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Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2009

Cars no longer coveted by young

To get around the city, Yutaka Makino hops on his skateboard or takes the trains. Does he dream of the day when he owns his own car? Not a chance.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 4, 2009

Monta Mino: Japan's 'Mr. Television'

Picture the world's busiest television presenter, and imagine yourself squinting through the glare of high-wattage celebrity, struggling to breathe in air perfumed with pampered showbiz egos.
Reader Mail
Dec 21, 2008

Give cannabis room to grow

Regarding the Nov. 28 article "Cops target online weed seed ads": The cannabis plant is the single most usable plant known to mankind. The fiber of the cannabis plant makes an extraordinarily tough fabric, as for sailcloth, or it can be made into all sorts of garments, some surprisingly soft and others...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2008

Making quality the key to Web searches

NEW YORK — In the not-so-distant future, students will be able to graduate from high school without ever touching a book. Twenty years ago, they could graduate from high school without ever using a computer. In only a few decades, computer technology and the Internet have transformed the core principles...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2008

'WALL-E'

They say the best creators of science fiction are those able to extrapolate just a bit into the future. Think of William Gibson's descriptions of a wired, digitally interconnected world dominated by multinational corporations in 1984's "Neuromancer," or Terry Gilliam's imagining of a perpetual war on...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2008

New tourism agency ambushed by high yen

When the Japan Tourism Agency opened for business on Oct. 1 to attract more Asian travelers, the timing could hardly have been worse.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 14, 2008

Beyonce "I am . . . Sasha Fierce"

A two-disc concept album charting the sense of detachment Beyonce Knowles feels between her stage presence and the "real her"? The record industry must really be in turmoil for Sony to have let her get away with releasing this — everyone knows double albums tank, particularly when pushed by performers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2008

Tokyo's Rokku laughs it up again at film festival

The objectives of the First Old Town Taito International Comedy Film Festival, which runs Nov. 21 to 24 in the Tokyo districts of Asakusa and Ueno, sound ambitious. Noting on the festival's English-language Web site that "there are innumerable film festivals held throughout the world," the executive...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 9, 2008

Mighty yen scares off the tourists

California's tourism office didn't waste any time when the dollar sunk to new lows against the yen. For the past couple of weeks, commercial TV stations have aired ads for the Golden State featuring shots of its natural and man-made delights, capped with a personal message from the Governator himself....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2008

Pregnant Afghan women face deadly odds

KABUL — In Badakhshan, Afghanistan, for every 100,000 births, 6,500 young mothers die. This is a record unrivaled anywhere in the world. In other parts of Afghanistan, too, the rates of maternal mortality continue to be among the highest in the world.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2008

Obama, McCain all but ignore poverty issue

PRINCETON — Barack Obama worked for three years as a community organizer on Chicago's blighted South Side, so he knows all about the real poverty that exists in America. He knows that in one of the world's richest nations, 37 million people live in poverty, a far higher proportion than in Europe's...
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2008

'Anime' biz taps new inspiration

Astro Boy, created by animation pioneer Osamu Tezuka, is a superhero robot with a soft, adorable face, a feature that partly explains his global fame.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 28, 2008

When is an 'election' not an election?

The personality contest foisted on the public as a campaign for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party insulted the intelligence of anyone with a nervous system, and not just because Taro Aso was known to be a shoo-in from the beginning. By presenting five candidates who were supposedly vying...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 28, 2008

A step-by-step guide to owning a home in Japan

So you are ready to be king of your own castle in Japan. Adios to the days when you, a mere rent-paying tenant of a grotty apartment, worried about landlords taking you to the cleaners for spilling tea on the carpet or making minuscule holes in the walls to pin up framed pics.
Japan Times
JAPAN / LETTERS FROM KOBE
Sep 5, 2008

Letter trove details Occupation life

More than 1,000 pages of handwritten letters from 1947 to 1948 by an American woman who witnessed and described in detail the Allied Occupation of Japan have been discovered in Nebraska and recently obtained by The Japan Times.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 2, 2008

Urawaza — quirky, everyday Japanese tips — head West

Two years ago, a mysterious 20-second video clip triggered some unexpected buzz on the Web site YouTube. In the segment, an ordinary-looking housewife draws an invisible line across the chest of a shirt with her finger. Then she pinches the shirt under the armpit and at the shoulder, does a quick flipping...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 30, 2008

A Welshman's 10,000-km tale of Japan

What on earth would induce anyone to cycle around a country for six months?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 28, 2008

McCain aims to win by pandering to bigotry

NEW YORK — At a time when the Beijing Olympics have increased America's apprehension of China's rising power, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, has chosen Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden is the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and an established...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 24, 2008

It's time for perfectly cute 50-year-old Japanese women

Madonna turned 50 on Aug. 16. The milestone was marked by a predictable barrage of commentary about "50 being the new 40" and how women no longer dread the half-century mark. Everybody is trying to eat better and exercise more, and cosmetic surgery isn't the big taboo it once was. But since the subject...
OLYMPICS
Aug 22, 2008

Team USA hoping for golden birthday treat

BEIJING — Kobe Bryant turns 30 on Saturday. U.S. basketball teammate Michael Redd celebrates his 29th birthday on Sunday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WEEK 3
Aug 17, 2008

Akihito Ito: Keeper of the tales of a nuclear hell

Has George W. Bush ever heard of Akihito Ito? Dismayed at Pentagon plans to develop a new generation of "tactical" nuclear weapons — so-called mini-nukes — Ito sent Bush a gift: a box of CDs carrying the recorded voices of 284 atomic-bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

Entrepreneur pioneers Akihabara tours

Jane Fong was one of the lucky few awarded a full Foreign Ministry scholarship to a master's program in international business at Sophia University in Tokyo — but she gave that up to become an entrepreneur in "Electric Town."
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jul 15, 2008

Vivienne Westwood, Ebi-chan in Maquillage and more

The latest Vivienne Westwood exhibition rolls into Tokyo this week. After the acclaimed "Vivienne Westwood: 35 Years in Fashion" held at the Mori Arts Center in 2005, this show includes one of the largest fashion books ever published, and is sure to be an instant hit with Westwood's huge Japanese fan...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 15, 2008

Famed electronics hub still sparks the curious, bizarre

Tokyo's Akihabara district draws throngs not only with its hundreds of electronics shops but also because it is the mecca for "otaku" computer geeks, and fans of "manga" and "anime" pop culture.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 25, 2008

Japanese Facebook takes Model T approach

Late last month, as part of a rare work-vacation trip to Asia, Mark Zuckerberg made a quick stop in Tokyo to announce the launch of Facebook Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 24, 2008

Holding management to account

Because public companies are owned by their shareholders, any time they convene is when key corporate decisions are made.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji