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BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 4, 2011

Wada, Uchikawa carry Hawks

In a sense, the Hawks know how big it is to do damage to an opponent first in a postseason more than anybody else in Japanese baseball.
CULTURE / Film
Nov 4, 2011

Tokyo film fest shuns controversy

The 24th edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival ended on Sunday, after nine days and 128 films, without any major mishaps or controversies. This was a disappointment to one journalist friend: "A good film festival invites controversy," she told me at the closing party. "TIFF hates it."
Reader Mail
Nov 3, 2011

Culture shift to make cycling safer

Regarding the Oct. 26 article "Reckless cyclists face crackdown," I don't see that stricter enforcement of existing bicycle safety laws, or levying fines, or even banning bicycles from sidewalks altogether necessarily effectively address the problem of accidents involving cyclists and pedestrians.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2011

Karen refugees snub farm, try luck in Tokyo

The first two ethnic Karen families who arrived from Myanmar under a third-country resettlement program have rejected an offer to continue working on a farm in Chiba Prefecture where they were training, and are currently residing in Tokyo, one of their lawyers said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 3, 2011

Record stores fuel Nagoya's scene

Despite having had its musical reputation sullied by Yasushi Akimoto's decision to make it the home of SKE48, the first offshoot of pop-idol army AKB48, Nagoya is home to one of Japan's most vibrant independent music scenes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 1, 2011

Schizophrenic Constitution leaves foreigners' rights mired in confusion

Pop quiz: Who live in palatial homes in fashionable Tokyo neighborhoods but are subject to various forms of discrimination, have no family registry, can't vote and have limited constitutional rights?
CULTURE / Books
Oct 30, 2011

Hope found in despair of Japanese POW camp

VICTORY IN DEFEAT: The Wake Island Defenders in Captivity, by Gregory J.W. Urwin. Naval Institute Press, 2010, 478 pp., $38.95 (hardcover) An American solder mused, "We were amazed. We had always been told that [the Japanese] were inferior people. We was amazed at how well they were bombing."
EDITORIALS
Oct 30, 2011

Give teachers time, not a fine

A recent spot check of working conditions of teachers in Hokkaido, Ishikawa, Tottori and Okinawa by the Board of Audit concluded that teachers in Hokkaido and Okinawa misused their working hours. The Board of Audit will ask the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry to demand those...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 30, 2011

Sheer delight of graceful Kurahara

There is a persistent hum of activity among small-press publications in Japan, much of it concerned with poetry and a good deal of it translation.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 29, 2011

Macedonian's one-man mission to build embassy

A Macedonian diplomat is on a mission to set up his country's first embassy in Tokyo all by himself.
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Oct 28, 2011

Entrepreneurs make Korean ikemen the dish du jour

Cute, young Korean man-flesh is on the menu now, as Tokyo establishments cash in on the continuing hanryu boom.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 28, 2011

"The Lineage of Culture: The Hosokawa Family Eisei Bunko Collection"

The Eisei Bunko museum was established in 1950 in Mejiro, Tokyo, to preserve the collection of some 80,000 artworks owned by the Hosokawa family, the former domain lords of Kumamoto in Kyushu. Founded by the 16th lord, Moritatsu Hosokawa (1883-1970), an avid collector of artworks, Eisei Bunko is known...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 28, 2011

"DOMA, Akioka Yoshio Ten: Mono eno Shiso to Kankei no Dezain"

As Japan recovered from World War II, changes in economy and society accelerated. Mass-produced goods and mass-consumerism quickly became a norm.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Oct 28, 2011

The most popular exhibition in the world

Once upon a time, more than 1,000 years ago, there was a small island nation ruled over by an emperor and empress. Fascinated by what lay across the sea, the emperor sent out envoys to bring back treasures from afar — glittering glassware, lutes capable of talking with the gods, stunning ceramics and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 28, 2011

'Sumagura (Smuggler)'

Katsuhito Ishii was an early avatar of Japanese quirk, making films that celebrated the wilder, goofier side of the local pop culture while flouting the conventions of commercial cinema, including at least a veneer of sanity.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 28, 2011

"Charlotte Perriand et le Japon"

In the early 1920s, Charlotte Perriand studied furniture design at the Ecole de l'Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. She was later invited by the great architect Le Corbusier to join his studio and design interiors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Oct 27, 2011

Cruel to be kind: Does noruma work in bands' favor?

One of the first stumbling blocks you'll probably come across starting up a band in Japan is trying to book gigs. You'll explain to the booking manager about your music, give them a demo CD or a link to a place they can hear you online, they'll say, "Sure, I love your sound" — and then they'll tell...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIGHT GIST
Oct 25, 2011

The ridiculously frightening world of Japanese spooks

Halloween is that time of the year when the occult, macabre and humorous come together to create a festival of fear and fun for all the family. A celebration of death and demons with its roots in pre-Christian Europe, the summer's-end spook-fest has morphed over the centuries into a highly commercialized...
COMMENTARY
Oct 24, 2011

Olympus case a black mark for Japan

The recent dismissal of the British chief executive of Olympus has once again drawn the attention of European media to peculiarities in corporate governance in Japan. Accounting practices and lack of transparency have aroused particular concern.
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2011

U.S. remembers trade diplomacy

On the morning of Oct. 14, U.S. President Barack Obama signed three free-trade agreements, one each with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. The trade deals are important steps forward for the United States and its partners. While these deals are economic agreements, they are much more. In particular,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2011

'Heartbreaker'

You can take a French boy out of France, but you can't take France out of the French boy. Usually — but this time, the formula doesn't apply, because nifty French romance "Heartbreaker" has all the trappings à la Française but ends up being a glossily plasticized Hollywood-style product.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Oct 21, 2011

Kabaya starts strong as B-Corsairs evolve

With four games in the books, the expansion Yokohama B-Corsairs now have several relevant things that can be discussed in team meetings. A few trends have started to emerge, too, including the solid play of guards Masayuki Kabaya and Kenji Yamada.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2011

Overcoming disaster via cinematic therapy

Back in May, the rumor among cinephiles in the Japanese media was that the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) wouldn't happen this year. The mood was that it was too soon after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 to hold anything festive, especially in the visual-arts scene. All over Japan,...
Reader Mail
Oct 16, 2011

Setting Futenma's record straight

Yoshio Shimoji makes a patently false claim in his Oct. 6 letter "Close the air station ... tomorrow" that "Futenma was constructed while area residents were herded into concentration camps during and after the Battle of Okinawa."
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Oct 15, 2011

Golden Kings, Evessa class of the West again

Almost nothing remains the same in the Eastern Conference, as all 10 head coaches this season are in spots that they didn't occupy at this time a year ago.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 15, 2011

The joy of taiko and cultural exchange

The booming noise coming up from the basement of the British School in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, is a more visceral version of the magic flute: It's just impossible to resist its charm. You follow the deep, thumping beat down a flight of stairs and find a shouting, whooping little devil leading a group of...
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2011

A friendlier environment for NPOs

The tax system and the law on nonprofit organizations have been recently revised to help NPOs in tax matters. These revisions are expected to lead NPOs to expand their activities not only in usual fields such as education, culture, sports, social welfare and community building but also in the efforts...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 9, 2011

Television's skewed version of poverty

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations currently taking place in New York continue to garner more and more attention from the American media, which mostly ignored the movement when it began several weeks ago. Now everybody in America who reads a newspaper or watches TV news understands that the protesters...

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell