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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 15, 2012

Energy multiplies creative potential at Trans Arts Tokyo

Spanning seventeen floors of a building that was once part of Tokyo Denki University in Kanda, the Trans Arts Tokyo project is bursting with exhibitions, talk events and workshops, open laboratories and artists-in-residence studios. The massive temporary art space is the latest work by Masato Nakamura,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 13, 2012

Failing students: Japanese universities facing reckoning or reform

I had been warned of the "Circus," yet still I was unprepared.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 6, 2012

If bully Ishihara wants one last stand, bring it on

On Oct. 25, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced his resignation from office. He now plans to stand for election to the Diet as head of a new conservative party. He suggested political alliances with other conservative reactionaries and xenophobes, including Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto and Tachiagare...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Nov 6, 2012

Violin maker brings traditions of Italian masters to Tokyo

Born in Nebraska, Louis Caporale started playing the violin at the age of 4. By 14 he was building violins. At 18, he was the youngest student enrolled at the Chicago School of Violin Making.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 4, 2012

Beware the parallels between boom-time Japan and present-day China

Futaro Gamagori was born into a destitute household. His father was a no-good womanizing lush; his mother, unable to afford medical care, died of illness. The young Futaro sets out on a life of serious crime — thieving, raping, murdering. He eventually becomes the rich president of a big company, but...
EDITORIALS
Nov 2, 2012

Justice for Mr. Mainali

In a Monday retrial of Mr. Govinda Prasad Mainali, a Nepalese man who had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the March 1997 robbery-murder of a 39-year-old Tokyo woman, the prosecution reversed its position and stated that he is innocent. The Tokyo High Court will acquit him on Nov. 7....
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 30, 2012

Behind the no-nuclear option

The triple-meltdown crisis that began last year at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant jarred the public out of its complacent attitude toward nuclear power and every other assurance made by the government and Japan Inc.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 29, 2012

Evidence of the Showa Emperor's deep regret

Checking the galley of the endnotes to "Persona," my biography of Yukio Mishima with Naoki Inose, I decided to augment a note on Japan's monarchical system. The tenno institution had a singular meaning for Mishima, and I set aside substantial space in the book for the subject.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 28, 2012

Shaken, stirred puzzle that fits

SUBDUCTION, by Todd Shimoda, illustrated by L.J.C. Shimoda. Chin Music Press, 2012, 279 pp., $25 (hardcover) How to adequately describe "Subduction," the new work by husband and wife team Todd and L.J.C. Shimoda? A psychological thriller framed by gorgeous artwork? A beautifully bound collection of abstract,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 28, 2012

Seeking out what's in store for Kuramae

Back when Tokyo was Edo and Tokugawa shoguns ruled the land (1603-1867), the burgeoning city's most vital staple, rice, was protected in kura (storage houses) along the right bank of the Sumida River. Then, by the simple expedient of adding mae (in front of) to "kura," the area facing the white-washed,...
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Oct 24, 2012

Giants rose to the occasion

For three consecutive nights, the Yomiuri Giants lived life on the edge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 19, 2012

Understand Japanese cinema

The Tokyo International Film Festival, which runs Oct. 20-28 at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills and other venues around the capital and the Tohoku region, is a great opportunity to see new Japanese films — with a couple caveats.
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2012

The death of King Sihanouk

Revered former Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk died of a heart attack on Monday in Beijing at the age of 89. His turbulent life reflected the modern history of Cambodia, a small country that experienced difficulties and tragedies as its fate was swayed by the interests and moves of bigger powers. He...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 18, 2012

Kentaro makes hip-hop personal

Almost the whole of Kentaro's life has been devoted to dance — in particular to hip-hop dance — ever since he first saw it on television as an elementary school boy.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 16, 2012

Pena comes good to send Hawks into next round

Wily Mo Pena said he couldn't remember the last time he was in an elimination game.
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2012

Pakistan's choice

Sometimes, a single act can reveal everything there is to know about someone or something. The attack by the Taliban last week on a 14-year-old Pakistani girl, Ms. Malala Yousafzai, is one of those clarifying moments. The assassination attempt was a cowardly, barbaric deed. A political movement that...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 14, 2012

Farmer plows own antiradiation furrow

At the end of March 2011, a few weeks after the Great East Japan Earthquake, 20 rice farmers affiliated to J-Rap, an agricultural distribution company in Sukagawa, central Fukushima Prefecture, got together to assess the situation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2012

'Tyrannosaur'

In a working-class part of the city of Leeds in northern England, a man in the grip of an alcoholic rage beats a dog to death. This is just one of many harrowing moments in "Tyrannosaur."
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2012

Territorial disputes don't rain on Asia's largest parade of cinema

There was very little talk at the 17th Busan International Film Festival, Asia's biggest movie event of the year, of the ongoing conflict between Japan and South Korea over ownership of those rocks in the Japan Sea. It so happens that the festival's Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award was being given to...
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Oct 7, 2012

Minamata: a saga of suffering and hope

The last job I had that paid me a real salary was with the Canadian government's Environmental Protection Service in the mid 1970s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2012

'The Samaritan'

One resounding truth about guys in the movies is this: They don't last. Five years ago I was fantasizing about dinner with, oh, Mel Gibson (I know, I know. Terrible taste). Or Jason Statham (even worse). While on-screen, these guys did what they do best, which is offing evil-doers in crowded public venues...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 23, 2012

Evolution revelation sparks MAD inspiration to sucker the (U.S.) soul

Thank god for all things virtual.
EDITORIALS
Sep 19, 2012

Slow road to reconstruction

A little more than 1½ years since the 3/11 disasters devastated the Pacific side of the Tohoku region, more than 340,000 people are still living away from their homes and reconstruction is not making progress as smoothly as disaster sufferers and the local governments concerned had hoped.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / ZEIT GIST: UPDATE
Sep 18, 2012

U.S. judge dismisses rapist's bid to halt case over Yokosuka assault

Australian Catherine Fisher is one step closer to seeing justice done after a Milwaukee Circuit Court judge decided earlier this month to hear the case against former U.S. serviceman Bloke T. Deans, who raped her in Japan in 2002.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 14, 2012

'Tenchi Meisatsu (Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer)'

After winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2009 for his funeral-business drama "Okuribito (Departures)," Yojiro Takita faced the usual dilemma of the successful: what to do for a followup? This onetime maker of risqué comedies about train gropers had since become a director-for-hire working...
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 9, 2012

Tohoku fisheries fight back from 3/11

"The facts about much of Japan's social, political, and financial life are hidden so well that the truth is nearly impossible to know," writes Alex Kerr in his acclaimed 2001 study "Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan." He continues, "A lack of reliable data is the single most significant...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic