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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 20, 2012

Tackling the nihongo mountain, by strategy: from base camp to the plateau and beyond

For foreigners who arrive in Japan with little knowledge or preparation, the first encounter with the local lingo can be brutal. In the past, for instance, newcomers would have taken the train from Narita airport to Tokyo or Shinjuku station and promptly run up against a solid wall of indecipherable...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 20, 2012

Subaru's lack of China plant pays off

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. President Yasuyuki Yoshinaga has become a market darling for something he failed to do: build a factory in China.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Nov 18, 2012

Story behind drug scandal that rocked bj-league to core

Nearly six months after being released from Osaka Prefectural Police custody, Dana Washington, wife of bj-league legend and former Osaka Evessa star Lynn Washington, decided it was time to tell her side of the story.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 18, 2012

The little 'black bird' is a hit, from Liverpool all the way to Asia

It is 50 years this year since the best-selling band in history, The Beatles, released their first single, "Love Me Do." They were set to catapult Britain into the Swinging '60s and launch a global musical phenomenon.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Nov 17, 2012

LDP-DPJ grudge match may see unity after poll

Friday's dissolution of the Lower House sets the stage for a no-holds-barred grudge match between the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party, while emerging "third-force" political groups are seen struggling to raise public awareness enough to change the current two-party system....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 17, 2012

Ink artist pushes the boundaries of tattooing

The skin as canvas, inks and needles replacing the palette: tattoos by Khan transcend mere decorations. Whether he is depicting eye crinkles in a portrait of the Dalai Lama or the leer of a supernatural ghoul, his rich color and technical realism redefines the boundaries of art and pop culture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 16, 2012

Disaster looms large for artist 'genius' Makoto Aida

What to make of Makoto Aida? One day, he's filling a giant blender with thousands of naked young girls and whirring them into a bloody concoction. The next he's piling up dead salarymen into a great mountain — nay, several great mountains, which recede majestically into the foggy distance.
Reader Mail
Nov 15, 2012

Multi-ethnic community here?

Michael Hoffman's Oct. 21 article, "Only immigrants can save Japan," quotes the founder and current executive director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, Hidenori Sakanaka, as saying that Japan "needs immigrants" and that a "new Japanese civilization will realize a multi-ethnic community."
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Nov 13, 2012

Designer Cynthia Rowley hits the double digits

New York-based designer Cynthia Rowley celebrated her brand's 10th year in Japan with a special talk show and cocktail dinner for VIP guests during Tokyo Fashion Week. The Barrington, Illinois, native's name has long been on the lips of American sportswear fans with her bright and feminine takes on casual-to-cocktail-style...
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2012

Hashimoto stuns 'addled' nuke foes

Hiroshima municipal officials and the Japan Congress Against A and H Bombs (Gensuikin) were mum Monday over Saturday's comment by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto calling for a reality check on the nation's three nonnuclear principles.
BUSINESS
Nov 13, 2012

Investment in China off as feud drags on

After anti-Japan protesters in China smashed cars and torched dealerships, Koito Manufacturing Co. suspended a plan to triple its production in the country.
Reader Mail
Nov 11, 2012

Primary goal of any language

Regarding Shihoko Goto's Nov. 7 article, "Japan as a role model for civility": It would be wise to bear in mind a distinction between volitional "civility", and the Japan-centric tradition as a compliance culture with a hive mentality. This is worth mentioning because transitory societal behaviors can...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Nov 11, 2012

WBC squad may be hurting for top-line pitching

Japan manager Koji Yamamoto said his World Baseball Classic team would mirror previous Japan squads and be built around pitching and defense.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 10, 2012

Pregnancy crisis center lends guidance, support

Demographic statistics released by the health and welfare ministry continue to paint a bleak future for Japan, whose population is forecast to decline steadily in coming decades unless measures are taken to reverse the birthrate decline. The number of babies born in 2011 was the lowest on record since...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 9, 2012

Jazzing up the industrial city

On one side you have Montreux, a Swiss resort town on the banks of Lake Geneva that has seen many famous residents over the years, and which has been immortalized in the lyrics of the Deep Purple song "Smoke On The Water." On the other you have a Japanese city in the heart of the world's most heavily...
Reader Mail
Nov 8, 2012

Retreating from the car boom

The Oct. 29 front-page article "Declining Japan loses once-hopeful champions" must be seen partially as U.S.-style debunking of the Democratic Party of Japan for being less servile to the United States than the Liberal Democratic Party had been when it was in power.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 8, 2012

China's Hokkaido forest grab all about water

Morihiro Oguma's phone rang every day with calls from brokers representing foreign investors who wanted to buy his Japan Mineral water bottling business.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2012

Beijing's Senkaku goal: Sub 'safe haven' in South China Sea

What's at stake in the smoldering diplomatic crisis with China over the uninhabited Senkaku Islands, which only seem to attract fishing boats and ultranationalists?
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 6, 2012

Startup: Add risk, cash, entrepreneur

Softbank Corp. CEO Masayoshi Son took the world by surprise last month by announcing a $20 billion buyout of U.S.-based Sprint Nextel Corp. In 1980, his startup firm was a two-man computer wholesaler. Now through vigorous mergers and acquisitions it's angling to be the world's third-largest telecommunications...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Nov 6, 2012

Revisionists, the Senkakus and Debito: readers' views

Some readers' letters in response to Debito Arudou's Oct. 2 Just Be Cause column, "Revisionists marching Japan back to a dangerous place":
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Nov 6, 2012

Saké Puppets

When Minnesota-native Angela Salisbury moved to Tokyo, she ditched the guidebooks and explored the city by crafting.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 5, 2012

Excess supply, not lack of demand, weighing on the global economy

The demand and supply balance is adjusted through price fluctuations under a market economy. However, price changes often go too far, occasionally leading to creation of a bubble boom and its subsequent collapse. When Japan's bubble boom went bust in the early 1990s, Japanese companies were burdened...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 4, 2012

Ishihara resignation a gift for the media

When Shintaro Ishihara announced on Oct. 25 that he was resigning as governor of Tokyo so that he could form a new political party before the next general election, some of the dailies printed gōgai (extra editions) to report it, thus indicating it was really big news that everybody needed to know about...
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Nov 4, 2012

Angry mobster looms large over politicians

In Japan these days, the political world seems to be mirroring "Beat" Takeshi Kitano's latest yakuza film, "Outrage Beyond," which depicts Japan's ruling party as being well and truly in bed with the mob.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 3, 2012

In the valley of the uncanny

I am at this bar, see, and with me are two friends.

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’