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CULTURE / Books
Apr 8, 2012

Purity and pollution in Japan

TROUBLED NATURES: Waste, Environment, Japan, by Peter Wynn Kirby. University of Hawaii Press, 2011, 250 pp., $49.00 (hardcover) Japan "is enmired in waste." Naturally — what industrialized or industrializing nation isn't? It's a ubiquitous problem urgently demanding an elusive solution, studied accordingly...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 8, 2012

Mainstream media toes the line on sales tax

A bill to increase the consumption tax has finally been submitted to the Diet. Approval is by no means assured, owing partly to the fact that the substance of the issue has changed since the idea of a consumption tax was originally formulated. The Liberal Democratic Party saw it as a source of funding...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 8, 2012

'Anything goes' unites women's collections

What exactly is Tokyo fashion? Is it a pastiche of color and gobs of shapes so outrageous it's like we're being punked? Or is it the modern, conservative look that is an actual mainstay on the streets?
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2012

Debate growing over 'local' reactor consent

Dissent between those inside Fukui Prefecture who want two reactors in the town of Oi restarted quickly and those in adjacent prefectures who want to wait for stronger safety measures or are opposed altogether, highlights the dilemma Tokyo faces in obtaining local consent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2012

'The Artist'

One has to admire "The Artist" for it's sheer chutzpah: the idea that someone can make a silent, black-and-white movie in this day and age and achieve massive Oscar-winning success is nearly unthinkable.
EDITORIALS
Apr 6, 2012

Prosecution's organizational ills

The Osaka District Court on March 30 found Mr. Hiromichi Otsubo, former head of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office's special investigation squad, and his former deputy Mr. Motoaki Saga guilty of covering up evidence tampering by a subordinate, Mr. Tsunehiko Maeda.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 5, 2012

Ex-champ Sudo set for a second round

In a world saturated with celebrity culture, it's not hard to sometimes get a bit envious of some stars. It's understandable, because from a distance the fame, the sex appeal and seemingly endless amounts of cash can seem pretty alluring.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2012

The Afghan endgame mirage

On a recent visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan, I could not fail to notice the increasingly frequent international calls for an "endgame" in Afghanistan. But an endgame for that country is a dangerous illusion: The game will not end, and neither will history. The only thing that could come to an end is...
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2012

DPJ lawmaker's resignation reveals divisions

Divisions within the ruling Democratic Party of Japan deepened Monday as a lawmaker resigned in a show of defiance against Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's key bill to double the consumption tax to 10 percent.
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2012

India and the Iran sanctions

Writing in The Diplomat on Feb. 20, R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state in the Bush administration, lamented the fact that India was going to continue to purchase oil from Iran.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 2, 2012

Noda's plan to increase sales tax

There's no such thing as a popular tax increase. Woe betide the leader who sees no other way out of a fiscal impasse.
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2012

Civilization will live or die by new technology

Reporter: "What do you think of Western civilization, Mr. Gandhi?" Mohandas Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2012

Reconstructing Tohoku to fit today

The official and unofficial memorial ceremonies marking one year since the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region of Japan, killing some 16,000 people, are now past. The question remains though: Will Japan's politicians and bureaucrats come together and heed a simple...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 30, 2012

'The Help'

The Help" could be a lot more thorny than it is, but as a tale of bigotry and racial prejudice set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s, its contours are surprisingly smooth. It doesn't have the high rage factor of, say, 1988's "Mississippi Burning," nor the intense, provocative drama of 1990's...
Reader Mail
Mar 29, 2012

Infantile use of 'racism' label

In two AP articles published March 21, "Police see racist motive behind French shootings" and "British teacher used Nazi antics to rile neighbors," we see once more the common misuse of words.
SOCCER / J. League / J. LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Mar 29, 2012

Serrao debacle leaves Gamba searching for stability

There was always a danger that Gamba Osaka would need time to adapt to life without former manager Akira Nishino, but no one expected things to turn out quite so badly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 29, 2012

Lenny Kravitz

When Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency of the United States in 2008, the topic of race often came up in discussions about him. Obama was born to a black father and a white mother, and questions such as "Is America ready for a black president" and "Is Obama black enough" seemed to follow him...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 29, 2012

Charades at the World Bank and IMF

The scandal over the repellent way the World Bank president is appointed has obscured an equally scandalous situation: the appointment process of the rest of the senior managers at the bank and the International Monetary Fund. They too are selected through opaque, quota-driven negotiations that are a...
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2012

Kansai politicians want new safety regime before Oi reactor restart

Politicians in the Kansai region are increasingly coming out against approving any early restart of two nuclear reactors in Fukui Prefecture unless the central government first issues new safety guidelines that would hopefully prevent another crisis like Fukushima No. 1.
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2012

AIJ head's Diet apology skips how cash vanished

The president of scandal-hit AIJ Investment Co., Kazuhiko Asakawa, admitted Tuesday in the Diet that he had covered losses in corporate pension funds and promised false returns to lure clients.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / 2012 BASEBALL PREVIEW
Mar 26, 2012

Giants favored in Central League

Capsules in order of predicted finish
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 25, 2012

Aoki's departure leaves big void for Swallows

One of the big questions to be answered this year in Japanese baseball is, how will the Tokyo Yakult Swallows fare without All-Star center fielder Norichika Aoki, posted for major league service during the offseason and now with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2012

'My Week With Marilyn'

In his book "Retromania," music critic Simon Reynolds makes the case that pop music/rock has gone distressingly meta, feeding on its accumulated history at the expense of any further forward evolution musically. It's a bold argument — and well worth a read — but one could probably make the same case...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2012

Goldman Sachs has a long history of duping its clients

Greg Smith doesn't know the half of it.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Mar 21, 2012

Zen Master has nothing to gain by coaching Knicks

You know me; I'm too professional, polite and reverential of the coaching profession to speculate about interim Mike Woodson's successor while he still retains the Knicks' (favorite) title . . . at least as long as he's undefeated.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Mar 21, 2012

How The Man is following you online — and even on the train

Hatena is a Kyoto-based company that has run several web services since 2001. Similar to Digg, Delicious or Reddit, it has grown a web-savvy, tech-oriented community around a Q&A service (from which its name, Japanese for "question mark," is gleaned), free blog-hosting, and so on.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 20, 2012

Reflections on 3/11: reporters' dispatches

Initial hopes turn to frustration In the immediate aftermath of 3/11 I penned several optimistic pieces for European newspapers predicting that the disaster might jolt Japan out of its long period of economic torpor and social ennui. I wouldn't write the same today.
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...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 19, 2012

Excuse me, but aren't you so-and-so's whatchamacallit?

According to a dispatch by the French news agency AFP, France on Feb. 21 officially banished use of the term Mademoiselle when referring to unmarried women. Henceforth, Madame will be used irrespective of marital status.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight