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July 07, 2025
 

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CULTURE / Books
Mar 25, 2007

Traveling light at heart, heavy in mind

JAPANESE FOR TRAVELLERS: A Journey Through Modern Japan, by Katie Kitamura. Penguin, 258 pp., 2006, £7.99 (paper) When Katie Kitamura's parents left Japan for the United States they left behind three different generations: Katie's cousins, her aunts and uncles, and her grandparents. In "Japanese for...
MORE SPORTS
Mar 18, 2007

Golden girl Arakawa retains passion after Olympic glory

Time flies when you are on top of the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 22, 2007

Beirut dramatist seeks new strategy

Lebanese dramatist Rabih Mroue returns to Tokyo International Arts Festival this year with the world premiere of his new play, "How Nancy Wished that Everything was an April Fool's Joke," three years after making his TIF debut. It is a work that reflects the fluid situation of Lebanese society after...
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2007

And now, on to Iran?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That adage is uppermost in the minds of critics of U.S. foreign policy amid warnings by the Bush administration that Iran is actively working to destabilize Iraq. U.S. credibility has been badly damaged by the mishandling of intelligence prior to...
Reader Mail
Jan 28, 2007

Humane alternative to abortion

Regarding the Jan. 14 article "The birds, bees and the Japanese" (Mark Schreiber's commentary on a survey published in the Jan. 21 edition of Yomiuri Weekly): I got the impression that many Japanese people feel that there are only two solutions to an unwanted pregnancy -- abortion or raising a child....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2007

The punks descend

How much impact do surroundings have on a group? According to guitarist Lindsay McDougall of the Australian band Frenzal Rhomb, plenty.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 5, 2007

'Soredemo Boku wa Yattenai'

Like many other foreigners here, I have had my brushes with the Japanese justice system, from ID checks by cops wanting to practice their English to one memorable appearance on a witness stand. I have also seen it in action as a moviegoer, from prison comedies (Yoichi Sai's "Keimusho no Naka [Doing Time]"...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 25, 2006

Relativity of greatness in a lawless world

NEW YORK -- Americans love to rank their own greats. One recent example is "the 100 most influential Americans of all time" that The Atlantic monthly compiled from the views of 10 historians. The list appears in its December issue, with a brief summary of what distinguishes each person.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 24, 2006

Word power: 'The way' and the way you say it

OGYU SORAI'S PHILOSOPHICAL MASTERWORKS: The Bendo and Benmei, edited and translated by John A. Tucker. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 478 pp., $56 (cloth). One of the foremost thinkers of our time, Noam Chomsky, has argued that the United States is a rogue state. To arrive at this conclusion,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Dec 14, 2006

Photographer chronicles an alternate Japanese history

It's early Friday evening in a central Tokyo bubble-era building, the spacious foyer is crowded and a man in the back can be observed, smiling warmly and chatting cordially. He has graying hair, wears a dark-blue suit and a pair of the sort of dour, heavy-framed eyeglasses popularized by the late former...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 6, 2006

Beat is back

Spawned by the energy of punk, a new crowd of British bands known collectively as the ska revival, or the two-tone movement, emerged in the late 1970s around the Midlands area. Unlike the mainly white punk groups, bands such as The Specials, The Selecter and The Beat were comprised of both black and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 28, 2006

Celebrating civilizations

The Islamic world is home to one of the richest and most important musical traditions on Earth. It doesn't hurt that it also spans an incredibly vast area, stretching west to Morocco and east as far as Indonesia, and that it contains an intricate tapestry of races, languages and cultures, or that it...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 22, 2006

Following the father

You've probably heard of the father of Afrobeat bandmaster and award-winning musician Femi Kuti. And if by chance you haven't, you're missing out on one of Africa's greatest musical legends.
Japan Times
LIFE / CONFUCIUS
Sep 10, 2006

Confucius and his 'golden age'

Is what Confucius said true? Can music, poetry and decorum govern the world? Do rulers, by cultivating benevolence in themselves, plant benevolence in their subjects, and harmony in the polity?
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2006

Change needed at Yasukuni

In the Washington Post article that ran on this page Aug. 22, "Much to-do about a shrine," conservative U.S. commentator George Will suggests that Shinzo Abe, the front-runner in the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential race, stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine, the memorial for Japan's war dead, if he...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 20, 2006

Summertime, and the dying is easy

RENDEZVOUS AT KAMAKURA INN by Marshall Browne. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005, 288 pp., $23.95 (cloth). SAYONARA BAR by Susan Barker. London: Black Swan Books, 2006, 430 pp., £6.99 (paper). For Detective Inspector Hideo Aoki of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the sprinklings of misfortune have become...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 23, 2006

Ordinary is illuminated

OZU YASUJIRO: TWO POSTWAR FILMS -- Late Spring & Early Summer, translated, by D.A. Rajakaruna. Colombo (Sri Lanka): Godage International Publishers (PVT) Ltd., 178 pp., $15 (paper). In Japan, in distinction from other countries, film scripts are sometimes read as literature. Those written by Yasunari...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 23, 2006

Democracy falters as underworld forces flourish

Kyrgyzstan is referred to as a faltering state, meaning that it is not quite failing.
EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2006

No need to fear Central Asian club

The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a curious event. Most of the year, the organization toils in obscurity, but its annual heads-of-state meeting invariably elicits breathless commentary about the rise of a bloc that is designed to stop the West or, more specifically, the United...
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2006

Education policy on trial

In the spring of 2004, a retired teacher urged parents attending a Tokyo high school graduation ceremony to remain seated during the playing of the national anthem. Last week, the Tokyo District Court fined him 200,000 yen for "obstructing" the ceremony.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 4, 2006

Pensive view of a city's declining identity

KYOTO: A Cultural and Literary History, by John Dougill. Signal Books, 2006, 242 pp., 2,500 yen (paper). "Everyone knew," the wartime narrator of Hisako Matsubara's Kyoto novel "Cranes at Dusk" relates, "there was not a single Japanese city of over a million people that hadn't already been bombed." But...
CULTURE / Music
May 12, 2006

Dilated Peoples "20/20"

P. Diddy once rapped "Don't worry if I write rhymes, I write checks." Dilated Peoples' fourth full-length album, "20/20," opens with rapper Evidence countering with the tongue-in-cheek "Don't worry if I write checks, I write rhymes." And like Diddy, Dilated have the means to back up their proclamation....
COMMENTARY
May 8, 2006

Never give an inch to China

Tokyo's propensity for getting into territorial and maritime boundary disputes with its neighbors seems large. And if the disputes with China escalate any further, they could make the recent confrontation with South Korea over the Takeshima islets (Dokdo in Korean) look tame.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 27, 2006

A permanent-collection show that impresses

The modern city envelops modern man so completely that he inhabits it even in his dreams -- even in his best dreams. That's the message weaving through the current exhibition at the Watari-Um Museum of Art in Tokyo's Aoyama district. "Beautiful Cities in Dreams" is the eighth incarnation in Watari's...
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 2006

Tiger's language snafu

Many Japanese think English is taxing enough already without native English-speakers arguing among themselves over the correctness or propriety of this or that word. It happened again after the latest U.S. Masters golf championship in Augusta, Ga., when it seemed more media ink was spilled over Tiger...
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2006

Abe awarded defamation damages

The Tokyo District Court ordered a Tokyo-based publisher Friday to pay 500,000 yen in damages to Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe for defaming him in its monthly magazine, Sentaku.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006

Editor on a mission for consumers

Some people sarcastically refer to journalists in Japan as "sarariman reporters." That's because even though the Fourth Estate potentially has enormous power and influence, its members are often timid, risk-averse and happy to cozy up with the politicians, government agencies and corporations they cover....
EDITORIALS
Mar 26, 2006

A fair ruling in Britain

In most legal rulings, even a casual observer can see reasonable arguments on both sides. This is not surprising. If both sides didn't have reasonable arguments, there wouldn't be a dispute to begin with, or any need for a ruling. But a decision handed down by Britain's Law Lords last week backing a...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 5, 2006

Chizuko Ueno: Speaking up for her sex

In the United States today, it is no longer radical to suggest that the next president could be a woman. In Nordic countries, no husband would rail at a pregnant wife who expected him to share child-raising duties. And female heads of state are now found the world over.
Japan braces for more quakes as authorities dismiss doomsday hype
Evacuees from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecuture, arrive at Kagoshima Port on Friday.
Heatstroke alert issued for 19 prefectures as Japan enters 'once-in-a-decade' heat wave
Japan will experience a heat wave through mid-July on a “level only seen once in a decade,” the Meteorological Agency said on June 30.
Hidden AI prompts in academic papers spark concern about research integrity
Waseda University is one of 14 institutions in eight countries found to have used hidden prompts in research papers.
Tokyo and Kyoto feature among top ‘noctourism’ destinations
Tokyo ranked second after New York and ahead of Dubai and Singapore in a ranking of the top global cities for nighttime tourism.
Elon Musk says he has created a new U.S. political party
Elon Musk looks on during a news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 30.
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Flag football facing challenges and opportunities ahead
Japan’s women’s flag football team at the 2025 International Bowl in Los Angeles in June. The sport is enjoying continued growth in the country.
From Hokusai’s Great Wave, shinkansen to One Piece: a cultural treasure box for Lego Japan
Michael Ebbesen, general manager of Lego Japan, says Lego bricks based on Japanese culture have a rich global appeal and are sellable around the world.
With farmed fish, RelationFish swims against the tide in fine dining
Chef Hideaki Matsuo (middle) and the staff of Oseto Suisan Fisheries prepare to check on their sustainably farmed fish.
As Southeast Asia heats up, a Japanese cooling giant sees a major opportunity
An employee of Daikin Cambodia explains the use of different tools during an air conditioner installation training session in Phnom Penh. Daikin is one of Japan’s oldest air conditioning companies, but as Japan’s population falls, the firm is keying in on overseas growth.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after
Smile! It’s ‘Sanrio Time,’ now and ever after

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