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LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 14, 2009

Scholars worldwide react to planned National Center for Media Arts

Proponents of the National Center for Media Arts argue that it will help foreign researchers examining Japan's popular culture. The Japan Times asked prominent scholars from overseas their thoughts on the proposed facility.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 14, 2009

Is a national 'Manga Museum' at last set to get off the ground?

When it was announced in April that ¥11.7 billion had been set aside in 2009's supplementary budget to create a new National Center for Media Arts (NCMA) — a museum for manga, anime, video games and technology art — the news was greeted in the same way that most cultural-policy issues are in Japan....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2009

Samurai get put through paces

Anyone who knows anything about musicals knows they require endless rehearsals in order to be staged successfully. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers didn't just jump up and glide around a sound stage as the cameras rolled; they had to practice each step of those seemingly effortless dance routines over...
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2009

Confusion in the Cabinet

The Aso Cabinet is in a state of confusion over the question of whether Mr. Yoshifumi Nishikawa should stay on as president of Japan Post Holding Co. While Prime Minister Taro Aso is believed to support the retention of Mr. Nishikawa, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama firmly...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2009

An entrepreneurial ambassador

PALO ALTO,, Calif. — The announcement of Silicon Valley attorney and Barack Obama fundraiser John V. Roos as U.S. ambassador- designate to Japan has sparked questions about what this appointment means for the U.S.-Japan relationship. Is the choice of a Washington outsider with no obvious Japan experience...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 9, 2009

Easter answers; credit crunch

The letter published in April about Easter in Japan — or rather the lack of it — provoked quite a response. The general consensus appears to be that Easter is too hard to pin down on the calendar for commercialization. Here are a couple of responses:
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2009

Dodging a CO2 hangover

Officials from Japan and other parts of the world are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until June 12 for more negotiations on a new set of global arrangements to prevent runaway climate change. The deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, is supposed to be clinched at a climate summit convened...
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2009

Men turn to 'bento' as pocket change grows scarcer

Japanese men are bringing lunch to work as the deepest postwar recession shrinks their paychecks and pocket money.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 5, 2009

The future begins here for Pine in 'Star Trek'

The new "Star Trek" movie, with its tagline "The Future Begins," may indeed begin a new phase in the careers of two of its stars, Winona Ryder and Chris Pine.
Reader Mail
Jun 4, 2009

Attendance not used for grading

Regarding the May 30 article "University to use iPhones on truants": College students in Japan cannot be "truant" because college is not part of compulsory education. This is also the case for high school. Furthermore, the institution in question, Aoyama Gakuin University, is private, making the term...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 3, 2009

Creative Commons fights for new copyright

On April 17, the district court of Stockholm issued its verdict in the copyright infringement case of the torrent tracking Web site The Pirate Bay, whose managers and another associate were accused of facilitating the illegal downloading of music, movie and video-game files. The four defendants were...
COMMENTARY
Jun 2, 2009

To Obama and others of his ilk: Quit now!

MIAMI — We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2009

The impossible idealist of Seoul

HONOLULU — The death of Roh Moo Hyun, the 16th president of the Republic of Korea (2003-2008), is a huge shock to South Korea's political world. A human rights lawyer with no college degree, Roh campaigned to revolutionize Korean politics and society by promoting clean politics, fighting corruption...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 2, 2009

Something to sing about?

Last year, I attended my daughter's elementary school graduation and the opening ceremony of her new middle school. Sitting through the rituals gave rise to a number of musings.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 1, 2009

Hillman relied on intensity, goofball antics during time with Fighters

Last in a two-part excerpt of updated "You Gotta Have Wa"
EDITORIALS
May 31, 2009

Cleaning up Kanji testing

Kyoto public prosecutors have arrested Mr. Noboru Okubo and his eldest son Hiroshi, the respective former chief and deputy chief director of the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, on suspicion of causing a loss of ¥260 million to a public-interest corporation through shady deals with companies...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 31, 2009

Japan's wartime sentiment toward China

NEW YORK — What were the Japanese saying when their country plunged into a war in 1937 that would last eight years and end in utter defeat?
COMMENTARY
May 31, 2009

Why isolate a global pariah even further?

LOS ANGELES — On the question of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, better known as (a) North Korea, (b) notorious charter member of former U.S. President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" and (c) pain-in-the-neck threat to world peace and stability, here are a few humble observations in light...
Reader Mail
May 31, 2009

Obama riding up the wrong track

The May 16 Kyodo article "U.S. wants to study Shinkansen technology" was another perfect example of the bread-and- circus pledges being fed to the American public by the new administration in Washington. This time officials are waving the image of bright new, high-speed rail lines spanning the continent....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 31, 2009

Don't blame me, but I did do my bit

Born a son of a Japanese trading- company executive, and exclusively educated in Britain, Tetsuya Ishikawa got his first taste of life in the financial industry in the summer of 1998. That was during his pre-university "gap year," when he worked on the foreign-exchange trading floor at the Tokyo branch...
JAPAN
May 30, 2009

Aso's plan to split health ministry in trouble

Prime Minister Taro Aso's plan to split the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry in two has apparently failed amid protests from members of his Liberal Democratic Party, drawing his leadership ability into question once again.
Japan Times
CULTURE
May 29, 2009

Looking for love, and an English teacher

Actress Kazue Fukiishi looked perplexed when I asked if she could see herself ever marrying a foreigner.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 29, 2009

Dissecting the cave on canvas

One of the greatest mysteries of art is what exactly the flat two-dimensional surface of the canvas is, and what it is for. The mundane answer, of course, is that it's a convenient rectangular surface on which to place and display aesthetically pleasing colors and lines. But this does not really explain...

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