Search - 2014

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 11, 2015

The Imitation Game: 'a bog-standard biopic, riddled with historical inaccuracies'

Great minds think alike. Focus Features' Oscar-bait drama for 2014 — about a prickly genius Cambridge grad who struggled through a traumatic personal life ("The Theory of Everything") — was rather similar to The Weinstein Company's contender, "The Imitation Game."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 11, 2015

Jessabelle: 'she doesn't have a whole lot going for her'

Although "Jessabelle" was all set for a nationwide release in the U.S. in 2014, the powers that be decided to shelve her. There she was, gathering dust, when Blumhouse Productions (known for its low-budget films) picked it up for a VOD release two months ago. Then she crossed the Pacific to show in theaters...
EDITORIALS
Mar 11, 2015

China's daunting challenges

Beijing has yet to realize that China will not achieve long-term stability if its economic reforms are not accompanied by political reforms.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 11, 2015

Teacher-student interaction needs boundaries

Instead of banning teachers from having private online communication with students, schools should to provide teachers with a set of clear guidelines followed by ongoing training.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 11, 2015

Going where Terayama's rare spirit lives on

The avant-garde stage and film director, poet, critic, author and founder of the experimental theater group Tenjo Sajiki, Shuji Terayama (1935-83), influenced theater the world over with his iconoclastic plays such as "Mink Marie," "Heretics" and "Directions to Servants."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 11, 2015

Tokyo Ballet revisits 'Giselle' anew

Ballet legend Vladimir Malakhov's first connection with Japan was more than 20 years ago, when he danced in the World Ballet Festival in Osaka opposite Alessandra Ferri in a piece from Marius Petipa's 1850 revival of "Giselle."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Mar 11, 2015

Why robots will be granted a license to kill, in Japan and everywhere else

As long as we feel the need to occasionally harm our fellow human beings, most of us will happily let other people — or things — do the dirty work.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 11, 2015

Panasonic comeback seen in biggest bond sale since 2011

Panasonic Corp. has completed the biggest bond sale to Japan's institutional investors since 2011 after the electronics maker forecast its best profit in seven years.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 11, 2015

FamilyMart likely to absorb Uny in forming second-biggest convenience store chain

FamilyMart Co. and Uny Group Holdings Co. have confirmed they are in merger talks and will decide the basic terms by August to form Japan's second-largest convenience store chain in terms of sales.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2015

Stepping back from the edge

There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, which is to leave well enough alone before something really bad happens.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 10, 2015

Monkey ski, monkey brew as Shiga Kogen hosts annual beer-and-bands festival

Two of the bigger booms of the last few years in Japan seem like they would be a great match. But nobody thought to merge the worlds of craft beer and music festivals until Eigo Sato did so in 2012.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 10, 2015

Momus honors music's eccentrics on 'Turpsycore'

Twenty years ago the Shibuya-kei music scene was in full swing. The charts were filled with some of the most daring, artistic pop music this country had ever heard, courtesy of artists such as Cornelius, Pizzicato Five, Original Love and Kahimi Karie.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2015

Russian-held islands 'shrink' by 33 sq. km

The total area of the Russian-held islands off Hokkaido claimed by Japan has shrunk by about 33 sq. km — thanks to more accurate mapping techniques by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI).
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 10, 2015

Forty years after escaping war, 'boat people' find fortune back in Vietnam

As one of the Vietnam War's final battles raged four decades ago, Quynh Pham lay with her mother in a field covered in a stranger's blood. They survived only by pretending to be dead.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 10, 2015

'Red purge' during MacArthur era hurt unions now pushing on wages

As annual wage talks climax this month, one of the obstacles to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's campaign for outsize pay raises has its roots in the 1940s: a stunted union movement.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / NFL NOTEBOOK
Mar 9, 2015

NFL players gearing up for free agency

The free agency period in the NFL is set to open as the new league year starts on Tuesday. As usual, it presents teams with a dilemma of needs and money, where one's loss is another's gain.
Japan Times
JAPAN / 3/11 STILL BEING FELT
Mar 9, 2015

Some Tohoku disaster areas on fast track to rebuilding while others stuck in slow lane

A 3-km-long conveyor belt system is spearheading the reconstruction effort in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, but other areas aren't so lucky.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 9, 2015

It's time for troubled Sharp to sink or swim

Continuing to prop up complacent Japanese companies deadens the creative destruction that chastens stagnant industries and makes way for innovative and new ones.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Japan Pulse
Mar 9, 2015

Will Line put the brakes on Uber with its taxi app?

Line is expanding its smartphone messaging platform by letting users book cabs in Tokyo via its app.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 8, 2015

China eager to learn from Japan's economic missteps

China is poring over Japanese history for economic lessons to keep its massive economy away from the recession and deflation that has blighted Japan for 20 years.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2015

Cameron's disappearing act

A German newspaper is leading a chorus of cruel comments about how British Prime Minister David Cameron shines nowadays by his absence on the international stage.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.