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COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Oct 4, 2011

Japan needs less ganbatte, more genuine action

Ganbatte kudasai!
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2011

Is China's economic miracle a mirage?

Doubts are beginning to be heard about how sustainable is China's economic miracle, particularly the relentless emphasis on exports and investment spending by hundreds of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and local governments. Beijing, of course, has its supporters, including banker turned academic Stephen...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 2, 2011

World needs lessons in dealing with difference; Japan needs an education in attracting students

Following are three more readers' mails in response to both Gerry McLellan's May 24 Hotline to Nagatacho column "Japanese adults need an education in dealing with difference" and other letters published on the subject on June 28.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 17, 2011

Superfly takes a heavy trip

Hang on a minute, how did this happen? Somehow hippie-loving 1960s-throwback pop songstress Superfly has got, like, totally heavy, man. While her previous studio album, 2009's "Box Emotions," featured a couple of belters, new release "Mind Travel" does away with soppy ballads almost completely, favoring...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 7, 2011

American's food import firm has grown organically

Jack Bayles, owner of Alishan Organic Center and founder of Tengu Natural Foods, has lived within a 5-km radius his entire time in Japan in the shadow of the verdant, hazy mountains of Chichibu near the Koma River in Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 10, 2011

Robocon founder Dr. Masahiro Mori

Dr. Masahiro Mori, 84, is a specialist in robotics and Emeritus President of the Robotics Society of Japan. Mori is the founder of Robocon, the robotics contest he started in 1981 when he was a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Since then, Robocon has developed into the world's most famous...
COMMUNITY
Feb 12, 2011

For Kanagawa artist, past goods offer key to creation

View the sun through a shitajiki, those transparent, decorative pencil-boards ubiquitous to elementary school children in Japan, and you can gaze, squint-free, into its rays. The world transforms when you look directly at the sun because perceptions shift. Shoichi Sakurai, 49, artist, discovered this...
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 28, 2011

Kyoto ace Abdul-Rauf staves off Father Time

OSAKA — Kyoto Hannaryz guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf participated in the 3-Point Shootout during Sunday's All-Star festivities, providing a thrill for the enthusiastic crowd at Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 5, 2010

Matsumoto Koshiro IX: A lifetime of kabuki

"Koraiya!" shouts someone in the audience, acclaiming the actor center stage. Feeding off the adulation, he launches into his next line. "What a useless fellow you are," he yells, berating the servant at his side. "You shall pay dearly!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 15, 2010

Fischli and Weiss: Creative pile ups

I n 1987, the Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss completed a film of what can best be described as a dysfunctional experiment carried out in an anonymous warehouse space.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Oct 1, 2010

Rookie coach Toyama confident first time out

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with individuals in the bj-league, which begins its sixth season on Oct. 16. Coach Koto Toyama of the expansion Miyazaki Shining Suns is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 13, 2010

One more time — with Charisma

My first reaction on hearing that "Charisma Man" was attempting a comeback was to ask, "Can it even work today?" Would the strip come across as funny, or just endearingly nostalgic? Worse, could it be completely misinterpreted and considered amateurishly silly, a gross exaggeration aimed at getting a...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 19, 2010

An unconventional BBQ — grill them all

The cool spring has definitely cut into the barbecue season here on the island. I'm not resentful, just peeved. Mother Nature obviously doesn't eat meat.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 6, 2010

Dancing for joy in Japan

As I sipped my vin rouge last week during an interval in "The Sleeping Beauty," K-Ballet's latest Tokyo production, a woman at the next table said to her companion: "I can't believe that evil fairy was a man! I just naturally thought it was a woman dancing that role."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 13, 2010

Computer whiz turns 'strangeness' into asset

From his early days in Japan as a destitute student sleeping in train station stairwells to living in a 3-mat room that cost him ¥10,000 a month, Richard Northcott went on to head a mobile software company that now enjoys sales of $2 million a year.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jan 24, 2010

Once mighty Apache in complete disarray

First in a two-part series
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 3, 2010

Jake Adelstein: Insider reaching out

Author Joshua "Jake" Adelstein supposes that if he'd stayed home in rural Missouri and had never come to Japan, he'd probably have become a small-town lawyer or a very happy detective on the local police force.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2009

Scaremeister Raimi sheds light on his fondness for darkness

Sam Raimi is best known as the man behind the "Spiderman" franchise, but he's also widely regarded as a master of the macabre and of horror. After all, he broke through in 1981 with "The Evil Dead" after fixating on horror movies as a child. Before age 10, he was making 8-mm home movies.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Nov 1, 2009

Susan Schmidt: Honored U.S. beacon for Japan

Susan Schmidt is a former editor at the University of Tokyo Press who spent 20 years living and raising a family in Japan up until the mid-1990s. She is now executive director of the U.S.-based, 1,500-member Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese — a role in which she has not only helped...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 22, 2009

Tokyo Girls Collection producer Ayako Nagaya

Ayako Nagaya, 37, is the president of F1 Media Inc. and the chief producer of Tokyo Girls Collection (TGC), a semiannual entertainment extravaganza showcasing Japanese street fashion, music and a myriad of products, from instant noodles to cars. Staged in Tokyo's Yoyogi Stadium, this one-day fashion...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 26, 2009

Reaching young people with music

When someone asks his age, Michael Di Stasio sometimes responds that it is the same as the late king of pop, Michael Jackson: "May he rest in peace."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 18, 2009

Imagine no possessions

Everyone has heard how the Japanese have no furniture in their houses and how they sit on the floor and sleep on futons.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2009

Juliette Binoche takes to the stage — this time to dance

The Oscars are still in the air, and not just in Hollywood, as Tokyo is set to host Juliette Binoche — winner of Best Supporting Actress in 1996 for her role in "The English Patient" — in a weeklong run of "in-i," a dance work she created and is performing with Akram Khan, one of England's hottest...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CLOSE-UP
Jan 4, 2009

Japan's 'Mr. Television'

Picture the world's busiest television presenter, and imagine yourself squinting through the glare of high-wattage celebrity, struggling to breathe in air perfumed with pampered showbiz egos.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 4, 2009

Monta Mino: Japan's 'Mr. Television'

Picture the world's busiest television presenter, and imagine yourself squinting through the glare of high-wattage celebrity, struggling to breathe in air perfumed with pampered showbiz egos.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 7, 2008

Tadao Ando: Icon and iconoclast

One of the first houses built by Japan's most famous architect, Tadao Ando, is centered around an open atrium. That sounds nice until you realize that the atrium forms the only "corridor" between each of the rooms. Fancy a hot cup of tea before bed on a rainy winter's night? You'll need an umbrella and...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 23, 2008

Inukai ready to face new challenges as president of JFA

On July 12, Motoaki Inukai became president of the Japan Football Association, bypassing four JFA vice presidents and one general secretary to land the most powerful job in Japanese soccer.
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Aug 23, 2008

Long-distance becomes longtime romance

Felix Moesner met Makiko Aikawa in 1991 when he was doing a one-year robotics internship at Toshiba Corp. and a home-stay at her grandmother's house in Yokohama. Then a university student, she often visited after cooking classes at a restaurant nearby.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 19, 2008

Tracing political cause and effect

Dramatists in their 30s have moved to the forefront of Japanese contemporary theater in recent years. Since 2004, the country's most prestigious theater accolade, the Kishida Drama Award, has gone to thirtysomething playwright/ directors Daisuke Miura, Toshiki Okada and Shiro Maeda. Also, the New National...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
May 3, 2008

It's a voyage of discovery for Peace Boat couple

Tatsuya Yoshioka and Rachel Armstrong Yoshioka met in 1998 aboard a cruise ship during an international exchange organized by Peace Boat, the Japan-based nongovernmental organization that works toward social change mainly by chartering passenger vessels for "peace voyages."

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear