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Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 6, 2011

Way of the Samurai

HAGAKURE: The Code of the Samurai, The Manga Edition, by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Sean Michael Wilson, William Scott Wilson. Illustrated by Chie Kutsuwada. Kodansha International, 2010, 143 pp., $14.95 (paper) Manga can be elegant and artistic, but it also serves up raunch, romance and violence. "Hagakure:...
Reader Mail
Feb 6, 2011

A thought for Lindsay Ann Hawker

Regarding Alex Martin's Jan. 26 article, "Ichihashi book details life on run" (about the book written by Tatsuya Ichihashi, the accused killer of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker): Family members of Hawker are said to feel "disgusted" and "hurt" about the book being published before Ichihashi's trial. I agree...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Feb 4, 2011

Anime's late, late show

A sea gull arcs through the clouds and swoops over a house perched high on a clifftop. The sound of waves can be heard breaking far below as a young boy sits down for breakfast across from two robots who, it turns out, are doppelgangers of his parents. In the future, he later informs us, "you can get...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2011

Menace truly lurks in Bond villain's volcano

In the James Bond version, circa 1967, Mount Shinmoe was a serene, extinct peak with a scenic, lake-filled crater that provided the perfect perch for Agent 007 and his bikini-clad partner to surveil the lair of supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2011

Himalayan fungus feeds Mitsubishi Tanabe windfall

Tetsuro Fujita's eureka moment with a Himalayan fungus in 1985 may mean part of a $5 billion payout for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. a quarter-century later.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 1, 2011

Rural alien attacks 'insult' in Arudou almanac; 'Love it/leave it' lacks logic

Following are responses to "Arudou's Alien Almanac" by Debito Arudou (Just Be Cause, Jan. 4):
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Feb 1, 2011

Naturalized Japanese: foreigners no more

In Dec. 28's Japan Times, Charles Lewis wrote a respectful Zeit Gist column asking three fellow wise men (sumo wrestler Konishiki, musicologist Peter Barakan and Diet member Marutei Tsurunen) about their successful lives as "foreigners" in Japan. Despite their combined century of experience here, the...
Reader Mail
Jan 30, 2011

Cause and effect for 'homebodies'

Regarding Grant Piper's Jan. 23 letter, "Safe life for celibate homebodies": I have my doubts about Piper's observation that local men with faltering libidos have concluded that it is safer to "stay at home and live as a celibate . . . purchase sex from rental ladies, or . . . cultivate a profound fantasy...
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Jan 30, 2011

Miyazaki's Shimizu enjoying leading new team in his hometown

The Japan Times features periodical interviews with players in the bj-league. Taishiro Shimizu of the Miyazaki Shining Suns is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jan 30, 2011

Aoyama warmth beats the cold

Kotto-dori (Antiques Avenue), a pin-straight link between Aoyama and Roppongi avenues in Tokyo's Minato Ward, was once a melange of pricey boutiques and high-end antique stores. Word has it that the street is going through changes, so I set off to see what's up.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 29, 2011

New Yorker finds success within himself in Kyoto

American restaurateur Charles Roche, 62, credits his love of feting others to having grown up in the warm and noisy embrace of an extended Italian-American family in the Bronx. As part of a food-loving clan he jokingly refers to as "the Sopranos without the crime," he remembers splitting chestnuts and...
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 28, 2011

Kyoto ace Abdul-Rauf staves off Father Time

OSAKA — Kyoto Hannaryz guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf participated in the 3-Point Shootout during Sunday's All-Star festivities, providing a thrill for the enthusiastic crowd at Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 23, 2011

Mystery at a crossroads of continents

By the time I reached the small town of Palmyra, way out in the middle of the Syrian desert, I had become somewhat accustomed to the ways of the locals.
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2011

Pitch in and help the elderly

Japan boasts one of the highest overall life expectancies among nations. In 2009, the average life span for Japanese women was a whopping 86.44 years and that for men 79.59 years. The health ministry estimates the number of Japan's centenarians in fiscal 2010 at some 44,400 — a record. The population...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 21, 2011

A shot of Ardbeg in temple grounds

There's a faint scent of incense as you crawl through a knee-high door into a pebble-filled corridor that leads into a white igloo-like space, just big enough to fit three people. "This is my meditation room," says Akiyoshi Taniguchi, the curator who is introducing Kurenboh, a tiny modern gallery located...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 16, 2011

Mirrors are nothing but eyes

FOREST OF EYES: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Jeffrey Angles. University of California Press, 2010, 164 pp., $19.95 (paper) These are the lines from which the title of this poetry collection comes:
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 16, 2011

A dream comes true with the blues

My last great wildlife adventure of 2010 began in darkness to the sound of waves crashing on an idyllic beach.
Reader Mail
Jan 16, 2011

Excluding the best from exchange

Regarding the Jan. 8 Kyodo article "Language teachers to go to U.S. for exchanges": I don't understand the rationale behind most language exchange programs. This latest idea is, again, nothing more than a youth exchange. And this obsession with having young people teach language is absurd.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 16, 2011

Osaka: mecca for foodies, and more

A visit to Osaka is all about enjoyment, entertainment and indulgence — particularly in the fine fare to be found everywhere around its historic sites and along the buzzing neon streets of Japan's food-fueled second city.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jan 15, 2011

NBA prospect Tyler growing under Hill's tutelage

Potential is an intriguing word, a word that packs a punch, a word that grabs people's attention.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Jan 11, 2011

Absence makes couple grow fonder

Long-distance relationships are no longer rare in today's global village. But how long can a couple last without actually seeing each other? Fukuoka residents Naoko Yufu, 28, and 26-year-old Xie Guosong from China have been apart for about four of the five years of their relationship.
COMMENTARY
Jan 9, 2011

Palestinians revisit their hopes and failures

SEATTLE — When the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat read the Declaration of the Palestinian Independence just over 22 years ago, Palestinians everywhere were enthralled. They hung on his every word during the Palestinian National Council session in Algeria on Nov. 15, 1988. The council members...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 9, 2011

Japan's year of triumph in space

So, it's goodbye to 2010, the Year of the Tiger, and hello to 2011, the Year of the Rabbit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 7, 2011

Fill up on Morimura's unusual 'side dishes'

Some artists are accorded such historical importance that virtually everything they do or have done comes under close scrutiny. Other artists are effectively known for a single thing, such as the nominal Italian Surrealist, Giorgio de Chirico, who is primarily known for his so-called "metaphysical paintings,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 7, 2011

Realizing the genius of Leonardo da Vinci

A temporary pavilion in Tokyo's Hibiya Park seems like an unlikely venue for showcasing the hallowed works of Leonardo da Vinci, but for this particular exhibition, the big top-like structure is appropriate. "Leonardo da Vinci: The Genius" is aimed straight at the general public. Designed, produced,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Jan 5, 2011

Dairokkan: sixth sense among the cedars

"When these sugi (杉, cedars) were umareta (生まれた, born), if that's the word," says Mayumi, "Japan was in its Jōmon Jidai (縄文時代, Jomon Period, c. 10,000 B.C.-c. 300 B.C.). Before bunmei (文明, civilization), before nōgyō (農業, agriculture), before sensō (戦争, war) — before...
COMMUNITY
Jan 4, 2011

Arudou's Alien Almanac: 2000-2010

No. 5: The Otaru onsen case ('99-2005)
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 4, 2011

Arudou's Alien Almanac: 2010

No. 5: Renho joins Kan's Cabinet Japanese politicians with international roots are few but not unprecedented. But Taiwanese- Japanese Diet member Renho's ascension to the Cabinet as minister for administrative reforms has been historic. Requiring the bureaucrats to justify their budgets (famously asking...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 1, 2011

Wheelchair pioneer out to change public perceptions

"You can't keep a good man down" is the darkly applicable phrase that springs to mind when listening to Yasuhiro "Mark" Yamazaki. The energy, conviction, sense of mission and utter absence of self-pity in this soft-spoken man is humbling.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 1, 2011

Perfect vacation and perfect aggravation

All good marriages hinge on compromise, no matter what the couples' cultural backgrounds. Remove compromise and the open door of married life soon swings awry.

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