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JAPAN / BOOSTING THE BIRTHRATE
Jun 2, 2010

Holdout singles stalling birthrate

Japan's low birthrate has accelerated the graying population.
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2010

Healing Thailand's broken spirit

BANGKOK — To pacify a divided nation, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva — blamed for a military crackdown on protesters that left more than 80 dead and 1,500 injured over two months — says Thailand needs to "heal the mind."
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 19, 2010

Criticism of LeBron patently unfair

NEW YORK — Have you ever seen a city turn so fast on its Messiah?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 14, 2010

'Zatoichi: The Last'

The "Zatoichi" series has long been an entry point for non-Japanese into Japanese films. Guys from Bonn to Buenos Aires who nod off after 10 minutes of Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Monogatari" ("Tokyo Story") devour the 25 episodes of the original series of films (1962-1973), as well as the 1989 revival directed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 26, 2010

'Cassandra's Dream'

Woody Allen has often commented that "making a movie is a great distraction from the real agonies of the world." While he's got a point, some days I wish he'd take up model trains or something else instead. You don't make films just to pass the time (unless you're Andy Warhol); you should be driven by...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 26, 2010

'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans'

"Bad Lieutenant" was a scuzzy 1992 film by New York City auteur Abel Ferrara that featured a sordid story and one helluva riveting performance from Harvey Keitel as an unlikable cop addicted to gambling, drugs and sex with hookers. Along with "Reservoir Dogs" and "The Piano," it marked a high point in...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 31, 2010

Bright lights, big city, book-loving ninja

In 2008, prolific novelist Andrew Vachss (it rhymes with "tax") brought down the curtain on his series of 18 novels featuring the protagonist Burke, "an ex-con turned avenging angel for hire." Vachss' newest work, "Haiku," lacks the urban mercenary's charismatic presence, but it does return to familiar...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 22, 2010

'Frozen River'

Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is not a pretty sight. One of the first shots of "Frozen River" shows her slumped in a chair in the early morning hours, and the camera moves slowly and meticulously over her features, ravaged by age and nicotine, the crisscross lines around her eyes testifying to what seems like...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 6, 2010

Arenas deserves lifetime ban for gun incident

NEW YORK — Even in a world long gone mad . . . what an unfathomable, boundary-crossing, guns-in-the-Wizards locker-room Gilbert Arenas-Javaris Crittenton grudge confrontation story.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 5, 2010

Minors in own category but never above the law

Jan. 11 marks Coming of Age Day, an annual holiday to celebrate people who have reached legal adulthood.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Jan 3, 2010

Tropicana turns 70 with kitsch, showgirls

HAVANA — When the Tropicana nightclub and casino opened its doors in a leafy Havana garden on Dec. 30, 1939, World War II was raging in Europe, "Gone With the Wind" had just hit U.S. theaters and a rebellious youngster named Fidel Castro had just turned 13.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 3, 2010

Jake Adelstein: Insider reaching out

Author Joshua "Jake" Adelstein supposes that if he'd stayed home in rural Missouri and had never come to Japan, he'd probably have become a small-town lawyer or a very happy detective on the local police force.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2009

Pachinko maker pushes for legalization of casinos

SINGAPORE — The government lacks the will to legalize casinos and let the industry compensate for declining tax revenue amid deflation, according to the head of pachinko maker Universal Entertainment Corp.
Reader Mail
Oct 29, 2009

ASEAN's act is far from together

A wire service story this week criticized the hypocrisy and cowardice of the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations when it comes to substantive and procedural human rights issues involving member states, especially Burma (aka Myanmar). Recently, ASEAN leaders, at a summit meeting, bragged...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2009

German voters shun financial crisis debate

BERLIN — Germany's parliamentary election campaign looks like a front-running contender for the title of the most boring in the history of the Federal Republic.
EDITORIALS
Aug 3, 2009

Lowering the legal age

A panel of the Justice Ministry's Legislative Council has proposed lowering the legal age under the Civil Code from 20 to 18. The council is expected to hand the proposal to the justice minister in September. A Civil Code revision will entail revision of some 300 laws. The panel's report says that the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 1, 2009

Baseball expert lines up new book on mobsters in Japan

Robert Whiting is best known as an expert on baseball. But he's much more than that. He's also an expert on mobsters in Japan and the sound a radar site makes when it is "spotted" by a U2 spy plane.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 28, 2009

When in war, why bomb the innocent?

How one feels about what one is reading can differ depending on where and when. Reading these essays while boarding a flight from Tokyo, transiting Hanoi and then arriving in Laos — all places that have been subjected to extensive U.S. bombing — is to feel the long arm of history tug at one's conscience....
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jun 17, 2009

Tough to compare Jackson to Auerbach

ORLANDO, Fla. — Records were meant to be broken, Sam Jones philosophized several days before Phil Jackson went from NBA Title IX to sporting a flashy yellow X cap following the Lakers systematic suppression of the Magic Kingdom.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 26, 2009

'Manga': heart of pop culture

From "One Piece" and "Naruto" to "Doraemon" and "Sazae-san," comic books have been the heart of Japanese pop culture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2009

'The Duchess'

I'm not sure if "The Duchess" was as good a film as my enjoyment of it would indicate, but after a mere five minutes of trailers for "Monsters vs. Aliens" and (shudder) "Transformers 2," I was ready to embrace any film that offered actual dialogue and acting, not head-splitting volume and an endless...
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Feb 24, 2009

Darvish, young pitchers set to play vital role in WBC title defense

Established pitchers Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hisashi Iwakuma will lead defending champion Samurai Japan into the World Baseball Classic, but a host of young arms may end up deciding the nation's place in the baseball world.
Reader Mail
Feb 22, 2009

Innovation with what's available

Regarding the Feb. 18 editorial "Surprisingly sharp decline": I agree that innovation is the key to fighting the recession, and I would like to cite two examples. First, do the Japanese people realize that, despite this recession, companies that have done well are none other than the mobile service providers...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 3, 2009

What would the locals do?

In Japan, paper advertisements hang from the ceilings of train cars. In how many other countries would that be a viable advertising option? Certainly not in my hometown of Melbourne. Back in Australia, the majority of those ads would not survive any given Saturday night.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 4, 2009

Rounding up 2008's media

Media Figure of the Year: Tomohiro Kato
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2008

'Tokyo Joe: Mafia o Utta Otoko'

The yakuza, Japan's homegrown mobsters, are favorites of local filmmakers but not documentarians, for reasons entirely understandable. A documentary that seeks to delve into the inner workings of the Yamaguchi-gumi might find an audience, but the hurdles to making it, such as scouting subjects willing...

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb