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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.
BUSINESS
Feb 23, 2006

Toshiba faces major hurdles with Westinghouse

Toshiba's CEO had good reason to sound a trifle defensive about his company's $5.4 billion purchase of U.S.-based nuclear power company Westinghouse.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2006

Battling to win the hearts of Taiwanese

SINGAPORE -- As flights cross the Taiwan Strait at the start of the Year of the Dog, hopes have been high for a possible rapprochement in ties between Beijing and Taipei. But observers are split on whether to expect "a new spring" or renewed tensions across the strait in the next two years before Chen...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 5, 2006

Frightening, yet beautiful: ghosts, ghouls and monsters

YOSHITOSHI'S STRANGE TALES by John Stevenson. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005, 160 pp., 71 full-page prints and 25 illustrations, 2005, $95 (cloth). Another beautiful edition de luxe from Hotei Publishing, this volume presents two series by Taiso Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), a late print artist often remembered...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 2, 2006

GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY: Reconfiguring your pasts

It is mostly an unremarkable location, except for the fact that it is in a bit of a shambles. Something has obviously taken place here, but the smooth surfaces and sharp edges of the architectural detail simply do not offer up any artistic intention.
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2006

The feud can end anytime

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should realize that he holds the key to settling the growing discord with China even as Beijing adds fuel to the fire by urging the Japanese government to restrict news media reports on the alleged security threat posed by China.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 20, 2005

Undercover's Zamiang, Billionaire Boys Club vs. The Ice Cream Store, Youth Dew . . .

Undercover art adventure
Japan Times
Features
Dec 18, 2005

Legal loner courts controversy every day

Any weekday, if you happen to drop by the Tokyo District/High/Summary Court building in Kasumigasaki, among all the besuited lawyers and the like you'll likely spy a blond, bearded young man leafing through the day's schedules in the first-floor lobby, or shuffling in and out of courtrooms big and small....
COMMENTARY
Nov 14, 2005

Beijing appears more apt to seek flu help

HONG KONG -- China's appeal to the World Health Organization for help to determine whether three cases of "pneumonia caused by unknown factors" in Hunan province could have been the result of the H5N1 virus indicates that Beijing is taking the threat of bird flu seriously.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 6, 2005

Hot hibachi league heating up; can Jojima cut it in majors?

Welcome to the new sponsored "Baseball Bullet-In," and thanks to Jeff Libengood and the staff of the just-opened East West Fitness workout place in Tokyo for the support. If you would like to sponsor a column in an upcoming edition of The Japan Times, please contact me at the e-mail address below.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 6, 2005

New fairy tales of gloom

I have been an admirer of Miwa Yanagi since encountering her series "My Grandmothers" at the 2001 Yokohama Triennale. In that body of work the artist displayed extraordinary skill in using makeup and staging to transform a number of young women into images of their ideal grandmothers, such as screamingly...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 2, 2005

The looking glass of Chinese history

MIRRORING THE PAST: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China, by On-cho Ng and Q. Edward Wang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 307 pp., $50 (cloth). It was the 19th-century English historian E.A. Freeman who observed that "history is past politics, and politics is present history."...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 18, 2005

Sweet Mysteries of the Orient

THE ASIAN MYSTIQUE, by Sheridan Prasso. Public Affairs Books, 437 pp., 2005, $27.95, 2,850 yen (cloth). Apparently, there are still Western men who believe that the East is an obliging seductress, mass producing an endless line of voluptuous women, whose laconic sexual pliancy is only exceeded by their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 7, 2005

Salaryman nightmare, otaku dreams

Playwright David Mamet was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his play "Glengarry Glen Ross." Two years before that, however, an earlier, major work, "Edmond," had fared less well with the critics.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 31, 2005

Breach the defenses of marriage with a smile

FORTRESS BESIEGED, by Qian Zhongshu. Penguin Classics, 2005, 426 pp., £18.99 (cloth). 1937 was a rotten year for China. Japanese forces moved their operations from the Peking to the Shanghai region, the Nationalist lines in Nanjing collapsed, and the remnants of the resistance moved their troops deeper...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 13, 2005

Interesting times in China

Chinese contemporary art made a splash in the late 1990s with the so-called Mao Goes Pop movement, which broke big among Western gallerygoers and collectors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 3, 2005

Takeshi Yoro: Professor No-Self

Some think of him as a retired anatomist par excellence; some revere his knowledge of the human brain; while to others he's simply someone who's nuts about insects.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 28, 2005

Visa crackdown -- don't get burned

Last year The Japan Times ran an article entitled "Students pay price in visa crackdown" about Americans put through the wringer on minor infractions.
COMMENTARY
Jun 20, 2005

Politicos feeding off turmoil

MANILA -- These days the political class in the Philippines is preoccupied with other things besides governing. Attention is focused on what one commentator has termed "the worst crisis any administration" has ever experienced. The opposition is orchestrating turmoil and openly calling for the ouster...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 14, 2005

Cyber war grips Asia

If comments on bulletin boards were bullets and hacking attacks real skirmishes then East Asia would probably be a war zone now.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Prolific director Nomura of 'Castle of Sand' fame dead at 85

Movie director Yoshitaro Nomura, whose 1974 suspense thriller "Castle of Sand" ("Suna no Utsuwa") has been ranked by critics as one of the country's best films ever, died Friday at 85.
COMMENTARY
Mar 28, 2005

Positive media shock waves

Internet entrepreneur Takafumi Horie has sent shock waves reverberating through the Japanese media industry with his hostile takeover bid for Nippon Broadcasting Co., a member of the Fujisankei media conglomerate.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 27, 2005

First, stop, look and listen

THE SINGLE TONE: A Personal Journey into Shakuhachi Music, by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2005, 168 pp., with photographs and glossary, 1,500 yen (paper). In the summer of 1972 Christopher Blasdel first came to Japan. He was from West Texas, "a landscape dominated by strip...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 23, 2005

The end of the line for American Eden

Times change and things move on. "The past," as L.P Hartley (1892-1972) wrote in his 1956 novel The Go-Between, "is a foreign country, they do things differently there."
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Mar 10, 2005

"The Whispering Road," "The Pig in the Spigot"

"The Whispering Road," Livi Michael, Puffin Books; 2005; 336 pp. If you haven't read Charles Dickens yet, what could be a better introduction than Livi Michael's "The Whispering Road"? Michael's first novel for older children imbibes Dickens' influences, dramatic storytelling and colorful characterization...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 9, 2005

Thank you to all art

Today, in case you didn't know it, is Thank You Art Day, a day to celebrate contemporary art made by anyone anywhere. Artist Yoshiaki Kaihatsu, a Tama Art University graduate, began the annual event in 2001 with an eye to, as he says, "vitalizing the Japanese art scene, because the Japanese art market...
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2005

Not just rhetoric anymore

Nine days ago, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered his second inaugural speech, a rousing, 21-minute address in which, among other things, he extolled liberty and proclaimed "ending tyranny in our world" the ultimate goal of U.S. policy. God himself backed this policy, Mr. Bush said. Wasn't it in...
More sweltering days forecast for September after hottest summer on record
By the end of August, 8,341 people had been transported by ambulance for heatstroke in Tokyo alone.
‘Mount Fuji Lawson’ becomes a symbol of Japan’s overtourism problem
A couple poses for a wedding photo in front of a Lawson in the town of Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 25.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
Woman dies after possible knife attack in Setagaya
Police investigate the scene where a woman was found bleeding on a street in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward on Monday.
Suntory CEO Takeshi Niinami resigns over alleged possession of illegal drugs
Takeshi Niinami, then-chief executive officer of Suntory Holdings, in May 2024
Why Stalin didn’t invade Hokkaido still largely unknown, 80 years after WWII
During a survey to collect the remains of victims from the Taito Maru, one of the vessels involved in the Three Ships Incident, a metal helmet was found near the stern of the vessel on Aug. 5, 1984, at Rumoi Port. No human remains were discovered.
More sweltering days forecast for September after hottest summer on record
By the end of August, 8,341 people had been transported by ambulance for heatstroke in Tokyo alone.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
‘Mount Fuji Lawson’ becomes a symbol of Japan’s overtourism problem
A couple poses for a wedding photo in front of a Lawson in the town of Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 25.
‘Cool’ Patagonia wants to take used items into the mainstream
"It's not just about sales. It's about system change," said Marty Pomphrey, general manager of Patagonia Japan, on Aug. 6.

Podcast

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

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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