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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Apr 6, 2020

Take that island vacation you've been waiting for with Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Escape self-isolation with Animal Crossing: New Horizons; get in touch with your softer side with the coral Switch Lite; and Evil is back for a new round.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jul 1, 2014

Gunma's 'Brazil Town' offers a carnival of cuisine

This month A Taste of Home is taking a field trip to Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture. Oizumi, an otherwise ordinary town, is home to roughly 4,000 Brazilians — about one-tenth of the local population. Most of them work in nearby factories (Subaru is a big one). But some of them are working to make life a...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 25, 2010

Macrobiotic master extols joy of cooking

At age 51, Madonna still has a fantastic physique, and she has Chef Mayumi Nishimura to thank in part for that.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 12, 2009

Meeting the charity challenge

Can you imagine yourself completing a 100-km mountain trail in 48 hours and — if this is not enough of a challenge — begging your family, friends and colleagues to part with some hard-earned cash and sponsor you? What's more, could you do all this voluntarily for the sake of a good cause? If so,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 1, 2009

Pictures, videos and talking without hands

For the record: Some of the most impressive camcorders being made at the moment are compact or pocket recorders. Tokyo-based Amadana, known for stylish contributions to more routine products such as hair dryers, has crafted a unique-looking camcorder with its new SAL. The SAL looks like an old digital...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 16, 2008

You'll never have to miss a shot or a show

Mini movie maker: Panasonic knows the virtue of small cameras. Its latest contribution to the cause is the SDR-S7, a digital camcorder that fits in your palm and weighs a mere 160 grams, including the rechargeable battery. About the same height and width as a small can of coffee, the SDR-S7 includes...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 30, 2007

Avoid the chemically impaired

Anyone who has cruised around a Japanese supermarket or the basement of a department store has no doubt feasted their eyes on the robust, red and super-shiny apples at about ¥1,000 a pop.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jul 25, 2007

Glowing mini-fridge/heater, the world's smallest robot

Miniature fans are just so standard fare as office accessories for the long hot days of summer. International Trading Kansai Co. has crafted something rather more compelling, a minifridge that looks like a giant egg. Available in 6-liter and 10-liter sizes, the gadget gives you the option of keeping...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 4, 2007

Robot chicks -- Japanese gadgets are just so conspicuously cute

Conspicuous consumption is the art of spending lavishly on goods or services in a way that serves no real purpose except to show that you have lots of money. The great Norwegian-American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen put Nostradamus to shame with that insight from 1899. In Japan today, Veblen...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 10, 2013

Anatomy app gives users a better understanding of the human body

Back in highschool, I was in the middle of basketball practice, when I suddenly felt an acute pain in my knee. I had no idea what had happened to me. After visits to several different clinics, none of which could identify the problem, I finally found an orthopedist who accurately guessed the cause of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Sep 9, 2013

Filmmaker revisits the children of Fukushima's 'Grey Zone'

Ian Thomas Ash has won acclaim and awards at film festivals around the world for 'A2-B-C,' the second of a pair of documentaries about children living in towns a stone's throw from Fukushima No. 1.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Aug 7, 2012

The size of your dog could depend on your landlord

A 53-year-old woman was recently arrested after she moved out of a 50-sq.-meter rental apartment in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, leaving behind 26 dogs. She hadn't paid her rent for some time and went missing in early June. By the time someone entered her apartment on July 3, one of the dogs was...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 26, 2011

Where there's the will for a will, there's a way

Lee would like to prepare a will in Japan and is not sure how to proceed:
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Mar 3, 2009

Working holidays and Amerasian roots

Mareen, an 18-year-old German citizen, spent three weeks in Japan, loved it, and now wants to come back.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 27, 2008

Arbitrary rulings equal bad PR

Getting to know Japan is hard work: a complicated language, cultural esoterica, mixed messages about prudent paths to take. People who find their way around and assimilate deserve kudos and respect.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Oct 17, 2007

From Big Brother marketing tools to powered Kitty-chan collectibles

Looks alone might not determine a person's character, but for marketing they are at least a good start. NEC certainly believes in the power of appearances, with its new FieldAnalyst camera. The device, in essence, judges passersby on the basis of their looks, determining their gender and approximate...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 16, 2007

Gadgets fall prey to multitasking, and a mouse keeps an eye on your computer

P eople these days are more like ly to remember to take their keitai in the morning than their keys. After all, the later only protects your life's property and valuables, whereas your mobile phone makes life worth living. Or at least it seems to be for those who spend more time with their portable communicators...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 18, 2006

Preventing suicide and axing overtime pay is a risky mix

More than 30,000 people kill themselves each year in Japan, bestowing the country with the shameful honor of the highest suicide rate in the developed world. To deal with this reality, a group of lawmakers from across the political spectrum pushed an antisuicide bill through the Diet last month to force...
Cuban American soprano Lisette Oropesa stars as Violetta in a restaging of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” directed by Sofia Coppola in her opera directing debut in 2016
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 8, 2023

Rome Opera's tragic heroes resonate in modern times

For its Japan tour, the company will perform lavish productions of "La Traviata," directed by Sofia Coppola, and "Tosca," by Franco Zeffirelli.
Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / Longform
May 26, 2025

Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?

Trees have long occupied a sacred place in Japanese culture. In the fast pace of the 21st century, however, they're increasingly losing out to progress.
An ambulance is parked at the entrance of the emergency room of Saitama Hospital in Wako, Saitama Prefecture, on July 24.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Boiling Point
Aug 20, 2024

How Japan's health care system is gearing up for more heatstroke cases

Rising heatstroke cases are weighing on the nation’s health care system, which is already wrestling with the growing burden of a rapidly aging population.
Customers line up patiently for some early-afternoon baked goods outside Truffle, which is located close to Hiroo Station on the Hibiya Line.
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Apr 13, 2025

How to spend the perfect day in Hiroo, Tokyo’s expat enclave

A stroll through Hiroo reveals both the comforts of expat luxury and the quiet intrusions of a changing Tokyo.
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.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Jun 2, 2025

How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic

Labor shortages and shifting mindsets are driving younger Japanese workers to challenge the country’s traditional office culture.
China and India both began liberalizing their economies around the same time in the 1980s. But China invested more in human-capital and is now benefiting from that decision.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2023

Unlike China, India cannot be an economic superpower

In the 1980s, the belief among observers was that an authoritarian Chinese regime would mismanage its economy while a democratic India would thrive.
Veteran broadcaster and DJ Peter Barakan has been a fixture in Japanese music media for decades. He is now in his third year as curator and namesake of Peter Barakan’s Music Film Festival, which kicks off in Tokyo today.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 1, 2023

Peter Barakan's Music Film Festival celebrates cinema and song

The three-week event kicks off its third edition with 31 films including documentaries, concert films and narrative films centered on music.
A woman grills a piece of beef at a barbeque restaurant in Yokohama. Greenhouse gas emissions from food amount to a third of all human-caused emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Jan 28, 2024

The complicated balance between health and climate in the Japanese diet

In Japan, people with higher-emitting diets also tend to eat healthier, raising questions for the health- and environment-conscious consumer.
Emperors sought eternal life for centuries, but scientists believe our physical bodies have limits. That's where technologists come in.
BUSINESS / Tech / Longform
Feb 3, 2024

The digital beyond: Is an eternal existence within grasp?

Immortality has been a dream for centuries, but scientists doubt its possibility. Can technologists and coders find a virtual path instead?
Yayoi Kusama’s “Pumpkin,” once the victim of high waves that dragged it into the sea, sits at the end of a pier on the south side of Naoshima.
CULTURE / Art / Longform
Apr 6, 2024

Why is the most exciting art in Japan so hard to get to?

Japan has a unique movement of public art projects and festivals that are a slog to get to — by design. A writer examines the country's “inconvenient art."
Justice Minister Ryuji Koizumi speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 21, 2024

Japan's revised immigration bill clears Lower House

Permanent residency holders may have their status revoked if they deliberately fail to pay their taxes, impacting only those "with malicious intent."
Drag queen Becca D’Bus plays Dido, the forlorn queen of Carthage, in a drag version of “Dido and Aeneas."
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 30, 2024

Divas and diversity: Opera meets drag in ‘Dido and Aeneas’

Becca D’Bus, one of Singapore’s most popular drag queens, and Tokyo’s voguers and queens team up for a grand show at the Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’