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CULTURE / Books
Jan 1, 2012

Unknown quantity rich in quality

ZERO and Other Fictions, by Huang Fan. Translated by John Balcom. Columbia University Press, 2011, 152 pp. $19.50 (paperback) Huang Fan, translator John Balcom informs us, is "a literary phenomenon" and "a bright star among Taiwan's so-called new generation of writers." He was, according to Balcom, "such...
COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2011

Year of revolution and crisis

Every year brings changes, but some years really are turning points: 1492, 1789, 1914, and 1989, for example. Does 2011 belong in the august company of such Really Important Years? Probably not, but it definitely qualifies for membership in the second tier of Quite Important Years.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 30, 2011

Rice takes prized, symbolic yearend form

Shōgatsu (New Year's) is the most important holiday on the Japanese calendar, and the dishes associated with it are laden with symbolic meaning. While the colorful foods of osechi, packed attractively in jūbako (stacking bento boxes), are the flamboyant attention-catchers of the New Year's feast, the...
EDITORIALS
Dec 28, 2011

Budget with record-high spending

The Noda Cabinet on Saturday endorsed the fiscal 2012 budget to be submitted to the Diet. The general account spending will drop 2.2 percent from the fiscal 2011 initial budget to ¥90.33 trillion — the first fall in six years.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIGHT GIST
Dec 27, 2011

2011: a year of disaster in quotes

This year produced more than its share of memorable quotes, many of which were inspired by the March 11 disaster and its aftermath. But figures from other fields, from sports to entertainment, also said things worth repeating. Here is a sampling, in chronological order:
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011

Fantasy alive in the real world

Fantasies are central to several of the best books published in the last year. These works are not, of course, tried and tired swords-and-lords style epics, but rather books that tackle the imaginings that have made and molded the world in which we live.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 25, 2011

Time for Japan to realize it really is the canary in the mine

This Christmas Day column is a book review, but it is also a wish and a prayer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011

Celluloid celebration of Tokyo story

On my first trip to Cuba, I was delighted to find that not only was the city structure intact but that individual edifices could be matched with my memory of the 1959 film "Our Man in Havana."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 24, 2011

Volunteers' hugs warm tsunami-hit Ofunato

When the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan, numerous volunteer organizations rushed to help the survivors with basic necessities like food and clothing.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Dec 24, 2011

Iwakuma, Chen intriguing options for major league clubs

Yu Darvish and Tsuyoshi Wada have been spoken for, but there are still two high-profile NPB pitchers looking to make the jump to the majors next season.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 23, 2011

'I am Love'

'I am Love" is an ode to Tilda Swinton: Once she appears before the camera, directors such as Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino want to keep gazing at her forever. According to the production notes, Guadagnino says the project had been in the works for 16 years, and during that time he had never once...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 23, 2011

"Kuniyoshi: Spectacular Ukiyo-e Imagination"

One of the greatest contributors to ukiyo-e (woodblock prints), that popular art form of the Edo Period (1603-1867), was Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), who was known for his beautiful workmanship, attention to detail and innovative style. Kuniyoshi was also a prolific printmaker and one of the artists...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 23, 2011

'Kodoku na Wakusei (In a Lonely Planet)'

Watching movies is like dreaming with your eyes open. Hardly an original thought, I know. In fact, it's been a staple of film commentary for nearly a century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 23, 2011

"Drawing the Wonders of Wild Nature: From Familiar Animals to Animal Zodiac Signs"

Shoko Uemura (1902-2001) is a renowned nihonga (Japanese-style painting) artist, who is also known for being a son of the famous bijin-ga (paintings of beautiful women) artist Shoen Uemura (1875-1949) and the father of contemporary nihonga painter Atsushi Uemura.
EDITORIALS
Dec 22, 2011

Water, water, everywhere ...

It is estimated that some 60 million people depend on the 4,900-km-long Mekong River and its tributaries for their lives and livelihoods — food, water and transportation. It is the world's largest inland fishery; an estimated 1,000 species of fish live in the Mekong, making it the second-most biodiverse...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 22, 2011

Japan's dramatists take on the 'nuclear village'

The place to start when reviewing this year's highlights in contemporary Japanese theater, has to be The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11. That day led to a nation in mourning, an ongoing nuclear crisis and an awakening among dramatists, who saw the importance of their role to stimulate debate...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 21, 2011

Vaclav Havel's life in truth

Long before Czechoslovakia's communist regime collapsed in 1989, Vaclav Havel was one of the most remarkable figures in Czech history — already a successful playwright when he became the unofficial leader of the opposition movement. Though he hoped to return to writing, the revolution catapulted him...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 18, 2011

Hip-hop star gives designer a leg-up to fame

As a child growing up in mountainous Yamanashi Prefecture in the 1970s, artist Shojono Tomo had an irrational fear of using the brakes on her bicycle — though none whatsoever about riding just as fast as she could.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 18, 2011

Cultures mingle amid Atami's hot springs

She was on a train from Tokyo to Atami in the summer of 1959 when the English travel writer Ethel Mannin "saw what I had read about and been told about but felt unable to accept until I had seen it for myself."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Dec 18, 2011

How The Japan Times saved a foundering battleship, twice

Mikasa! The name of the mighty Japanese battleship will be as familiar to the world's naval historians as it is now to viewers of NHK's Sunday evening drama "Saka no Ue no Kumo" ("Clouds Over the slope"). It was the Mikasa that all but decided the fate of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, when it led...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 16, 2011

'Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol'

Cocky, sexy, brilliant and incredibly fit young men don't stay that way forever, right? Gets especially difficult past the age of 40, wouldn't you say? But in the case of Ethan Hunt — the main man of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise and one of Tom Cruise's most successful performances - the impossible...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 16, 2011

"Communication: Visualizing the Human Connection in the Age of Vermeer"

During the 17th-century, Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer became renowned for his outstanding compositional and lighting skills. Under the theme of "letters," this exhibition features the work of Vermeer alongside that of other contemporaneous painters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 16, 2011

"Hideo Yoshihara: A Retrospective"

Hideo Yoshihara (1931-2007), a Hiroshima native, joined the Gutai group of experimental artists when it was founded in 1954. by Jiro Yoshihara, a distant relative of his. However, Hideo left the group the following year and joined the Demokrato Artist Association, where he was inspired to take up lithography...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 11, 2011

Mr. Momoe Yamaguchi finally decides to speak

Last week a new movie called "Railways" opened in Tokyo. It's about a driver on a small rural electric train line who retires after 40 years and is sort of a sequel to a film with the exact same title released in 2010. That movie centered on a Tokyo executive who loses his job and decides to pursue his...
EDITORIALS
Dec 11, 2011

Is a girl or boyfriend worth it?

This year's Christmas date night might have plenty of vacant slots if a recent survey on Japanese relationships is correct. Fewer young people than ever before say they have a girlfriend or boyfriend.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 11, 2011

It takes a supersize brain to drive a London taxi

Visitors to Japan often comment on the way taxi doors open as you approach — at the touch of a button by the driver; and that those drivers generally wear smart white gloves. I apologize for the competitive tone, but there is something far more remarkable about London taxis: their drivers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 9, 2011

"A Road Traveled by Feudal Lords and Pet Dogs: Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, Primarily from the Hoeido and Reisho Editions"

A popular subject of literature and art during the Edo Period (1603-1867) was the journey along the Tokaido highway between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto, the most famous depictions of which come from ukiyo-e (woodblock print) artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Hiroshige produced more than 20...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 9, 2011

"Ito Kiyonaga: A Retrospective"

To celebrate the centenary of Kiyonaga Ito's birth, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art is holding a retrospective of the well-known painter's work. Born to a family who ran a Zen temple in Hyogo Prefecture, Ito (1911-2001) was expected to enter the priesthood. Instead, he chose to became a Western-style...

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear