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May 03, 2025
 

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Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
May 4, 2012

Playoffs could provide surprises in both conferences

And now, finally, it's time for the real season to tip off.
COMMENTARY
May 3, 2012

Costs of being too responsive to the public will

The Washington of conventional wisdom and the real Washington are two entirely different places.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 1, 2012

It's just because . . . foreigners know best

You seldom see the sight these days of pairs of crew-cut white males in pressed white shirts and ties pedaling around cities in Japan. The sight is from a bygone age, largely relegated to history: The white man with a burden to educate and enlighten the natives, in this case about the one true religion,...
COMMENTARY
Apr 20, 2012

How Beijing demonstrates a lesson in harmony

From the outside it seems as though China's leadership is facing its biggest crisis in a generation with the country's most prominent political star, Bo Xilai, the czar of Chongqing, suddenly dismissed from all of his posts while his wife and a household assistant stand accused of the murder of British...
Reader Mail
Apr 19, 2012

Catholic Church's belief crisis

I usually enjoy Kevin Rafferty's social commentary, but his views expressed in his April 11 article, "The pope's leadership crisis," need to be challenged. His assertion that the story of Jesus "requires less suspension of belief than Harry Potter" is ridiculous. To truly believe that Jesus was the son...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2012

An email memoir on a life in Japan

Life and Nihonjin: Dispatches From Japan, by Alex Kahney. Portland Books, 2011, Japan, 290 pp., $16.00 (paperback) Japan's habit of technological innovation alongside tradition has surfaced in recent literary fads such as the "Densha no Otoko" (Train Man) phenomenon. What started as an urgent plea for...
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 29, 2012

Ex-pitcher Hasegawa offers insight on Ichiro, Mariners

In the final week of March, they're usually playing the preseason games. So why give 100 percent at this time of a year?
COMMENTARY
Mar 20, 2012

TV tactics win Putin new term

On March 10, thousands of Muscovites took to the streets for a fourth time in as many months to protest against fraudulent elections. Protesters held placards demanding "Russia without Putin." But this rally was smaller and quieter than previous anti-Putin protests.
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2012

Japan's cautionary tale for the U.S.

Since the financial crisis, a shadow has hovered over the U.S. economy: Japan. Could what happened there happen to us? The bursting of Japan's real estate and stock bubble in the early 1990s has had lasting consequences: a "lost decade" (actually, two) of meager growth and weak job markets. Though hardly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 9, 2012

'River'

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hollywood rolled out multiplex-ready films focusing on the events of that tragic day. In the year since the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe in the Tohoku region, dozens of Japanese and foreign filmmakers have taken their cameras north,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 25, 2012

Multilingual ex-professor pours all his energy into translation, writing

Curled up in his German grandfather's library, the young Charles De Wolf looked up from the pages of Goethe to dream of the cobblestoned streets of Europe.
Reader Mail
Feb 23, 2012

Heart of Japan's administration

Jeff Kingston's Feb. 6 review of my recent book, "JAPAN'S NUCLEAR CRISIS: The Routes of Responsibility," is baffling. Kingston thinks that the title misleads and that the work is hastily cobbled together, relying on materials from prior texts. He protests that I do not put the Ministry of Economy, Trade...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 9, 2012

Goth-Trad hatches postdisaster pop

Talking with Takeaki Maruyama in a Tokyo cafe, I'm caught off guard when the dubstep artist better known as Goth-Trad suggests that his fourth and latest album is pop. When I let it sink in, though, I realize that "New Epoch" could in fact be the perfect postdisaster-pop album.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 7, 2012

Questions raised about account of Tokyo cop assault

Some readers' responses to the Jan. 24 Zeit Gist column by Simon Scott, headlined "American claims Tokyo cop assaulted son, 8":
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 25, 2012

Desperate Knicks could use Tinsley

Kobe Bryant recently "pinpointed" Jamaal Tinsley as an ideal conductor of offensive arrangements, exactly what the Lakers (and Knicks) distinctly lack.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2012

Debunking five myths about Barack Obama

The president is a socialist.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 23, 2012

It's Murphy's Law if you don't get the joke in Japanese

If you miss the punch line to a Japanese joke, don't feel bad. It's simply unrealistic to use something as elusive as humor to measure your ability to understand a foreign language.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 22, 2012

'Art Seto' bringing islands back to life

INSULAR INSIGHT: Where Art and Architecture Conspire with Nature, edited by Lars Muller and Akiko Miki. Lars Muller, 2011, 453 pp., $70 (hardback) Islands lend themselves to introspection, rebalancing, a yearning for independence and equipoise. They may not be the solution to all our anxieties, but their...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 8, 2012

Sophisticated and sordid: a geisha's dance

RIVALRY, by Nagai Kafu. Translated by Stephen Snyder. Columbia University Press, 2011, 165 pp. $20.00 (paper) Nagai Kafu's "Rivalry," according to the late Edward Seidensticker, is "on the one hand nostalgic, lyrical, and reminiscent, and on the other a modern social novel, purporting to show how life...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 6, 2012

'Perfect Sense'

Will the world end with a whimper or a bang? That may well depend on whether you're at the multiplex or the art house. While blockbusters continue to relish the visual bombastics of Armageddon (the most wanton example being "2012"), a number of smaller films are also delving into the dark dramatic potential...
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 30, 2011

Miyazaki improves roster with addition of Mims

It's the time of the season for teams to add reinforcements as they begin jockeying for playoff positions.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 25, 2011

Interest heats up for new-look BayStars

Merry Christmas to all readers of the Baseball Bullet-In, and the fans in Yokohama should have a relaxing holiday season now that their team has been sold, it has a new manager, new owner and a new look after limping through a few — shall we say — less-than-spectacular seasons.
EDITORIALS
Dec 24, 2011

Vaclav Havel, eternal dissident

The death of North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, has obscured the passing of a truly heroic figure: Vaclav Havel. The Czech writer and dissident who became his country's first postcommunist president died Dec. 18. Mr. Havel was Mr. Kim's worst nightmare — an incorrigible and irrepressible dissenter,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 23, 2011

'Kodoku na Wakusei (In a Lonely Planet)'

Watching movies is like dreaming with your eyes open. Hardly an original thought, I know. In fact, it's been a staple of film commentary for nearly a century.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 11, 2011

No quick, easy path to haiku enlightenment

100 SELECTED HAIKU OF KATO IKUYA, translated with a study by Ito Isao. Chuseki-sha, 2011, 104 pp., ¥3,500 (paperback) Ikuya Kato (born 1929) is a modern haiku poet of the "free verse" school. Haiku itself is probably the shortest form of literature there is. Its classical structure is a cluster of 17...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 4, 2011

Exploring Yanagawa's watery world

The boatman sings a low-pitched, wistful air as he poles our craft down the watery freeway. Some of my fellow passengers obviously know the melancholic song, and join in on what passes for a chorus as we're propelled otherwise noiselessly down the wide canal.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 2, 2011

Hannaryz building momentum in Western Conference

In the rugged Western Conference, the Kyoto Hannaryz face a rough road ahead in their quest to reach the Final Four for the first time in franchise history.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 27, 2011

Publishers' ties to distribution a barrier for e-books

On Nov. 13, publisher Takarajima took out newspaper advertisements for its magazine-like book "Denshi Shoseki no Shotai" ("The Real Shape of e-Books"), describing it as a polemic "against electronic books." It includes input from Naoki Award winning novelist Miyuki Miyabe, who explains why she isn't...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 13, 2011

Erotica to celebrate and educate

The word shunga ("spring picture"), used to identify woodblock prints that portray erotic subjects, is not simply a euphemism for the awakening of natural urges. Rather, as both these books inform us, it is an abbreviation of a longer Chinese name, shunkyu higa ("secret pictures from the Spring Palace"),...
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.
Signs of change emerge in constitutional interpretation of same-sex marriage
Plaintiffs celebrate the Tokyo High Court's ruling in a same-sex marriage lawsuit in Tokyo on Oct. 30.
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.
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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after
Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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