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SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Jun 5, 2013

Lack of American heavyweights sad

What if they held a world heavyweight title fight and no one in America showed up?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Apr 7, 2013

Shigeru Ban: 'People's architect' combines permanence and paper

Generally speaking, an architect's style is defined by particular forms or shapes. There's Frank Lloyd Wright's prominent horizontal lines, for instance; Le Corbusier's simple white boxes; or, more recently, the deliberately abstract masses of Frank Gehry — of Guggenheim Bilbao fame.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 14, 2013

Miyabi Matsuoka takes an enlightened approach to teaching the harp

To Miyabi Matsuoka, the harp is a mirror that reveals who you really are. She says she can tell the personality of a harp player by the way he or she manipulates the instrument, which affects the sound they create.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 2, 2012

Michael Woodford: Japan's whistle-blower supreme speaks out

Michael Woodford glances out of the floor-to-ceiling window of his multimillion-pound loft apartment, which looks out across the River Thames toward the City of London, the so-called Square Mile that is among the world's leading financial and commercial centers.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 18, 2012

Minor Soseki work gets first English translation

NOWAKI, by Natsume Soseki, translated and with an afterword by William N. Ridgeway. Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2011, 120 pp., $15 (paperback) As the translator notes in his afterword, and Donald Keene and Angela Yiu suggest in quotations used as blurbs on the back cover,...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2012

The third space: the cafe's place in forming modern Japan

COFFEE LIFE IN JAPAN, by Merry White. University of California Press, 2012, 240 pp., $24.95 (paperback) Those of us interested in coffee, life and Japan will open Merry White's "Coffee Life in Japan" with high expectations. For most readers, alas, these expectations will be only partially fulfilled....
CULTURE / Music
Jun 14, 2012

Rocker Hotei hears London calling

Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee celebrations are never complete without a rock star wielding an axe to inaugurate proceedings. For the Golden Jubilee in 2002 it was Queen's Brian May atop Buckingham Palace. And for The British Embassy in Japan's Diamond Jubilee party this month, the sword fell on the broad...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 3, 2012

Bashōfu culture weaves its spell in Kijoka

White-caps beat steadily against the northwestern shore of Okinawa's main island. Winds have stirred up the seas, yet the water looks as cerulean and inviting as ever. I should be paying more attention to this enviable vista but I'm preoccupied, indifferent. The circuitous coastal road requires more...
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 22, 2011

Mop Of Head praises recent past on debut

Mop Of Head founder Takashi "George" Wakamatsu had a pretty standard musical upbringing. He studied piano from the age of 3, and says he listened mostly to classical music and old jazz. Then he heard a track that changed his life ...British dance duo The KLF's "F-ck The Millennium."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 27, 2011

Mask maker keeping Shimane tradition alive

Hanging on the walls of Jake Davies' home are around 20 artifacts that seem at odds with the idyllic village in Sakurae, Shimane Prefecture where his rustic abode is set.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 31, 2011

Literary sludge insults child abduction issue

IN APPROPRIATE: A Novel of Culture, Kidnapping, and Revenge in Modern Japan, by Debito Arudou. Lulu Enterprises, 2011, $10, 149 pp., (paper) That prickly gadfly of gaikokujins, Debito Arudou, has done it again, diminishing a worthy topic — in this case, international child abduction — into dross...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
May 13, 2011

Wine is no game for Capcom boss

Hurricane-kicking its way onto the wine scene in 2009 was a new brand, Kenzo Estate, owned by the CEO of video-game giant Capcom. Clearly playing to win, Kenzo Tsujimoto hired California's brightest wine talents to create a wine for the Japanese market that combines value for money with excellent quality....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 1, 2011

Explore Seoul's hidden heart

Just two weeks after the March 11 triple-catastrophe in Tohoku, and a mere 90 minutes after leaving Haneda Airport in Tokyo, it was almost unreal to be standing in Kimpo International Airport just outside Seoul and listening to excited Japanese tourists chatting about what and when they will eat and...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 6, 2011

Ailing Japan Inc. must combine tradition with a new world view

One of the clearest memories I have of my Los Angeles childhood revolves around a car. By the early 1950s, my parents had managed to eke their way into the middle class; and for Los Angelenos, nothing signified that social status more than the automobile. For my dad, the symbol of this par excellence...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 5, 2010

A relaxed approach makes news understandable for young and old

Two weeks ago, NHK announced that its popular half-hour series, "Shukan Kodomo no News" ("Weekly News for Children"), will be ending on Dec. 19. According to an article in the Sankei Shimbun, an executive at the public broadcaster explained the cancellation by saying that the show, which was launched...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Nov 11, 2010

New inroads for Louboutin, Rag & Bone, Nike-Undercover, K-Swiss

Louboutin digs his signature heels into flagship Ginza space Christian Louboutin, arguably the most famous shoe designer in the world, was in Tokyo early this month to christen the opening of his very first free-standing boutique in Tokyo and Japan. The space is a three-story building that fits snugly...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 28, 2010

Building a world without barriers, borders

One afternoon in the mid-1980s, Hiroko Kimura was taking a rest from sightseeing on a park bench in Adelaide, southern Australia. As she was enjoying the warm sunshine, she spotted the words "Japs go home" carved into the wood. This was the height of the bubble years and Kimura was aware that some people...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 19, 2010

Thinking aloud

Few philosophers are compared to rock stars or TV celebrities, but that's the kind of popularity Michael Sandel enjoys in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2010

Kyoto's Miyako at 120, inn for the long haul

KYOTO — In a city where some traditional inns are more than 400 years old, the Westin Miyako Kyoto, which celebrates its 120th anniversary this year, is a relative newcomer to the world of Kyoto lodgings.
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Aug 15, 2010

Pavlicevic sets sail in Shimane

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with personalities in the bj-league, which begins its sixth season in October. Coach Zeljko Pavlicevic of the expansion Shimane Susanoo Magic is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 30, 2010

Who deserves to sit alongside Chagall?

There are many ways to view the lush, colorful, dreamlike and apparently naive art of Marc Chagall, one of the undoubted greats of 20th-century painting. "Marc Chagall and the Russian Avant-garde, from the Collection of the Centre Pompidou" at The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of Arts, makes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 16, 2010

The talented women of Kyoto

"Women Artists of Kyoto: Bearing Burdens / Burdens Born" is ostensibly about the classification of female artists since the late 19th century. The term "keishu-gaka" refers to accomplished women artists, "joryu-gaka" to post-World War II artists who created trends among male colleagues and "josei-gaka"...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Jul 8, 2010

A party for Tsumori Chisato, big bling, premium denim and good old gents

MISHA JANETTE and PAUL McINNES Staying young at heart
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2010

Globally minded director goes native

It's sad but true that Japanese directors with big reputations abroad are often odd men (or women) out back home.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 9, 2010

Children of Japan

Childhood. We all know it, we've all been through it, we've all lost it. Memory retains traces of it. We recall facts, incidents, fragments — but not what it felt like to be a child. Childish feelings are nameable to the adult, but not recoverable. They are on the other side of an impassable boundary...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 11, 2010

It's all change in men's designs

After seasons of stagnation, Japanese menswear is in the midst of an interesting transitional phase.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Apr 9, 2010

The perfect pairings for spring picnics

Spring has officially sprung us from our winter cages out into parks and gardens that are blooming with life. After having had our senses cooped up in the sterile indoors, we can now enjoy the subtle and stimulating scents of blossom and cut grass — and what better way to amplify the experience than...
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Jan 24, 2010

Valentine's philosophy brought Marines glory, money

Second in a four-part series
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 12, 2010

Wannabe comics find their voices in Tokyo

"Everyone likes a laugh now and then, right?"

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami