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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 27, 2006

Going by the book in Shikoku

A classic, once noted Mark Twain wryly, is what everyone wants to have read but nobody wants to read. Thus, Japan has such grand works as the hefty 11th-century "Tale of Genji," which can claim universal respect, but relatively few readers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 26, 2006

A change in gender for new political series

For more than two decades, Yasumasa Morimura, one of Japan's most internationally celebrated artists, has inserted his own face into iconic paintings by van Gogh, Manet and Rembrandt, as well as portraits of stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Vivian Leigh. With his elaborate, hilarious and often gender-bending...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 26, 2006

"47 Loyal Retainers" for the 40th anniversary

''My appointment by Commissioner Hayao Kawai of the Agency for Cultural Affairs to direct the Japan Arts Council came as a total surprise," says Kazuaki Tsuda, "though I must confess I am having a great time. I spent 50 years selling whisky, and now I am selling culture!"
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 25, 2006

Fighters move ahead

SAPPORO -- Takeda and Takeda sounds like a law firm in Marunouchi, but up north, it's a crack pitching tandem.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 24, 2006

Tasty Nagoya wrap before Sapporo feast

NAGOYA -- The Japan Series is knotted at ones after the opening leg of the Hinomaru-style Fall Classic, and Japan Times baseball writer Stephen Ellsesser is battling off the one-two punch of post-midnight Mexican food and the stuffy conditions at Nagoya Dome during Game 2.
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2006

An altered state of recovery

The Cabinet Office said in its monthly economic report for October that the current economic expansion, now in its 57th month, has tied Japan's longest "boom" of the postwar period, which occurred during the second half of the 1960s. With the current economic recovery expected to continue, it is certain...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 21, 2006

Future is now for feel-good Fighters

NAGOYA -- In hindsight, bringing baseball to Hokkaido seems as much a no-brainer as bringing Trey Hillman in to manage the Nippon Ham Fighters.
EDITORIALS
Oct 21, 2006

Surrogate births raise complex issues

News that a woman in her 50s has acted as a surrogate mother for her daughter and her daughter's husband underscores the need to enact a law governing how to legally treat children born in this way. The guidelines of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology prohibit doctors from engaging in surrogacy-related...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 21, 2006

Debbie Kopinski

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Ikebana International is holding its Ninth World Convention in Tokyo Oct. 27-30. Some 850 ikebana enthusiasts are participating.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2006

IC you're old enough to buy cigarettes: new vending machines

Driven by growing concerns over potential health problems of underage smoking, the tobacco industry will introduce vending machines featuring an age-verification system in 2008 to prevent minors from buying cigarettes.
BUSINESS
Oct 19, 2006

Inpex to drill for Indonesian gas

Inpex Holdings Inc. said Wednesday it plans to develop a gas field in southern Indonesia to produce about 3 million tons annually beginning as early as 2014 in a bid to ensure Japan has a steady supply of liquefied natural gas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 19, 2006

Shomei Tomatsu retrospective traces post-war experience

At age 15 in 1945, Shomei Tomatsu was working at an aircraft assembly plant in Nagoya. U.S. B-29s were bombing the industrial city so relentlessly that by the end of World War II, nine out of 10 of its buildings were destroyed -- compared with five out of 10 in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 19, 2006

Shibuya-kei leaves a warm afterglow

Although the artists once grouped under the Shibuya-kei umbrella -- Cornelius, Kahimi Karie and Fantastic Plastic Machine, to name a few -- have moved away from their old musical styles and want distance from the genre, Shibuya-kei remains a convenient expression to identify that loose assembly of 1990s...
EDITORIALS
Oct 17, 2006

A clear message to Pyongyang

The sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council against North Korea represent a unified message from the U.N. member countries reprimanding the North for its underground nuclear test on Oct. 9. The unanimous adoption of a resolution imposing the sanctions less than a week after the test...
SPORTS / E-LIST
Oct 17, 2006

Dragons win CL with 'Girl Power' formula

YOKOHAMA -- When no challenge exists, for some, the answer is to manufacture one. Call it the Teenage Girl Syndrome -- when there isn't enough drama in a given situation, never underestimate a moody 16-year-old girl's ability to create some, and fast.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 17, 2006

Visiting a theme park sure beats working, unless . . .

Japan has lots of young people who are out of work or not even in the hunt for a job. The government estimates that 850,000 people, from teens through to their 30s, fall into the category of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training). Then there are the "freeters," youths who only work odd jobs...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 17, 2006

Sony readying plan to challenge iPod

Sony Corp. has vowed to fight iPod's domination in portable digital music players by featuring superior sound quality and simple music downloads that won't require a computer.
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2006

Retirement of an aviation pioneer

On Sept. 30, the YS-11, a twin turbojet passenger plane, made its last domestic flight -- from Okinoerabu Island to Kagoshima. It was retirement day for the aircraft that holds a special place in the history of Japan's aircraft manufacturing industry.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 16, 2006

Global imbalances, economic and political, must be rectified

As countries throughout the globe undergo radical economic changes from the impact of globalization, there exist two major imbalances in the world today.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 15, 2006

From the center of Korean conflict

KOREA WITNESS: 135 Years of War, Crisis and News in the Land of the Morning Calm, edited by Donald Kirk, Choe Sang-Hun. Seoul: EunHaeng NaMu, 2006, 13,000 won/$13.83 (paper). To adventurous Western writers and journalists in the late 19th century, the opening of Japan in 1868 was an opportunity too good...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 14, 2006

Tetsuya Noda

The College Women's Association of Japan is holding its 51st Annual Print Show Oct. 20 to 22 at the Tokyo American Club. As well as exhibiting 211 new prints, the show features demonstrations, activities and lectures, and an associate show focusing on two young prize-winning women.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 12, 2006

Fumio Nanjo's vision comes to the fore

The departure of director David Elliott from the Mori Art Museum to take over the Istanbul Modern in Turkey is the first major leadership change at Japan's largest privately endowed cultural institution. Though it was not without controversy, Elliott's tenure saw the 3-year-old museum develop into what...
COMMENTARY
Oct 12, 2006

Great problems and promise

LONDON -- The huge growth in Chinese gross domestic product and the market represented by a population 10 times that of Japan present huge opportunities for potential trade and investment. But these tend to obscure the problems that policies pursued by the present regime in China pose to the rest of...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 9, 2006

Abe must speed up reforms, forge new model of growth

Newly-elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the nation's first leader born after World War II, has launched his Cabinet with veteran lawmakers capable of taking the lead -- rather than relying on the bureaucracy -- in the implementation of fresh policy initiatives. Keidanren fully supports Abe's determination...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 7, 2006

Satohiko Sasaki

This summer, the Japan Academy awarded Satohiko Sasaki the Duke of Edinburgh Prize for his study of the physiology and ecology of tropical rain forest species and the development of rehabilitation technology. The award, made in the presence of the Emperor and Empress, was a crowning recognition of Sasaki's...
BUSINESS
Oct 7, 2006

Forex reserves again hit record

Kyodo News
EDITORIALS
Oct 7, 2006

Higher calling for top diplomat

South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon is a shoo-in for becoming the next secretary general of the United Nations. Succeeding Mr. Kofi Annan, Mr. Ban will take up his new job Jan. 1. His election as secretary general later this month by the 192-member General Assembly became certain...

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