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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Sep 18, 2002

Talk about the passion . . .

Can Kiyoshi Hikawa save enka?
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INDUSTRY TRENDS
Sep 6, 2002

Demographic shift prompts toy makers to reach out to adults

Faced with an ever declining number of children, Japan's toy makers have started courting their parents, alluring them with frothy beer dispensers and matchbox luxury sedans.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 29, 2002

Clearing the air, resurrecting cash and finding a pet

Clearing the air With summer winding down, and in readiness for new seasonal beginnings, time to clean the slate.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 25, 2002

Buying into the idea of saving the planet

It may not be intentional, but the new batch of ads by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. could be seen as taking advantage of the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, which opens in Johannesburg on Monday. In each TV spot, following energy-saving advice related to the use of air conditioners,...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 27, 2002

Newshungry TV viewers fighting for English service

To start off, we have a request from "Friends of Foxnews," who are working to keep Foxnews, the up and coming challenge to CNN and BBC and the only non-edited English language news program on SkyPerfecTV here in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 26, 2002

Marketing message in a bottle

Wherever you go, wherever you look, shelves are stacked with it, vending machines are loaded with it and people are toting it in their burando bags and natty knapsacks. And that's not to mention all those billboards, magazine ads and TV spots keeping green tea up close and personal to residents of these...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 28, 2002

Public rests easy with cash under the futon

As the scandals keep a-comin', the citizens are receiving what many believe is a healthy and long overdue reality check about those whom they've entrusted with their collective well-being. Politicians have always been suspicious types and bureaucrats only slightly less so. But now teachers, policemen...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2002

Tourism industry courts Koizumi, Bush to boost international travel

The newly signed U.S.-Japan tourism promotion pact shows the United States is greatly aware of just how much Japanese tourists mean to its economy, according to U.S. tourism industry leaders who visited Japan last week to attend the agreement's signing ceremony.
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2002

Fine brewing history in the (beer) making

Beer: It's an international word that generally needs no translation, although a trip to the Beer Museum Yebisu, on the former site of a Sapporo Breweries Ltd. brewery, sheds much more light on a process that is slightly more complex than simply "Open can/bottle, pour contents down throat."
COMMUNITY
Mar 30, 2002

Making music less than a job, more than a hobby

Donna Burke and Bill Benfield deserve to be sitting pretty. Just married (Dec. 28, in Australia), they live in a large apartment in Tokyo's Azabu-juban with three cats, and a flock of sparrows lined up on the balcony waiting to be fed every morning.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Mar 20, 2002

Clay forms waiting to be unearthed

A lump of clay; what forms sleep undiscovered within? There are many ways potters can shape the "earth" they see, the most common is to throw it on a wheel or rokuro. Other ways include tebineri (hand-pinching), himo-zukuri (coil-building), tatara-zukuri (slab-building) or wari-gata (piece-molding)....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 2, 2002

Metal horse, stun gun: I'm ready to roll

I have always been hesitant to drive a car in Japan. I'm afraid I'll run over pedestrians. I'm from the countryside in Ohio, where we have no pedestrians, just possums and raccoons. You're allowed to run over them. Sure, I had seen pedestrians before, but they were always on signs. They never actually...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 21, 2002

Silver lining in Enron scandal: campaign finance reform

WASHINGTON -- It may look like Enron Corp. is the only game in town, but that would be far from the truth. A lot is going on these days, although Enron certainly has taken a big chunk of the capital's attention. There are hearings galore and press conferences in between. To what end? Good question. This...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2002

Ruling bloc to coordinate antispam bill submission

Each of the parties of the ruling coalition will coordinate the submission of a bill to regulate junk e-mail, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma said Friday.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Feb 3, 2002

Makes perfect pop sense to me . . .

Beat Crusaders must have overheard one of those critics a couple of years back saying "comedy is the new rock 'n' roll" and taken it literally, for what you get at their gigs is tons of cheap stand-up comic banter sandwiched between immensely hummable pop hymns. Remember the speedy guitar pop of The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Jan 30, 2002

Going Ga Ga Ga for Ozawa

Ozawa is doing well on the charts these days. Not Kenji Ozawa, the nasally singer whose popularity I cannot fathom, but his uncle, classical conductor Seiji Ozawa. The elder Ozawa's "New Year's Concert 2002" album entered the music-industry trade paper Oricon's Jan. 28 album chart at No. 9, marking the...
SUMO
Jan 22, 2002

Kotomitsuki upsets Kaio to stay tied for lead

Promotion-chasing sekiwake Kotomitsuki dodged a bullet before pulling off an upset win over ozeki Kaio to preserve his share of the three-way lead in the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament on Monday.
COMMUNITY
Jan 6, 2002

Change: Now new and improved!

Whether through genetically modified foods, the mapping of the human genome or global climate change, technology and science are changing our lives, often much faster than we might like. Things are moving so fast that it is difficult to imagine our lives 20 years from now, let alone what's in store for...
Japan Times
JAPAN / INTERNATIONAL RATIONALE
Dec 19, 2001

Foreign retailers relying on adaptability to survive

When French retailer Carrefour and U.S.-based Costco Wholesale Corp. opened their outlets in Makuhari, Chiba Prefecture, a year ago, many saw the foreign stores as a threat to domestic supermarkets.
BUSINESS
Dec 12, 2001

Deregulation measures target health and labor

Japan should seek early deregulation in six priority areas, including health care, to build a consumer-friendly society and revive the faltering economy, a government advisory panel on deregulation said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2001

Net poses major changes for news media

Does the advent of the Internet society spell the end of the news media as we know it? Will a new breed of reporters, represented by anonymous authors in online chat rooms, oust professional journalists from the public arena?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 25, 2001

Failed chemistry experiments in the media lab

Two weeks ago, a friend faxed me an article from the weekly news magazine Aera about a new advertising trend called "collaboration CF," which is the selling of two different companies' products in one TV commercial. I had already read about collaborations two days earlier in advertising critic Yukichi...
COMMUNITY
Nov 4, 2001

Getting geared up for the open road

Getting a license If you already have a motorbike license from another country, you can be issued with an equivalent Japanese one. If you have a Japanese car license, you can ride a scooter or a motorbike up to 50cc. If you have an international bike license, you can ride a bike of any size.
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2001

Attacks now an excuse to barbecue pork

WASHINGTON -- Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, it has been said, and never was it more obvious in the United States than in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Rescuers were still searching for bodies from the smoldering rubble when lobbyists descended upon Washington, D.C....
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 25, 2001

To know them is to love them

High summer. Sarasota, western Florida, and the bridges linking the Keys (off-shore islands) hum with traffic. Boutiques throng with tourists, construction cranes loom high, the beaches are peppered with sunbathers courting melanoma and the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is torn by Jet-skis.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 13, 2001

Shaping up the economy: more parks, fewer highways

One of the joys of visiting the United States is having a chance to check out the alternative press. This summer, while in Vermont (which some say is a state, and some a state of mind), I picked up a free copy of "Green Living: A Practical Journal for Friends of the Environment."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 9, 2001

Vanity thy name is also man

If my mates could see me now, they'd just about die laughing.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 12, 2001

She's got legs . . .

You've probably seen her somewhere -- on product packaging, in fashion catalogs or TV commercials. But no one would recognize her, because she is famous only for her legs.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji