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May 03, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 6, 2012

What lies behind Ben Shahn's lines of the times

When an artist feels compelled to incorporate words and poetry into many of his artworks, we get a sense that he may have taken up the wrong profession. This feeling of being unsettled in his art is something that comes up again and again with the career of the left-wing 20th-century American artist...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2012

How to fight in Afghanistan with fewer U.S. troops

Kimberly and Frederick W. Kagan's recent commentary in The Washington Post, arguing for a force of 30,000 or more Americans in Afghanistan after 2014, is fundamentally wrong. Although their goals are sound — preventing terrorist attacks from the region on the United States — the writers' logic and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 22, 2012

Step into the Lynchian world of oddities

While mostly recognized as the director of such films as "Eraserhead," "Wild at Heart" and "Mullholland Drive," David Lynch has long turned his hand to other media. About 80 of his works, encompassing photography, painting, music and short films are being brought together for an exhibition at the Laforet...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2012

'Woody Allen: A Documentary'

Given that Woody Allen pours so much of himself into his films — despite his protests to the contrary — can we really expect to learn more from a documentary? Director Robert B. Weide ("How to Lose Friends & Alienate People") attempts to dig deeper in "Woody Allen: A Documentary," an over-arching...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 16, 2012

Flatiron: Flavor and flair combine in miraculous chemistry

Whenever an exciting new restaurant is launched in Tokyo, usually it's all over the foodie magazines within days. Not so with Flatiron. Though it's been up and running since September, it's been flying well under the radar.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 11, 2012

Local media are too vague on Fukushima radiation risk

Earlier this year, NHK rebroadcast a documentary it made in the late 1980s about the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident. It showed how the Soviet Union and European countries tested people for effects of radiation throughout the region. Appended to the doc was a discussion with experts who compared...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Nov 6, 2012

Revisionists, the Senkakus and Debito: readers' views

Some readers' letters in response to Debito Arudou's Oct. 2 Just Be Cause column, "Revisionists marching Japan back to a dangerous place":
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 21, 2012

'The Hunger Games'

In 2000, filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku came out with his adaptation of the novel "Battle Royale," a dystopian fable set in a near-future totalitarian Japan where a law called "BR" has been established to keep ninth-graders under strict control in a world of torturous fear and brutal murder. Twelve years later,...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Sep 21, 2012

Preseason tournament gives teams valuable tuneup

For Ryuji Kawai, his second season at the helm has the same aspiration as the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix's daily message throughout the 2011-12 season: A championship is the only goal. And the high-profile team will aim for that target as a first-year member of the Western Conference after spending...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 18, 2012

Shilling for our side over the Senkakus

Akihiro Suzuki does not think war will come, but if it does, he believes Japan will prevail.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 6, 2012

Where Obama and Romney differ on foreign policy

This presidential election will likely determine whether the United States and Russia undertake a major new reduction of nuclear weapons; whether U.S. arms are supplied to Syrian rebels; whether more U.S. troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan next year; and whether Washington renews pressure on Israel...
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2012

China seems loath to wait for Romney to learn

During the American presidential campaign of 2008, China was virtually a nonissue. During the televised debates between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, China was barely mentioned.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2012

'Prometheus'

My high school English teacher once assigned an essay on Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." She was pushing the idea that the novel was one big Jesus allegory, with its hero McMurphy dying for the salvation of the other patients, but I couldn't agree. Kesey had worked in a mental institution,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2012

Why do American junk food giants feel the urge to force-feed us tidbit sermons on social issues?

Since when does serving up junk food give someone a license to preach?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Aug 3, 2012

Today's J-blip: Ikea pops up all over Cat Street

In a series of pop-ups, Ikea Japan gives city folk a taste of Swedish style.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 29, 2012

Gross national happiness; Beloved Unfortunate Women; CM of the week: Summer Jumbo

Master explainer Akira Ikegami makes his sixth appearance on "Mirai Seiki Jipangu" ("Future Century Japan"; TV Tokyo, Mon., 10 p.m.) for a two-part exploration of the Kingdom of Bhutan in the eastern Himalayas.
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Jul 27, 2012

London will launch dreams for millions

You can't put a price tag on dreams. And that alone has created worldwide fascination for the Olympics for decades now.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jul 22, 2012

Shisaku

Shisaku is a homophone meaning essay, a meditation upon a subject, a policy or measures a government takes. A fitting title for analyst Michael Cucek's blog which provides insight and opinion on Japanese politics, with a distinct hint of satire. In the eight years he's been writing the blog, Shisaku...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jul 20, 2012

Longtime Sendai guard Takahashi moving to Iwate

As they prepare for their second season, the Iwate Big Bulls recognize the need to add experienced bj-league players.
Reader Mail
Jul 19, 2012

BBC's Olympics commentary

A word of explanation is owed to foreign observers of the upcoming Olympics in London (July 27 to Aug. 12). During the last Commonwealth Games, some non-Britons were puzzled as to why the BBC often referred to medal winners as "proud Scots" or "proud Welsh" etc., while English winners were always "British."...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 15, 2012

Better a ban on work drinks than a ban on workers drinking

On July 6, the president of Fuji TV, Ko Toyoda, held a press conference and apologized for a June 9 segment of the variety show "Mecha Mecha Iketeru!" in which a group of celebrities had a drinking contest. Three citizens organizations, including a group of parents of children killed in drunk-driving...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 13, 2012

Hitoshi Matsumoto gets big laughs in Japan but the comedian wants more

Comics who direct films may start by making audiences laugh, but if they are at all successful they typically turn serious. The classic example is Charlie Chaplin, who went from slapstick two-reelers to speechifying against totalitarianism in "The Great Dictator."
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jul 13, 2012

Japanese players, coaches gaining experience overseas

While the temperatures continue to climb, basketball competition, individual and group workouts are a major part of the daily grind for most bj-league players.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 8, 2012

Naoshima: art colony risen beautifully from ruination

Packing his trademark black Walther PPK 7.65 mm automatic, a small pistol with a mighty punch, agent 007 set foot on the island of Naoshima just one day after escaping the clutches of a powerful sociopath and his henchman.
EDITORIALS
Jul 5, 2012

'No one's clean-clean'

Lord Acton may have been right and corruption is really a function of power. But the seemingly endless parade of banking scandals in recent months suggests that money is every bit as corrosive.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 3, 2012

Strong winds linger from the microaggressions tempest

Readers' responses to Debito Arudou's May 1 Just Be Cause column, "Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday 'microaggressions' that grind us down," his followup June 5 JBC column, "Guestists, Haters, the Vested: Apologists take many forms," and Colin P.A. Jones' counterarticle, "Much ado, but microimportant"...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 10, 2012

Matsue: 'City of Water ' with a history set in stone

The train from Okayama to Matsue took nowhere near as long as the one the English writer Sacheverell Sitwell boarded in 1959 to the same destination: "Nine hours from Osaka, into a remote and little-visited part." The region still feels faintly remote, the train carriages clickety-clicking over rivers...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 6, 2012

'Hidden children' of politicians no hurdle to success

Democratic Party of Japan kingpin Ichiro Ozawa was acquitted last week of conspiring to file false financial reports for his political group. He can now return full-time to the job he was elected to do, but the sense you get from the mainstream media is that he's through as a politician. The press has...
CULTURE / Books
May 6, 2012

Japan's modern haiku master

IKIMONOFUEI: Poetic Composition on Living Things, by Kaneko Tohta. Red Moon Press, 2011, 91 pp., $12.00 (paperback) THE FUTURE OF HAIKU: An Interview with Kaneko Tohta. Red Moon Press 2011, 137 pp., $12.00 (paperback) These two handy pocket-size volumes are the first of four to be issued by the Red Moon...
Israel protests after Kyoto inn seeks war crime declaration from tourist
A street in Kyoto in March 2023. An Israeli tourist was asked to sign a document stating that he had not committed war crimes when he checked in at a Kyoto guesthouse in April, prompting a response from Israel's ambassador.
Nearly half of workers in Japan engage in ‘quiet quitting’
"Quiet quitting" is most common among the younger generation, with 46.7% of respondents to a survey in their 20s identifying with the practice, reflecting a less-motivated workforce more focused on work-life balance.
Britain responds after Expo 2025 afternoon tea brews outrage
The café space at the Osaka Expo's British pavilion
Truck driver's body recovered from huge Japan sinkhole after three months
Workers stand around a vehicle carrying the body of a person recovered from a sinkhole in Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, on Friday.
Second round of U.S.-Japan tariff talks ends inconclusively in Washington
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (far left), U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (left) and Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator. The second round of tariff negotiations between Japan and the United States were held on Thursday in Washington.
Want to see the future at Expo Osaka? Get in line.
“‘Future of life,’ by Ishiguro,” the World Expo pavilion by roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, displays humanlike androids.
Ishiba hears advice from across the aisle on how Japan should handle Trump
Prime Minister Shigaru Ishiba and CDP head Yoshihiko Noda at a parliamentary session in Tokyo on April 23.
Don't send in the clones: AI event nixed as Alt accounts get reality check
A screenshot from the website for Alt's AI conference, which was canceled after the company disclosed an investigation into its sales figures.
CDP submits bill proposal on separate surnames, but challenges remain
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers speak to reporters in parliament on Wednesday after submitting a bill in the Lower House to allow married couples to retain different surnames.
Puzzling decisions and opaque rankings are all part of sumo's charm
Chiyoshoma (right) battles Churanoumi during the New Year Basho in Tokyo in January. The Mongolian's drop down the sumo rankings ahead of the May tournament was one of the biggest surprises of the latest banzuke.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami
By Alex K.T. Martin

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Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones
Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

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