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Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 30, 2011

Menswear designers play it by the book

Followers of men's fashion were close to getting exactly what they wanted at this month's inaugural Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo, with many designers — while mindful of the uncertainly in the air — pitching their collections directly at their existing fan base and seemingly keen to return to...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 30, 2011

PS: 'I love Japan.' And Japan loves Paul Smith, it seems

"Hold on," says the British designer who launched a thousand stripes, reaching awkwardly into the back of the crisp white shirt he is wearing.
Reader Mail
Oct 27, 2011

Power-wielders do Japan no credit

I support and encourage Japan, and hope and pray for its future. I admire and praise those in the devastated north for their patience and endurance. But such feelings for this country are continually eroded by the disgraceful behavior of those Japanese who, in their lofty positions, should know better....
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2011

Understanding the language of global protest

The protest movements that have flared up across the West, from Chile to Germany, have remained curiously undefined and under-analyzed. Some speak of them as the greatest global mobilization since 1968 — when enragés in very different countries coalesced around similar concerns. But others insist...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 27, 2011

Martyn

Dutch-born DJ and producer Martyn is perhaps best known for his dub-heavy bass tunes, and the back catalog of his own 3024 label would appear to confirm that. However, four-to-the-floor house and techno beats actually make him feel more at home. "It's very much a physical thing," he explains in an interview...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2011

A thousand prisoners for one

The celebrations in Israel over the release of the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit come after the Israeli government concluded that diplomatic rarity, an agreement with Hamas. It is as if the government had brought back an Israeli who had been sent to Mars.
COMMUNITY / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 25, 2011

Death, mystery and well-endowed tanuki: a tour of terrifying Tokyo

If supernatural beings are a form of energy strongly connected to violent death and tragic events of the past, then Japan is the perfect breeding place for such phenomena, says Lilly Fields, a "certified paranormal investigator" who has lived in Japan for more than 25 years.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Oct 24, 2011

Ill omens for Asian economies

Even though Asia is still perceived to be the global economic growth center, there are signs of potential dangers of the regional economy heading toward a collapse because of a vicious circle of inflation and wage increases brought about by huge sums of speculative money being poured into Asian countries....
CULTURE / Books
Oct 23, 2011

Documenting disaster

THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE and Tsunami, the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor, and How the World's Media Reported Them, by Eric Johnston. The Japan Times, 2011, 96 pp., ¥1,260 (paperback) Seven months after Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters, the jury remains out on media reporting...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 23, 2011

Busy offseason ahead for NPB, players

Every year when I renew acquaintances with returning foreign players — whether it be at spring training camp in Okinawa or Miyazaki, an exhibition game or an early regular-season game -I ask them as an ice-breaker, "How was your winter?" The answer I get most often is "short."
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 23, 2011

Attitude, lifestyle contributed to Irabu's demise

Hideki Irabu was given a king's welcome in New York.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 23, 2011

Tying up the loose ends of gaijin life

A ROOM WHERE THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER CANNOT BE HEARD: A Novel in Three Parts, by Levy Hideo. Translated by Christopher D. Scott. Columbia University Press, 2011, 115pp., $19.95 (hardback) One is certain that more than a few reviewers of Levy Hideo's "A Room Where The Star Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard"...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 23, 2011

One woman's Hyakumeizan

As I thumb through the tattered pages of my decade-old hiking guidebook, a sense of satisfaction coupled with disbelief takes over.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 22, 2011

Briton aims to restore poets' peak to former glory

Nineteen university students and civic-minded Kyoto residents squat on a mountain pass on a cloudless afternoon in early October as a tall British poet, Stephen Gill, 58, reads from a collection of haiku.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2011

Al Jazeera: Qatar's promoter of the Arab Spring

During the 15 years that it has broadcast from Qatar, Al Jazeera has served as far more than a traditional television station. With its fearless involvement in Arab politics, it has created a new venue for political freedom, which has culminated in its unreserved support for Arab revolutions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 21, 2011

"Nakanoshima Collections: Osaka City Museum of Modern Art & The National Museum of Art, Osaka"

Osaka City is in the process of building a new modern art museum — to be unveiled in 2017 — in Nakanoshima 4-chome, the same area as the National Museum of Art, Osaka. The two museums will face each other, giving them the opportunity to organize joint exhibitions and art events.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 21, 2011

Get on board for some art

Osaka's Keihan Electric Line might not seem like the ideal gallery space, but the city's Art Area B1 is hoping to change that.
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2011

Peace in the Basque Country?

Neither the Spanish government nor the ETA terrorists were there, but a conference in the northern Spanish city of San Sebastian last weekend will probably lead to the end of ETA's long and violent campaign for Basque independence. "We believe it is time to end, and it is possible to end, the last armed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2011

Now's your chance to catch up on Japanese cinema

Non-Japanese residents in Tokyo who want to see new and classic Japanese films but are frustrated by the small number of subtitled screenings can catch up — and move ahead — at the Tokyo International Film Festival (Oct. 22-30).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 20, 2011

Blip Festival Tokyo

If there's anything video-game geeks hate, it's interacting with other people — at least, that's the common perception. However, it's a perception that is routinely shattered by the live chiptune music scene — and where better to go multiplayer than at this weekend's Blip Festival Tokyo, which celebrates...
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2011

Olympus backtracks on Gyrus fee

Olympus Corp. said Wednesday it paid $687 million in advisory fees for its acquisition of Gyrus Group PLC, almost double the ¥30 billion Olympus Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said the day before.
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2011

A vital year for newspapers

The 64th annual Newspaper Week kicked off Oct. 15 and will end this Friday. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association held the first Newspaper Week in 1948 to remind newspapers of their social responsibility and to help people understand the role of newspapers. This year was marked by the...
COMMENTARY
Oct 19, 2011

A decade of Afghan tragedy

On July 1, 2002, the United States bombed an Afghan wedding in the small village of Deh Rawud. Located to the north of Kandahar, the village seemed fortified by the region's many mountains. For a few hours, its people thought they were safe from a war they had never invited. They celebrated, and as customs...
COMMENTARY
Oct 18, 2011

Time is running out to avoid civil war in Syria

Back in 1989, when the communist regimes of Europe were tottering, almost every day somebody would say "There's going to be a civil war." And our job, as foreign journalists who allegedly had their finger on the pulse of events, was to say: "No, there won't." So most of us did say that, as if we actually...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Oct 18, 2011

Fuji Five Lakes: What are your thoughts on hiking prices on everything from food to utility bills in the wake of the 3/11 disasters?

Robin Lawrentz, 34Yamanashi local government (American)It will be a greater burden in rural Japan where the economy is already struggling. There it will just take more out of money out of people's hands. But people will get used to it unless the change becomes drastic.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2011

Unjustness of death penalty underlined again

Three significant events relating to the death penalty occurred in the United States during September. The one that gained the most publicity was the execution in Georgia of Troy Davis, who had been convicted of the 1989 murder of Mark McPhail, an off-duty police officer.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 16, 2011

Laid-back celebration of the empty and ordinary

PLAINSONG, by Kazushi Hosaka, translated by Paul Warham, Dalkey Archive Press, 2011, 176 pp., $18 (paper) After being dumped by his girlfriend and moving to a new apartment, the anonymous anti-hero of this plaintive novel finds himself drawn to the life of a recluse, shunning drinking friends, and spending...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan