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BASKETBALL
Jun 24, 2012

Chiba to quit bj-league

The Chiba Jets, coming off a mediocre 18-34 inaugural season, are jumping ship to the JBL's re-branded top league for the 2013-14 campaign.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2012

LDP's dangerous proposals for amending antiwar article

The Liberal Democratic Party published its new draft constitutional amendment proposal in late April. The draft reflects a number of significant changes above and beyond those advanced in the proposal unveiled by the LDP in 2005. The proposal includes a complete overhaul of Article 9, the war-renouncing...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 3, 2012

Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name many of his works. Recently, indeed, I was amazed when...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 25, 2012

Play reveals manzai's U.S. roots

Watching the fast-paced, two-person manzai routines that characterize much of Japanese TV comedy these days, it's difficult to imagine that two key influences on that genre's birth were stars of cinema's silent era: Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 24, 2012

Wi-Fi, Facebook and all that jazz

Fumito Fukuchi, owner and proprietor of Kissa Sakaiki jazz cafe in Tokyo's central Yotsuya neighborhood, grins as he puts the finishing touches to an online schedule.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
May 23, 2012

DoCoMo shuns iPhone, pushes Android options

DoCoMo last week unveiled its new lineup of mobile phones at a press conference in Tokyo. The most notable was the brand-new Samsung Galaxy S III, the headliner of the DoCoMo NEXT series of high-end smartphones.
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2012

How to right what's wrong in East Asian manufacturing

East Asia's manufacturing industry, with its remarkable growth in recent years centering on China, South Korea and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has come to be called "the Factory of the World."
BUSINESS
May 12, 2012

Toyota leaves GM trailing in global sales in first quarter

Toyota Motor Corp. sold the most cars and trucks in the world in the first three months of the year as it made up for production losses caused by natural disasters.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
May 8, 2012

Issey Miyake's innovations beat the Brits to win the Design Museum of London fashion award

Colloquially called "The Oscars of Design," the Design Museum of London Design Awards are prestigious accolades given in six categories to the most innovative and inspiring designs of the year — and this year's top honors in the fashion category went to Japan's own Issey Miyake and his team of boundary-pushing...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 5, 2012

Japan a fond spot in solitary Kiwi's running quest

In this age of reality TV, cheap exhibitionism and superhuman feats, is there still space for the common man? Justyn "Jup" Brown's reply is a resounding yes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
May 1, 2012

Who you buy a home from can make a big difference in price

We met the real estate agent at Honda Station on the Sotobo Line in Chiba Prefecture. As we drove to the property we talked about the area. Though a typically cramped Japanese bedroom community, it's a bit older than most, so the houses were more varied in shape and size, with wider spaces between them,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Apr 30, 2012

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the sakura

Until The New York Times pointed it out earlier this month, I had failed to notice, alas, that Tokyo had given cherry trees to this city as it did to Washington, D.C., 100 years ago ("Gifts From Japan, Less Celebrated in Manhattan," April 12).
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 29, 2012

Otosan, Japan's top dog

Upper House election night, 2010. All over the country people are watching television and waiting to see if there will be an upset as the results from polling stations slowly trickle in.
JAPAN
Apr 26, 2012

Creating true nuclear watchdog exacts toll in time, trust

The Diet looks like it's finally set to deliberate a long-stalled bill to create a new nuclear regulatory agency that will serve as a true atomic energy watchdog and, hopefully, rebuild the public trust lost by its predecessors.
COMMENTARY
Apr 23, 2012

Filling in for the 'Angel in charge of distribution'

For several years now, New York poet Jack Agueros has been living with Alzheimer's. Slowly but unrelentingly, the disease is erasing his memories. As his daughter Natalia told The New York Times, "There is nothing sadder than a poet without words." The following is a homage to a great poet.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Apr 20, 2012

Government shows awareness of something called 'child support'

New divorce notification forms finally acknowledge that some couples have kids.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Apr 20, 2012

For Iwate's Malloy, Hurricane Katrina provided valuable life lessons

Natural disasters can alter one's outlook on life in a positive way, and give an individual a greater sense of purpose or focus in everything he/she does.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 17, 2012

Retail power slow to make inroads despite nuclear crisis

Regional utilities have long dominated the power market, but companies and local governments are starting to get interested in new retailers offering much cheaper rates.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 15, 2012

Papa is an idol; marriage and memory loss; CM of the week: Takara Shuzo

Last month, pop idol Jin Akanishi was punished by his agency, Johnny's & Associates, for getting married without telling them. Another Johnny's idol, Ryo Nishikido, of the group Kanjani 8, has his handlers' blessing in the new series "Papa-doru" ("Papa Idol"; TBS, Thurs., 9 p.m.), which, though fiction,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Apr 10, 2012

Mixing and matching wardrobes for Japan's The Reality Show

The Reality Show, a Tokyo-based bilingual glossy magazine, is nothing like the TV genre it borrows its name from.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 3, 2012

TED offers everyone the chance to speak or perform

TED — the increasingly popular New York based, California-held ideas event— is coming to Tokyo. The conference, whose speakers were previously by invitation only, will hold an audition in Tokyo on May 29 as part of a worldwide talent search. Organized by the TEDxTokyo team and hosted at Roppongi...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2012

Intelligent urban design that'll let people bloom

Two months ago, I was introduced to a startup called CityMart, a for-profit marketplace dedicated to helping vendors and city managers find one another — and to spreading municipal innovations outside of their home turf.
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 1, 2012

Woodland therapy yields Tohoku school 'dream'

When our Afan Woodland Trust came into being in 2002 (after 16 years of hard work to purchase the land and begin restoring abandoned forest to healthy biodiversity), we started a program to invite disadvantaged, neglected or abused children into these living woods.
COMMENTARY
Mar 19, 2012

Color GDP growth green

It is often said that the 21st century is the "century of the environment." This means two things: One is that the environmental problems of this planet, especially climate change and global warming, have become so serious that they are attracting more people's attention; and the other is that environmental...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 18, 2012

Yu Darvish under the magnifying glass

Barring a major natural catastrophe, war or government upheaval, the vernacular news headlines for the next several months are almost certain to be dominated by baseball. Specifically, former Nippon Ham Fighters hurler, Yu Darvish, who on April 8 is scheduled take the mound in his first start for the...
EDITORIALS
Mar 16, 2012

Vague plan for Osaka metro

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto in mid-February explained his pet idea of creating an Osaka metropolitan government to the local government system panel of the internal affairs ministry. His explanation was still rather vague. He should present a concrete idea as soon as possible so that Osaka city and prefecture...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 15, 2012

Tokyo's expansion west, and further

With the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake just passed, an awareness of Japan's earthquake-prone nature is very much with us. But destructive as earthquakes are, they can also serve as catalysts for social, economic, and cultural change. This seems to be the premise of the exhibition...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 15, 2012

Tokyo's expansion west, and further

With the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake just passed, an awareness of Japan's earthquake-prone nature is very much with us. But destructive as earthquakes are, they can also serve as catalysts for social, economic, and cultural change. This seems to be the premise of the exhibition...

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo