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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
May 24, 2012

This Japanese Life

Scholars of Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher best known for his controversial statement "God is dead," have for years talked about a gaping hole in his works: Where are Nietzsche's writings about teaching English to Japanese high schoolers? What has he got to say about the paranoia of being...
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2012

Economic uncertainties ahead

The Cabinet Office's preliminary report on May 17 stated that Japan's gross domestic product in the January-March period increased by 1 percent from the previous quarter in real terms or an annualized 4.1 percent. This performance, better than expected by private-sector analysts, is mainly attributed...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 19, 2012

Grateful architect has grand designs in store for disaster-prone Japan

The first thought that tumbled through architect Albert Abut's head as he sat in his car watching an intersection in Shibuya undulate last year during the Great East Japan Earthquake was "Is my family safe?" A quick call to his wife confirmed she and their 6-year-old daughter were fine.
EDITORIALS
May 19, 2012

Few strong performers in 2011

Listed major companies are announcing their business performance for fiscal 2011. As a whole, they are expected to show the first decrease in recurring profits in three years, mainly due to the effects of the 3/11 disasters, floods in Thailand, the strong yen and rises in the prices of imported raw materials,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 19, 2012

Reasons I don't buy a nuclear restart

I've heard many excuses for the nuclear accident that happened as a result of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, followed by reasons why we should return to nuclear power. I don't buy any of them.
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2012

How to right what's wrong in East Asian manufacturing

East Asia's manufacturing industry, with its remarkable growth in recent years centering on China, South Korea and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has come to be called "the Factory of the World."
JAPAN
May 18, 2012

Osaka's Hashimoto puts municipal workers' tattoos into the limelight

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto caused another public stir recently when he asked all city workers if they have a tattoo and even suggested those who answered yes should quit the municipal government.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
May 17, 2012

I'm too sexy for my sutras

Monks gone wild? Not quite, but Buddhism is indeed trying out new ways to reach the next generation.
Reader Mail
May 17, 2012

Business entities do not qualify

Is Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s plan for returning to profitability — restarting nuclear power plants to raise enough cash to pay off the damage caused by their inability to properly manage nuclear power plants — supported by government officials?
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
May 16, 2012

Japan's social-gaming industry hindered by government's anti-gambling move

When it comes to mobile social-gaming, nowhere is it as popular or as profitable as it is in Japan. The nation's two industry giants, Gree and its rival DeNA's Mobage, have been increasing their sales every quarter for years. Gree's TV-commercial campaigns are second only to cosmetics company Shiseido...
JAPAN
May 15, 2012

Cesium spikes in Tokyo Bay samples

Sludge samples taken at the mouths of two major rivers emptying into Tokyo Bay showed radioactive cesium contamination linked to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis grew by 1.5 to 13 times since August, a researcher at Kinki University said Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2012

Are humans getting better at beating violence?

With daily headlines focusing on war, terrorism and the abuses of repressive governments, and religious leaders frequently bemoaning declining standards of public and private behavior, it is easy to get the impression that we are witnessing a moral collapse.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 13, 2012

Noda's vexing full plate: tax hike, Ozawa, Futenma, Senkakus

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda hopes to persuade Okinawans to accept the government's highly contentious plan to move the Futenma air base elsewhere in the prefecture once the burden of hosting U.S. forces there starts to ease.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 13, 2012

Born of disaster, modern architecture is itself now an ongoing disaster

In the French writer-director Jacques Tati's superb 1967 film "Play Time," people are like prisoners condemned to roam about in and amid the glass cages of high-rise office blocks. They are lost, both to the world and themselves. In the world of Tati, who died in 1982 aged 75, all cities look alike;...
CULTURE / Books
May 13, 2012

A chart-topper for J-Pop fans

Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop by Michael K. Bourdaghs. Columbia University Press, New York, 2012, 304 pp., $27.50 (paperback)
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 13, 2012

Though spooked by new threats, Japanese accept mass killers

Before March last year, if you'd asked a child in Japan about nuclear radiation you would probably have been told about Godzilla, the monster powered by mutations caused by radiation, or Tetsuwan Atomu, aka the nuclear-powered robot Astro Boy. Not any more.
CULTURE / Books
May 13, 2012

Tokugawa: the art of governing

PERFORMING THE GREAT PEACE: Political Space and Open Secrets in Tokugawa Japan, by Luke S. Roberts. University of Hawai'i Press, 2012, 263 pp., $49.00 (hardcover)
JAPAN
May 12, 2012

Diet finally starts deliberations on tax hike bill

The Diet kicked off deliberations Friday on the contentious bill to double the 5 percent consumption tax by 2015, and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is urging the opposition camp to help ensure its passage by the end of the Diet session in June.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2012

Filmmaker savors being in situation where threat of the unknown looms

A surfboard mounted against a sea of sludge, whimsically defiant to the ruinous tide of debris. It's the kind of quirky beauty you might expect from Michael Arias, an American filmmaker based in Tokyo. Arias' creative work, in film through to his recent photographs of Tohoku, all paint with the same...
EDITORIALS
May 12, 2012

The return of President Putin

After serving as prime minister for four years, Vladimir Putin returned to the Russian presidency Monday to begin his third term, as outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev was appointed prime minister for the second time, thus continuing their governing partnership.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 10, 2012

After flower-vase success, former D-Bros designers set to blossom

If you're the sort of person who likes art museums but loves art museum gift shops, then you're likely to be familiar with the work of Yoshie Watanabe and Ryosuke Uehara, two designers who are currently the subject of an exhibition at Tokyo's Ginza Graphic Gallery.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 9, 2012

Youngest billionaire extends losses as Gree plunges

Gree Inc. extended losses in Tokyo trading a day after founder Yoshikazu Tanaka, Japan's youngest billionaire, lost $702 million as his social-gaming company plunged on concerns one of its sales methods may be illegal.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?