Search - events

 
 
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 6, 2008

Why have Japan's bookworms turned?

Let's talk books this first Sunday of the new year.
COMMENTARY
Jan 4, 2008

Global 'war' waged in vain

LONDON — The tragic killing of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan has sent a raft of shock-wave messages round the world. Most of these have been carefully and lengthily noted and analyzed — such as the concern that Pakistan, labeled a frontline state in the fight against terrorism, could now collapse into...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Jan 4, 2008

Where ambitions have long soared

First of two parts
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 4, 2008

Doggy style hits the Tokyo catwalk

New Year Dog Party, a festive treat for canines and canine-lovers, will be held at Tokyo Big Sight on Jan. 12 and 13.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jan 3, 2008

Hot tickets: Performing arts

Tokubetsu Buyo Koen
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Dec 31, 2007

Fukuda keeps thaw with China on track

JINAN, China — Shinzo Abe's trip to China as prime minister in October 2006 was dubbed "the ice-breaking trip" to mend diplomatic relations damaged by predecessor Junichiro Koizumi. Then came Premier Wen Jiabao's "thawing-ice visit" to Japan last April.
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2007

Mid-January reshuffle of Cabinet eyed

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda hinted Saturday that he may reshuffle the Cabinet in mid-January in an effort to shore up his administration's falling approval ratings.
COMMENTARY
Dec 30, 2007

Living with war and a warmer planet

LONDON — 2007 was the year in which global warming finally began to be taken seriously. Climate-change deniers were in full retreat, and the realization that we face a long and grave crisis was finally dawning on the general public. However, it remains to be seen whether the world will agree on effective...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2007

Watami empire built on concept of family 'izakaya'

Until Miki Watanabe opened his first Watami "izakaya" pub in April 1992 in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, such eateries were considered places for business workers and college kids to have a cheap drink and a few side dishes.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2007

Human existence demands sacrifice

Why must we treat whales as special creatures? Human existence is based on the sacrifices of other creatures including animals such as cows and vegetable plants. We should be thankful for the sacrifices of these creatures.
EDITORIALS
Dec 27, 2007

Reflecting on a year of anxiety

Citizens the world over must be eager to close 2007, a year marked by profound anxiety as vulnerabilities in the political and economic order have become visible and been repeatedly tested. Thus far, the system has survived, but strains are intensifying. If 2007 offers a taste of what lies ahead, we...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Dec 26, 2007

The biggest Internet-related stories of 2007

As we wind down on 2007, it's a good time to look back and see how much the Internet landscape has changed in the last year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 25, 2007

Who? Me? Otaku?

"Otaku" culture is spreading over the globe. Perhaps we are all otaku now? My wife tells me I'm an otaku — should I be worried? If you haven't encountered the word, here is Wikipedia's definition: "a derisive Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly 'anime' and...
COMMENTARY
Dec 24, 2007

U.S., Australia 'still mates'

HONOLULU — "Australia's Path Bends Away from the U.S.''
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007

Inspired by repression

I am a very private person," says Marjane Satrapi, author of "Persepolis" and co-director of the new film based on her graphic novels. It's a curious statement coming from someone who's poured her own life into an autobiographical novel, but as she repeatedly pointed out to The Japan Times, it's not...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007

'L'heure zero'

French filmmaker Pascal Thomas has a thing about Agatha Christie. "L'heure zero (Toward Zero)" is his second adaptation of a mystery by the "Queen of Crime" following "Mon petit doigt ma dit . . . (By the Pricking of My Thumbs . . .)," and he re-creates the Christie microcosm, as before, with the earnest...
JAPAN / ALSO OUT THERE
Dec 21, 2007

To survive a corporate scandal or to crumble

Reflecting a year that was jam-packed with food makers' scandals, including false labeling, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation announced earlier this month that "nise," meaning "fake," best symbolized 2008 in a single character.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 20, 2007

"SALON — Art Lounge"

Mado Lounge, Mori Hills 52F
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 18, 2007

The myopic state we're in

We all notice it eventually: how nice individual Japanese people are, yet how cold — even discriminatory — officialdom is toward non-Japanese (NJ). This dichotomy is often passed off as something "cultural" (a category people tend to assign anything they can't understand), but recent events have...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 13, 2007

Miami fairs party hard

Last Wednesday night, after Iggy Pop's free concert kicked off Art Basel Miami Beach (Dec. 6-9), an art fair that's the centerpiece of the world's largest conglomeration of art dealers, I came across a gaggle of women in short dresses scaling a fence to crash a more exclusive party in the back garden...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 13, 2007

The printer who wished to paint

Masuo Ikeda's polymath abilities in the arts — ranging from printmaking to writing and ceramics — is mirrored in his diverse depictions of feminine eroticism. Posed provocatively in Ikeda's works are his versions of Venus, virgins, brides, generic types and femme fatales, the Madonna of the Annunciation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Dec 12, 2007

Konbini Life

Konbini Life is a blog that describes limited-edition Kit-Kats as potential after-dinner treats for French restaurants and speculates that Mousse Pocky might be "as good as a garnish on a fancy dessert." Blogger Brent Warner has been writing witty, detailed posts on the never-ending parade of snack food...
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2007

Oh's record viewed as tarnished

Regarding the Dec. 5 article "Oh honored by FSAJ for lifetime achievement": I was surprised to see that baseball great Sadaharu Oh was bestowed such an award by the Foreign Sportswriters Association of Japan without any apparent dissent. It's ironic -- given the unfairness that his teams perpetrated...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 11, 2007

What was the biggest domestic news story of 2007?

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 11, 2007

Tamegoro Sudo

Tamegoro Sudo, 50, is a movie producer and actor whose many friends in Tokyo's downtown Asakusa area provide him with the hilarious characters and plots in his movies. His five "Dekotora no Shu (Shu, the Dekotora Man)" movies star his favorite decorated trucks and his buddies, actors Sho Aikawa and Shingo...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Dec 9, 2007

Japan's 'fix'ation with a risky ride

A group of young men huddle around a bicycle in a small shop named Carnival on the second story of a cream-brick building peering over the Yamanote Line in Shibuya.

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