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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 18, 2011

'Koi no Tsumi (Guilty of Romance)'

How can a film shock today's jaded audiences, for whom blood spurts and flying body parts prompt laughter instead of gasps? How can a filmmaker transgress when nearly everything is allowed? Taken far enough, this line of inquiry can lead to the attention of the police. It can also be the starting point...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Nov 18, 2011

Proud love pervades NHK's 'Madame Butterfly'

"Well, little Chrysanthème, let us part good friends; one last kiss even, if you like. I took you to amuse me; you have not perhaps succeeded very well, but after all you have done what you could: given me your little face, your little curtseys, your little music; in short, you have been pleasant enough...
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2011

Low-level radiation questions spur anxiety

For residents of Fukushima Prefecture, anxiety over their exposure to low levels of radiation has been palpable since the March 11 twin disasters crippled the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 13, 2011

'Calamity' awaits those unready for climate-change refugees

There is a wonderful expression in Japanese: Fūdo ni nareru, which means something like "to become acclimatized to natural conditions."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 13, 2011

Kyuyoh's monochrome masterpieces

The highly intricate ink flows that grace archaic clerical scripts and decorative art, the illuminated plates of medieval European manuscripts, may be aesthetically pleasing, but are essentially skillfully beautified elaborations of simplistic lettering.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2011

Modern Greece built on myth

Greece is the cradle of democracy, but as the world has seen recently, a financial crisis is no time to put important questions to the people. Prime Minister George Papandreou's proposed referendum on the country's loan deal with the European Union, called off quickly after intense international opposition,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 10, 2011

Sapphire Slows "True Breath"

The music Sapphire Slows conjures up on her debut EP, "True Breath," floats between genres: dance music, dream pop and ambient are just a few. However, the element uniting these five songs is really how unsettling they can sound — even at their most danceable.
Reader Mail
Nov 10, 2011

Obfuscation by power industry

Olaf Kathaus' Nov. 3 letter, "Nonsense from a poison pen," is right and wrong on certain points. I agree that claiming that populations worldwide will be vastly affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster is far-fetched. I once read at a semi-reliable Internet site that "hundreds of millions" will die...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 6, 2011

Words for all seasons

THE UNDYING DAY: Poems by Hans Brinckmann. Trafford Publishing, 2011, 131pp., $14.50 (paperback) In person, Hans Brinckmann is a dapper European gent with the patrician manner of the well-practised host or master of ceremonies. Reading this book of time-seasoned verse, one suspects that he would be equally...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2011

Taxation alone won't save Japan from its public debts

Jun Azumi has joined the chorus of those promising the imminent prospect of a rise in Japan's consumption tax. As finance minister, one would think — hope, perhaps pray — that Azumi should know what he is talking about.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2011

Karen refugees snub farm, try luck in Tokyo

The first two ethnic Karen families who arrived from Myanmar under a third-country resettlement program have rejected an offer to continue working on a farm in Chiba Prefecture where they were training, and are currently residing in Tokyo, one of their lawyers said Wednesday.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 31, 2011

Deciphering eurozone: financial stability quest a study in surrealism

EFSF stands for European Financial Stability Facility. Or so they say. I can only see it as standing for European Financial Science Fiction. How can it be anything else given the nature of the arrangement?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 30, 2011

Less acclaim, more fun for Japan's Ig Nobel Prize winners

Since Hideki Yukawa in 1949, a total of 16 Japanese nationals have been named recipients of Nobel Prizes. In 2010, when the most recent Japanese winners were announced to receive prizes for chemistry, NHK interrupted its scheduled programming with a nyuusu sokuho (breaking news) announcement.
Reader Mail
Oct 30, 2011

How Bush got his history wrong

In regard to the Oct. 28 movie review "Fair Game," it might interest some readers to know that the flawed reasoning behind U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was partly influenced by professor John Dower's historical study of Japan's defeat in 1945 and the seven-year U.S....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 30, 2011

Sheer delight of graceful Kurahara

There is a persistent hum of activity among small-press publications in Japan, much of it concerned with poetry and a good deal of it translation.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 30, 2011

Cyclists piste at Tokyo police crackdown

Last month, comedian Mitsunori Fukuda was stopped and cited for riding a fixed-gear racing bike on a public street in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. These bicycles, also known as "piste bikes," have become popular in the past few years, not so much as a conveyance but more as a fashion statement. They usually...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 29, 2011

Macedonian's one-man mission to build embassy

A Macedonian diplomat is on a mission to set up his country's first embassy in Tokyo all by himself.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 29, 2011

Longtime Kyoto resident relishes Irish music scene

Jay Gregg, a resident of Kyoto since 1980, starts each day with a "bowl of matcha and a few tunes." The music drifts through his living space, across his Kano School art collection, and brings back memories of his banjo-strumming university days at Colorado State.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Oct 25, 2011

Hiroshima-area family roots inspire Canadian film director

When Linda Ohama, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian, heard the news about the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku region on March 11, she says she was "very shocked" and felt a strong urge to do something for the people there — especially the children.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2011

Asian powers scrambling for regional space

Asia is witnessing a jostling among its major powers — China, Japan and India — for regional strategic space, and a flurry of activity by these countries is focused toward the Southeast Asia region, once a stable region but now a potential area for conflict. China, which is already a permanent member...
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2011

U.S. remembers trade diplomacy

On the morning of Oct. 14, U.S. President Barack Obama signed three free-trade agreements, one each with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. The trade deals are important steps forward for the United States and its partners. While these deals are economic agreements, they are much more. In particular,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 22, 2011

Briton aims to restore poets' peak to former glory

Nineteen university students and civic-minded Kyoto residents squat on a mountain pass on a cloudless afternoon in early October as a tall British poet, Stephen Gill, 58, reads from a collection of haiku.
COMMENTARY
Oct 14, 2011

The volatile politics of rice

A campaign promise that helped bring Thailand's Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her political party to power in July elections is roiling the global market for rice, Asia's staple food that is now eaten by nearly half the world's population.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight