Search - long form

 
 
BUSINESS
Jan 15, 2010

A JAL-Delta tieup draws flak

As the world's two largest carriers vie to form a strategic tieup with crippled Japan Airlines Corp., opinions are split over whether a JAL alliance with Delta Air Lines, the biggest, would create unfair competition and sting consumers.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Dec 25, 2009

Legendary, dirty samurai gets makeover

Singer and actor Masaharu Fukuyama hit the nail on the head when he said that Sakamoto Ryoma is the kind of person onto whom anyone can project themselves.
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2009

No such thing as classless

According to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the taxation policies of the Tory (Conservative) Party were decided on the playing field of Eton (one of Britain's top private schools). Thus, Gordon Brown, whose Labour government trails in the opinion polls behind the Conservative opposition, seemed from this...
CULTURE / Film
Dec 11, 2009

Let us celebrate the miracle of wondrously difficult movies

The more movies you watch the more you become convinced how they are wondrously difficult things to make. Billy Wilder didn't say that exactly, but he did say something about the job getting harder as he got older, so I figured it out. I'm always awed by the fact that so many incredibly watchable films...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 2009

Inside Thailand's hidden separatist war

LEEDS, England — Thailand's former prime minister, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, recently ignited a furor when he proposed that the separatist campaign in his country's Muslim-majority southern provinces might be solved politically, with a form of self-rule. Thailand's ruling Democrat Party immediately called...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Nov 25, 2009

U.S. online strategy holds clues for Tokyo

Imagine befriending Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Facebook. Or getting "tweets" from Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Twitter. It could happen if Tokyo follows Washington's lead.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 14, 2009

Finding wisdom in fire and earth

Mishima, nestled at the foot of Mount Fuji, is certainly not a center for yakimono (ceramics), one of the most revered arts in Asia. But it is home to Robert Yellin, one of the foremost English-speaking experts on the craft.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 7, 2009

United clash gives Drogba chance to prove player-of-year credentials

LONDON — The prospect of Didier Drogba even being considered as the Footballer of the Year last season would have brought ridicule. The members of the Football Writers' Association have to judge the player who "by precept and example" they believe deserves the award and the Chelsea striker is on course...
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2009

'Comfort women' bill gets new life

The new administration must ensure the Diet passes a bill recognizing the women forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during the war if it is to form the East Asian Community proposed by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, nine ruling party lawmakers said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2009

Ambitious and anxious Asia

Asia aspires to lead the world. That is the chief message from the meetings of Asia-Pacific leaders that convened last weekend in Thailand. The region's rapid emergence from the global economic downturn has confirmed the belief among its leaders that it is time for an Asian community to emerge — a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 16, 2009

Love and light at Hara Museum

In 1979, when he founded the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in his grandfather's former residence in Tokyo's Shinagawa district, Toshio Hara was driven by the vision of creating one of Japan's first institutions dedicated to living artists. At the time there were precious few other venues for contemporary...
SOCCER / J. League
Sep 8, 2009

Captain Suzuki finds peace at eye of Urawa's storm

SAITAMA — Less than two years ago, it was almost impossible to imagine a national team without Keita Suzuki.
JAPAN / PARTY POWERS
Aug 1, 2009

Hatoyama disses LDP but is otherwise vague

With the pivotal Aug. 30 election looming, Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama said Friday the upcoming Lower House battle will offer the public an opportunity to hand down its judgment on the past four years of Liberal Democratic Party rule.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 26, 2009

The quirky terrain of an otaku mind

"Otaku" is one of those Japanese words that has no precise equivalent in English. "Geek" translates the knowledgeability as well as the social ineptness of the stereotypical otaku, but not quite his (and, more rarely, her) intense interest in what so-called serious adults regard as trivial pursuits:...
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Jul 23, 2009

Forward thinking can ease Stojkovic's second-season blues

Dragan Stojkovic worked miracles leading Nagoya Grampus into the Asian Champions League in his first season as a manager, but he is now learning that achieving success and keeping hold of it are two very different things.
EDITORIALS
Jun 21, 2009

In Japan we trust

In a poll commissioned by the Foreign Ministry, a record 80 percent of the American public said Japan was a dependable country. The results of this poll, undertaken by the famed Gallup Organization and released in late May, showed a considerable shift in attitudes toward Japan.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
May 26, 2009

The dawning of a new era for sumo?

In statistics alone, Asashoryu Akinori may go down as one of the greatest yokozuna of sumo in the modern era, but at the close of the Summer 2009 Grand Sumo Tournament, much of the talk was about when he would retire.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 20, 2009

Okinawan flavors of entertainment

Manabu Oshiro, the chief of the Research and Training Section of the National Theater, Okinawa since 2006, attributes the creation of kumiodori, a form of drama unique to Okinawa, to the friendly relationship that the Ryukyu Kingdom maintained with China for over 400 years spanning the 15th to the 19th...
COMMENTARY
Feb 14, 2009

When it's wrong to protect

LONDON — A government's first duty is to protect its citizens. So say all the authorities and experts. It sounds simple, but in practice and in real life it is a very complex and problematic matter.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 23, 2009

Stuck on cellotape

Ryo Sehata is that often- mentioned but seldom- encountered individual, a truly unique artist. His art is so uncommon that his fame has now assumed viral form, spreading through the Internet via blogs, vlogs, Twitters, links, Diggs and other clickable whatchamacallits. The young artist and his unusual...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2009

Collagen — skin-deep in myth?

The craze over skin-smoothing collagen has spread to "nabe" hotchpotch, with restaurants serving up the protein-rich fare — usually in the form of pig's knuckles — getting prominent play on TV and in magazines.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 4, 2009

The beauty of imperfection and much more

"Wabi-sabi," which is two words combined, represents in abbreviated form an elusive concept that is key to the understanding of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Indeed, rather than a single concept, it is a cluster of ideas that permeate artistic practice in Japan, or at least did so in the past. Now,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2009

Is Aso only postponing the inevitable?

The political news that will have the most far-reaching repercussions into the new year is the plummeting approval rating of Prime Minister Taro Aso and his Cabinet, and his delay in dissolving the Lower House of the Diet for a general election.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Dec 14, 2008

Nostalgia drives Japanese classic car scene

In recent years, America has developed a fast-growing interest in Japanese cars from the 1960s and '70s. It used to be that only the most obsessive of auto aficionados were even aware such cars existed, but now they've begun to appear in an increasing number of books, TV shows and magazines. Car shows...
LIFE
Dec 14, 2008

Stone Age Japan

This story spans 10,000 years, yet presents few recognizable individuals. Here's one:
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2008

Sorting out right from wrong when ethics lag

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Sure, it will all be over someday. Sleepy governments have woken up. Economists are starting to figure out the secret dimensions to this financial crisis, and look to be putting together, internationally, the bitter-tasting but probably necessary formula for the Long March out...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 26, 2008

How Japanese mysteries evolved from imitation to adaptation

PURLOINED LETTERS: Cultural Borrowing and Japanese Crime Literature, 1868-1937, by Mark Silver. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008, 217 pp., $52 (cloth) Western-style stories of crime and detection began making their appearance in Japan from the mid-19th century, initially as translations of...
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 26, 2008

Motel of Lost Companions

It was a foolish argument . . . the worst kind of argument too, over food. And not even food exactly, but over salad dressing.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami