the surreal fabric limbs sewn onto the dress of lilac-haired Baby.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Jun 11, 2016

Shibuya Parco Museum Final Exhibitions I, II, III

Shibuya Parco gets ready for a rebirth
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 11, 2016

'Phoenix': Osamu Tezuka's epoch-spanning manga masterpiece

"Hi no Tori" ("Phoenix" ) is a 12-part masterpiece by manga legend Osamu Tezuka. Started in 1954, Tezuka worked on the manga until his death in 1989. Acclaimed for both its story and style, "Phoenix" rises above the greatness of Tezuka's "Astro Boy" or "Black Jack" — it was, in translator Frederik...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Jun 10, 2016

June 11, 2016

Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jun 9, 2016

Can Netflix's 'Hibana' spark a revolution in Japanese TV?

With the recent announcements made by both Netflix Japan and Amazon Japan that they will be putting out original locally made content, the country seems to be moving further into the age of internet-based TV. And it appears that the team at Netflix could be one step ahead with the recent release of its...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 7, 2016

The secret of Putin's survival

Crimea's 'return' to Russian control had a profound effect on public sentiment — one that seems to have strengthened Vladimir Putin's grip on power, even as Russia faces deepening political and economic challenges.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 7, 2016

'Brexit' would leave EU less liberal, less inclined for future enlargement

A European Union without Britain would be financially poorer, less economically liberal and free-trading, less Atlanticist and less open to further enlargement.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 5, 2016

Landmark dyslexia event in Yokohama aims to educate and inspire

The Asia Pacific Dyslexia Festival & Symposium in Yokohama will be the first major event focusing on dyslexia ever held in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Jun 5, 2016

West-inspired anime chief propels Polygon Pictures to success

Polygon Pictures, one of the oldest digital animation studios worldwide, has been turning its lights off at 10 p.m. sharp since 2011. Employees can turn them back on again but they automatically go dark every hour.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan