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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 27, 2008

Even oceans can only take so much

N ow that the wider world has finally recognized the extent to which human activities are altering the Earth's climate, maybe we can also begin to grasp the fact that our oceans, too, are in dire straits.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA / STYLE WISE
Feb 26, 2008

Harajuku's "Style Deficit Disorder," model Irina Lazareanu gets wicked and more

Cure for disorder The popular fashion hub Harajuku is the subject of a fascinating new book by Tokyo-based editor and creative consultant Tiffany Godoy. Rich in detail and accompanied by some remarkable images, her book, "Style Deficit Disorder" (Chronicle Books), documents the history of the area from...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2008

Pakistan set to lift its ban on Bollywood

MADRAS, India — Cinema is a powerful weapon, though it is often called soft power. Men like Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Germany's Adolf Hitler understood the awesome might of movies.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 24, 2008

Persistence helps Lawrence extend career, connect with heritage

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which is in its third season. Aaron Sakai Lawrence of the Saitama Broncos is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
LIFE / THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Feb 24, 2008

Polar pioneer sets her sights high

For her doctoral thesis, Kazuyo Sakanoi studied the mechanisms of flickering auroras — those luminous phenomena in the atmosphere that appear like curtains of light.
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2008

Romantic fantasies about training

The Feb. 14 editorial "Violence in sumo training" pointed out "a culture characterized by tolerance of corporal punishment," but this "tradition" goes far beyond the sumo ring.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 24, 2008

Asian art for art's sake

WHAT'S THE USE OF ART? — Asian Visual and Material Culture in Context, edited by Jan Mrazek and Morgan Pitelka. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008, 314 pp., with illustrations, $58 (cloth) The question is rhetorical, that is, uttered for effect, to make a statement rather than to obtain an...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2008

Offbeat exploits attract foreign visitors

Dressed entirely in black with his head wrapped in cloth, Michael Studte throws darts, turns somersaults and twirls lassos in a ninja class for foreign tourists in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2008

Of manju, fish burgers and pachinko in the town of Obama

The more I live in Japan (quite a few years now) the more I realize the only difference between the Italians and the Japanese is the way we eat raw fish.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 22, 2008

Get cultured in 'Little Edo'

Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture invites you to its unique cultural events on Feb. 28 in conjunction with the famous monthly antique market held at Naritasan Betsuin temple in the city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2008

Takagi taps the color of sound

Is Masakatsu Takagi a musician that makes video art or a video artist that makes music?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2008

English-language papers offer unique take on Asia

English-language newspapers in East Asia provide unique perspectives on political, economic and cultural news in the region to a global community where English is the dominant tongue, speakers at a Tokyo symposium said Saturday.
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2008

What curfew for Okinawa's youth?

What's amazing is that more than 30 investigators jumped on this case. Does it really take that many? If it was a Japanese man that was suspected of this type of crime, would there be the same amount of involvement and publicity?
CULTURE / Books
Feb 17, 2008

Max Hastings' analysis in a bombshell

NEMESIS: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, by Max Hastings. HarperPress, 2007, £25, 699 pp., (cloth). (U.S. release is titled RETRIBUTION: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. Knopf, 2008, $35) At Frankfurt airport, the insecurity police screening hand baggage discovered something in my bag that alarmed them....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 14, 2008

France's own proto-Andy Warhol

There are interesting parallels between Andy Warhol and the French fin-de-siecle artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Each was an instantly recognizable figure who moved in a Bohemian crowd, was obsessed with celebrity, and produced print works that embodied the relationship between art and commerce.
EDITORIALS
Feb 14, 2008

Violence in sumo training

The arrests of former sumo stable master Tokitsukaze and three sumo wrestlers in connection with the fatal beating of a 17-year-old wrestler before and during a training session last June should serve as a warning to the Japan Sumo Association about a culture characterized by tolerance of corporal punishment....
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2008

Our responsibility to protect

WATERLOO, Canada — Then Secretary General Kofi Annan's famous "challenge of humanitarian intervention" in September 1999 provoked a furious backlash from many countries. Yet a mere six years later, the norm, reformulated as the "responsibility to protect" (R2P), was endorsed by the world leaders gathered...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2008

Wise man from Japan now the black pope

HONG KONG — An American Maryknoll priest in Hong Kong preached that the greatest blessings in life come when you least expect them, a rain shower on a hot day, a friend unexpectedly turning up, remission in a crippling illness, an inspiring idea just when your brain seemed to have turned into blancmange....
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2008

ASEAN's Pakistan problem

MANILA — Pakistan's near political chaos, the result of President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of martial law last year and the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has had a tsunami-like impact across Southeast Asia. Should Musharraf's government backslide even more on its commitments...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 10, 2008

Ruling in Powell case latest example of NPB ineptitude

"Only in Japan."
Reader Mail
Feb 10, 2008

Overboard on sight of tattoo

I would like to describe a personal experience that may be of some interest and value to readers. Last week I joined a fitness club in Nagoya. After completing the application process and paying the fee, I used the facilities. The following day I returned to use the pool before an aerobics class.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2008

Japanese slurping up U.S. chef's ramen

Tucked away in a quiet shopping district in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, an American is fulfilling an unlikely ambition.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2008

Crown Princess panned for living high life

First, Crown Princess Masako feasted on classy Mexican fare from a 13-dish special menu in her honor. Then it was roast duck and shark's fin soup at a top Chinese eatery. A month later, she enjoyed a sumptuous repast at a French restaurant where the course featured exquisite black truffles.
COMMENTARY
Feb 7, 2008

Russia disappoints the world

LONDON — What are we to do about Russia?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 7, 2008

The gobbiest girl in London, innit?

Adele cringes: "I can't believe I did a peace sign on TV — like Ringo Starr!"
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2008

Going after Google

The high-technology world is abuzz following Microsoft Corporation's $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo! Inc. last week. The takeover is an assault on Google's dominance of the online world, and on paper the two companies make a good match. But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the deal's eventual...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Feb 6, 2008

Tokyo's 'video people' come together

On Jan. 27, a new keyword climbed to the top of the rankings in Japan to steal first place on the blog search engine Technorati. Dougajin — literally "Video People" — was the name coined by organizers of Japan's first video-blogging event, held one day earlier, to describe the country's latest category...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 6, 2008

A digital SLR camera for every trigger finger

Snap-happy: Digital cameras come in all shapes and sizes. With their interchangeable lenses and reasonable prices, entry-level digital SLR (single-lens reflex) cameras are a halfway house between a cheap pocket-size point-and-click camera and a full-on pro shooter. The best-selling of the entry-level...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan