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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 18, 2007

As London shows, assimilation is what migration's about

LONDON -- I have been coming to this city every few years for more than four decades, and this visit, of 10 days' duration, has, in some ways, been the most startling. Not that the mid-Sixties weren't. The Beatles, with every challenge to staid British routine that they personified, were in the ascendancy...
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2007

Abe pressed again on sex slavery

Saying that true friendship between their countries depended on it, visiting South Korean lawmaker Yoo Ki Hong on Friday urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to officially recognize and apologize for the wartime sexual enslavement of women and girls in Japanese-occupied Asia.
COMMENTARY
Mar 16, 2007

Apologies of dubious quality

HONG KONG -- The recent verbal gymnastics of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe show why, more than 60 years after the end of World War II, Japan's wartime behavior remains a sensitive issue around the region and why the country's apologies are regarded as insincere.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 16, 2007

Full-color business and pleasure

If there's one thing that's drawing the eyes of the world toward Japan, it'sanime. From "Akira" to "Spirited Away," through years of moving, high-concept beauties and "video nasties," and right down to the plethora of sprawling half-hour cartoon series, animation is widely regarded as Japan's key artistic...
COMMENTARY
Mar 15, 2007

North Korea prefers Bush?

Japan's distress over the rapid progress in U.S.-North Korean talks for normalization of relations is palpable. The government as well as the mainstream media seem united in hopes that Washington will delay normalization until North Korea meets Japan's demands over the abductee issue -- the return of...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2007

IRCJ chief satisfied as bailout body prepares to wind down

Atsushi Saito, president of the Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan, is confident the government-backed bailout agency has done more than revive ailing companies.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2007

Teacher traces aversion to 'Kimigayo' to the war

Toru Kondo is a good man.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 13, 2007

Mamoru Oshii

Animation and live-film writer and director Mamoru Oshii, 56, is best known for making the animated 1995 movie "Ghost in the Shell," which was a strong influence on the Hollywood movie "The Matrix" (1999). The work Oshii is most satisfied with is the 2004 sequel to that film, "Innocence" (which was nominated...
Reader Mail
Mar 11, 2007

Just what is Abe trying to say?

Last Sunday our fickle prime minister, Shinzo Abe, stated that he would stand by the 1993 apology for forcing Asian women to have sex with Japanese troops during World War II. This reader is terribly confused: Just three days earlier Abe had reiterated that there was no evidence of "coercion" by Japan's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Mar 11, 2007

Jimmy Wales: Power to the Wikipeople

An Internet search for almost anything these days will likely lead you straight to Wikipedia, the worldwide online encyclopedia.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 11, 2007

What will happen to all that Japanese boomers' cash?

Hurry! Don't miss out! Yamaha, the giant musical-instrument manufacturer, is offering three-month ukulele courses! Or, the more adventurous can avail themselves of the services of travel agents at JTB who are promoting a six-day tour -- or an eight-day rongubakeeshon (long vacation) tour of Hawaii, where...
COMMENTARY
Mar 9, 2007

Retreat from responsibility

LOS ANGELES -- Perhaps in an ideal world, people all across Asia would simply ignore the sad Japanese leader who slides embarrassingly and inelegantly into seemingly pointless denial over the "comfort women" issue of World War II. Perhaps in another world, the sight would prompt genuine concern about...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Mar 9, 2007

This wine school gets better with age

Japan's oldest and largest wine school, the Academie du Vin, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Something of an institution in Japan's wine world, the academy has turned out more than 30,000 graduates in its two decades of operation. But rather than rest on its laurels, the school continues...
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2007

Abe firm: 'coercion' not proved

The resolution submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives calling on Japan to apologize for forcing women into sexual slavery in the 1930s and 1940s is based on misconceptions, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday.
BASKETBALL
Mar 7, 2007

Hoop dreams: Nakayama aims to inspire compatriots

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on Asumi Nakayama and the Utah Valley State women's basketball team, which wrapped up its 2006-07 season on Saturday. Part II tomorrow explores the relationship assistant coach Chris Boettcher, who has lived and coached in Japan, has developed with...
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2007

LDP, DPJ ranks hear Nanjing denial lecture

About 30 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan gathered Tuesday to hear a controversial historian talk about why he figures the Nanjing Massacre is a "complete fabrication."
MORE SPORTS
Mar 4, 2007

Arakawa accepts FSAJ Award

She's been dubbed "Cool Beauty" by the Japanese press. Her composure on the ice is equally stunning.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 4, 2007

New stadium in Hiroshima looking good for 2009 season

The city of Hiroshima recently unveiled plans and an artist's conception image of a new baseball stadium to be built for the Carp. The facility is expected to open in time for the 2009 season, and it promises to be one of the best ballparks in Japan -- or anywhere else, for that matter.
Reader Mail
Mar 4, 2007

Myth of national homogeneity

Education minister Bunmei Ibuki's recent comment that Japan is an "extremely homogenous" country shows again how clueless so many of our officials in government, particularly in the Liberal Democratic Party administration, are with regard to the origins of this country.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 4, 2007

What is becoming of my grandfather's wisdom?

These days it's tough to be a journalist. This may sound like a whinge, but whinges may sometimes reflect a real situation. Oh, it's fine if you agree with the line of thought acceptable to governments, religious organizations or interest groups. But if you dare hold up a mirror to them, you may run...
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2007

Negroponte cool to U.S. call for sex slave apology

Issues pertaining to Japan's wartime sexual slavery should be dealt between Tokyo and the affected parties, not a third country, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Friday.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 2, 2007

S-Pulse's Fujimoto eyes national team

Up-and-coming playmaker Jungo Fujimoto has set his sights on a place in the Japan national team this year, and Shimizu S-Pulse coach Kenta Hasegawa believes he is ready to make the step up.
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2007

Beating the Yamato drum

With health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa's gaffe remark that women are "childbearing machines" still fresh in people's memory, yet another Cabinet member has put his foot in his mouth. This time, education minister Bunmei Ibuki has voiced objectionable ideas on the general character of the Japanese state...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic