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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2009

'Bolt'

Brave, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Bolt is the canine equivalent of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) of "The Truman Show" fame — he lives his whole life in a TV show but doesn't know it. And because he's a dog, the Kafka-esque/metaphysical angst that assailed Truman (once he discovered that his life is...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jul 23, 2009

Translator Kiyoko Zaborszky

Kiyoko Zaborszky, 83, is a translator with a reputation for picking winners. She's worked on books with positive messages that help readers deal with difficult and often controversial issues such as adoption, organ donation, disease and dying. In a career spanning four decades, Zaborszky translated 31...
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 19, 2009

Bowling 'em over

The game of lawn bowls may appear straightforward — players in whites repeatedly roll 1.5-kg rounded plastic "bowls" over finely cut grass — but Japan's male and female singles champions are taking decidedly different approaches to the World Singles Champion of Champions, set to begin in Ayr, Scotland,...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 19, 2009

Bowling 'em over

The game of lawn bowls may appear straightforward — players in whites repeatedly roll 1.5-kg rounded plastic "bowls" over finely cut grass — but Japan's male and female singles champions are taking decidedly different approaches to the World Singles Champion of Champions, set to begin in Ayr, Scotland,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 17, 2009

Dick El Demasiado

Dick El Demasiado is, by his own admission, an impostor. Born Dick Verdult in the Netherlands in 1954, the musician and media artist has become a pivotal figure on Argentina's experimental music scene thanks to an elaborate hoax.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 17, 2009

'Futoko'

Since its start in 1978, the Pia Film Festival has served as a proving ground for young Japanese indie filmmakers, with many of its prize winners going on to greater fame, if not always fortune. Among them are Ryosuke Hashiguchi ("Gururi no Koto"), Shinobu Yaguchi ("Happy Flight"), Naoko Ogigami ("Kamome...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 17, 2009

'Clara Schumann'

"Clara Schumann" wears the mantle of a period love story with attractive distinction — touted as the tale of the feverish menage a trois between Clara (Martina Gedeck), her husband, Robert Schumann (Pascal Greggory), and his protege Johannes Brahms (Malik Zidi), there are plenty of steamy, corset-...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 17, 2009

'Miracle at St. Anna'

Spike Lee has made so many didactic movies in his career that it wouldn't have surprised me if his latest — "Miracle at St. Anna," which looks at a squad of black G.I.s fighting the Nazis in World War II — was yet another. What did surprise me, though, was that this time around Spike decided to mix...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 12, 2009

A teenager in an infant's body may hold the key to eternal youth

We are constantly under attack. Chemicals in the environment, ultraviolet light, even cosmic radiation — our DNA is bombarded 24/7 by agents that can cause damage and mutations. But don't take my word for it.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 10, 2009

Finding death in logos

Brass knuckles dangle near her waist, while a tiny feather decorates her miniature top hat. But her face is obscured and imprisoned by a giant, striped bow. Who is this? She is the subject of "Cadavre Exquis 4," one of the illustrations by well- respected Paris-based illustrator Jules Julien currently...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jul 9, 2009

United World Karate Association President Daikaku Chodoin

Daikaku Chodoin, 68, is the founder and president of the United World Karate Association, which combines all five iemoto (the traditional branches of the martial art) with an estimated 50 million practitioners around the world. A kyuudan (9th degree black belt) of Goju-ryu, one of Okinawa's "hard-soft"...
JAPAN / G8 ITALY SUMMIT
Jul 8, 2009

G8 leaders' profiles

Italy Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister
Japan Times
SOCCER
Jul 8, 2009

Huge crowd turns out to welcome Ronaldo

MADRID (AP) Cristiano Ronaldo received a rapturous welcome from 80,000 Real Madrid fans Monday, an outpouring so exuberant the soccer star had to be hustled away when spectators leaped barriers and took the field.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jul 7, 2009

Cops crack down with 'I pee' checks

My blog has been getting periodic pings about rumblings in Roppongi: Tokyo cops cleaning out pesky foreign touts before Olympic inspectors see them; the U.S. Embassy warning Americans to stay away from the area after reports of drugged drinks and thefts.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2009

The return of religion to Europe

BUDAPEST — It's a well-worn contrast: the United States is religious, Europe is secular. Yet, in some respects, this cliched opposition has actually been reversed recently: Religion played virtually no role during the last American presidential election, while in a range of different European countries...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 5, 2009

Why Murakami's best-selling '1Q84' is worth the wait

When Shinchosha decided not to run a pre-marketing campaign for Haruki Murakami's new and highly anticipated two-volume novel, the publishing house must have banked on the book creating its own hype. It worked. The void soon filled with publicity and media speculation about the book's only available...
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2009

Taking an Izu Islands tonic

Through half-closed eyelids, the sea sparkles. A bamboo screen dapples the sunlight, and the world is reduced to contrast, to flashes of light and shade. The air is a hot, distilled essence of summer. Each time the salt dries on my skin, I make the small commute from towel to waves and dive in. The water...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2009

Taking an Izu Islands tonic

Through half-closed eyelids, the sea sparkles. A bamboo screen dapples the sunlight, and the world is reduced to contrast, to flashes of light and shade. The air is a hot, distilled essence of summer. Each time the salt dries on my skin, I make the small commute from towel to waves and dive in. The water...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 28, 2009

Mythmaking and the Kamikaze 'volunteers'

NEW YORK — Lisa Hosokawa Garber, a fresh graduate of St. Andrews Presbyterian College in North Carolina, has sent me "Crosswind," her short, imaginative account of three months in the life of a youth training to be a Kamikaze pilot. It describes what its author calls a Shakespearean "twist of fate":...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 27, 2009

Zen Buddhist monk aids peace efforts in native Belfast

When the Zen monk Dogen Zenji returned to Japan from China in 1227 with the ideas that would become the Soto school of Zen, could he have imagined that centuries later, on the other side of the world, those very ideas would be used by people to try to overcome their society's deeply rooted conflict?...
EDITORIALS
Jun 26, 2009

Truth behind false charge

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday decided to retry a 62-year-old man who served 17 years of a life sentence until a new DNA test suggested he was innocent. Mr. Toshikazu Sugaya was arrested in December 1991 for the May 1990 kidnapping and murder of a 4-year-old girl in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. Although...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 26, 2009

A re-imagining of Osaka's riverfront

"Tadao Ando Exhibition 2009: The City of Water/Osaka vs. Venice" seems like a fixed fight. Many would even balk at the idea of the match-up.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 26, 2009

Misia changes with charity

I think that you can convey a fact by words, but you can not convey the truth only with those words," says Misia, taking a break from recording sessions in Tokyo's Shibuya district. "And I believe music is what can fill it out."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2009

'The Visitor'

Maybe it's just me, but "The Visitor" recalls the slight fear mixed with slight resentment, that tends to assail non-American citizens going through U.S. immigration. It seems the quickest and most hassle-free way out of the booth and through the exit, is to stress that you're only visiting — and will...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 25, 2009

"Yakult Lady" Chie Takamizawa

Chie Takamizawa, 30, is a "Yakult Lady" in downtown Tokyo. A mother of two boys, aged 8 and 9, she first got on her delivery bicycle when her second baby turned 8 months old. With almost eight years of speeding through alleys and avenues, Takamizawa delivers healthy beverages, yogurt and Yakult, a delicious...
Reader Mail
Jun 21, 2009

Outstanding place to grow the soul

To follow up on the June 16 VIEWS FROM THE STREET question "What do you like most about life in Japan?," I find that the Japanese are among the world's best craftsmen, doing things so precisely and thoroughly with their hands. My wife is Japanese with a highly developed aesthetic sense. As I have always...

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