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EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2011

3/11 victims face welfare cuts

Cases have surfaced in which municipalities in Tohoku have stopped welfare payments to victims of the March 11 earthquake-tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 17, 2011

It seems Japan has literally gone to the dogs

Japan has found an answer to loneliness, despair, fear, disgust and uncertainty. Hint: It's alive, stands on four legs and barks. Well, so much the better if the gloom weighing us down can be so easily dispelled. Or is it?
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEK 3
Jul 17, 2011

Films focus on Japan's nuclear flashpoints

The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 has revealed the danger posed by the storing of spent nuclear fuel in pools at the plant, because after the pools drained partly or wholly the fuel heated up and discharged radiation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 17, 2011

Oblivion is a soldier's reward

Shigeru Mizuki's "Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths" begins with a gallery of the faces of each of the 30 main characters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 15, 2011

'Under the Hawthorn Tree'

One of my girlfriends in high school had super-strict parents. Not only was she required to be home by the ungodly hour of 8 p.m. every night, she was allowed no boys in her life, and her dad even forbade her to smile and say "thank you" to the delivery guy. On the other hand, this girl recognized the...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jul 15, 2011

Will heartthrob Mukai shine as the shogun?

This year's NHK Sunday evening drama has already entered the history books for one, perhaps inauspicious, reason. On March 12, a day after the Great East Japan Earthquake, NHK announced that the following day's broadcast of "Go," as the show is titled, would be canceled to make way for news coverage....
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2011

Radiation, debris vex Tohoku's fishermen

Four months after the quake and tsunami hit communities along the Tohoku coastline, fishermen in Fukushima Prefecture and nearby areas still find themselves in uncharted waters as contamination of the sea remains a major obstacle to their business.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2011

Ichihashi denies intent to kill Hawker

Tatsuya Ichihashi pleaded not guilty Monday to premeditated murder in the 2007 slaying of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker, 22, although he admitted raping her and hiding her corpse on his apartment balcony.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 3, 2011

Japan needs to do more than simply 'cope' with stress

What's ailing us? The list is long. In a nutshell: stress. Sixty percent of Japan's work force suffers from it, according to the business magazine Weekly Toyo Keizai.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 3, 2011

Murakami puts a bomb under his compatriots' atomic complacency

"The Japanese will someday outgrow their nuclear allergy." I've never forgotten futurologist and Cold War military strategist Herman Kahn saying this to me on his visit to Japan in 1969, when I was his guide and occasional interpreter.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 2, 2011

Long and short of pet grooming

"Wow, what's that?" I asked Mrs. Amano. In her arms she was holding a furry thing with whiskers. I couldn't quite recognize the animal as it had tufts of hair sticking out all over it — like a hexagram with a cat face in the middle.
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2011

Cesium found in child urine tests

Small amounts of radioactive cesium were found in the urine of 10 children in the city of Fukushima, confirming their internal exposure to radiation, citizens' groups that carried out a survey said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 1, 2011

'The Hangover Part II'

Any serious drinker knows that feeling of waking up in the morning so desperately hungover you feel like a reanimated corpse, and the groaning, quivering vow to never touch the stuff again. That resolve usually only lasts until your dehydrated brain has forgotten the sensation of slamming up against...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 30, 2011

The enduring reputation of Shigeru Aoki's brief career

Shigeru Aoki's short life was "beset by all manner of bad luck, and he passed through it like a shooting star" wrote Hanijiro Sakamoto (1882-1969), one of the giants of post-WWII Western-style painting. Shigeru (1882-1911) was only 28 when he passed away, and his active period as a painter was all the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2011

Eagleburger: the U.S. diplomat's ambassador

For many of us in the U.S. Foreign Service, Lawrence Eagleburger, who died early this month, was a larger-than-life figure who left an indelible mark on our lives.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jun 28, 2011

Travel writer gets intimate with Japan

Freelance travel writer Beth Reiber knows Tokyo inside out — maybe much more than most Tokyoites.
BASKETBALL
Jun 26, 2011

Draft starts a new challenge for Tyler

The journey has only begun.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 25, 2011

Kannon: the goddess of mercy and pets

Today I'd like to introduce you to someone so important, she may change your life. She has been a highly revered VIP for years, and is a household name in Japan, China and India. Although she is relatively unknown to the Western world, her accolades abound. She is Kannon, the goddess of mercy. I'd like...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 25, 2011

'Reluctant' musician blows success his way with horn

Over half his lifetime ago, reluctant horn player Jonathan Hammill, at 15, slumped in the back seat of the family car. Sweaty and bored on a family trip to his grandparents' house in Florida, Hammill watched as his mother impulsively popped in a tape his music teacher had given him as encouragement at...
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2011

Is there an Afghan solution?

The war in Afghanistan has now lasted almost 10 years. It has cost many billions of dollars and the lives of thousands of soldiers from the United States, Britain, Canada and other NATO countries. Many more have been injured. The loss of life among Afghan military and police forces has been even greater...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2011

Impressionists and friends: on the verge of the modern

There seems to be an exhibition of Impressionist art somewhere in Tokyo every year, such is its popularity in Japan.
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2011

Impossible to live without risks

In the debate about continued use of nuclear energy in Japan, I do not understand the demand to abandon nuclear energy unless industry and government can "prove to us that they are 100 percent confident that the plants are safe and that accidents such as those that occurred at Fukushima after March 11...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 19, 2011

Japan's leadership desperately needs some sex appeal

What a pity Aristophanes died c. 388 B.C: That classical Athenian comic playwright knew politics and politicians. They kindled his comic wrath. "O, thou that shavest close thy passionate arse!" he wrote of one politician. Of another: "Noisome was the stench that issued from the brute as it slid forth,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 19, 2011

Conduct most becoming of Sado's Berlin triumph

In the past two weeks, three television programs, each on a different network, covered conductor Yutaka Sado's debut with the Berlin Philharmonic. Though Sado's one-off gig would normally mean little outside the rarefied world of classical music, TBS and NHK each decided it merited an in-depth special....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 17, 2011

'13'

Being thrown in a cramped, damp room full of extremely muscular men may sound like an ideal way to spend an evening, but take it from me: There are issues. The air's so coated with testosterone it's hard to breathe, the conversation is far, far from anything resembling romantic and, worst of all, these...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2011

Are Saudi women next?

The unexpected visibility and assertiveness of women in the revolutions unfolding across the Arab world — in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere — has helped propel what has become variously known as the "Arab awakening" or "Arab Spring." Major changes have occurred in the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 16, 2011

'Remembrance of the Future to Come'

Basel, Switzerland Closes June 29
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 12, 2011

Eccentric wanderer discovers his destiny in Meiji Japan

"Japan," asserts the fictitious character Lafcadio Hearn on page 97, "has chaos at its core. The closer one approaches that core, the deeper one fathoms the world of illusion and warped contradiction. Such a country is begging for citizens such as Yakumo Koizumi, that is, me."

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo