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EDITORIALS
Nov 17, 2012

Meeting Chinese aspirations

The Chinese Communist Party on Thursday selected China's new leadership headed by Mr. Xi Jinping. He will lead not only the party as general secretary of the party's Central Committee but also the military as chairman of the party's Central Military Commission. He is expected to be elected China's president,...
Reader Mail
Nov 15, 2012

Outsiders' plans for Okinawa

Regarding the Nov. 9 Kyodo article "U.S. wanted to turn all of Okinawa Island into base site in 1945-46: documents": The Okinawan people have been consistently lied to by the Tokyo government and the U.S. military.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 14, 2012

Theme parks make a comeback thanks to grandma and grandpa

Theme parks and amusement parks are suddenly benefiting from a demographic perfect storm.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 14, 2012

Consumers batten down their wallets

Consumers are closing their wallets as the economy's outlook darkens, making it harder for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to stave off the nation's third recession in four years.
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2012

Ozawa acquittal is upheld in appeal

Former Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa did not conspire with former aides to falsify financial statements in his political funding management body Rikuzankai in 2004 and 2005, the Tokyo High Court ruled Monday, upholding his not-guilty verdict.
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...
Reader Mail
Nov 8, 2012

Violence in the name of faith

Regarding Greg Blossom's Oct. 18 letter, "Christianity not without violence": The barely disguised contempt that Blossom displays toward people of faith, and toward Christians in particular, in his "critique" of Jennifer Kim's Oct. 7 letter ("Tolerance for hurt feelings") suggests the sort of intolerance...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 8, 2012

No problems with Nisennenmondai's contradictions

There's a basic disconnect at the heart of Tokyo's Nisennenmondai. A series of small contradictions run through nearly all aspects of what the instrumental trio does, but they add up to make it one of the most intriguing bands to come out of Japan's underground and experimental-rock scene in the past...
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2012

Antinuclear activists denied use of park

A protest march planned for this Sunday in Tokyo to call for the abolishment of nuclear power has been canceled due to the metropolitan government's rejection for the organizer to use Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward as a meeting point.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Nov 6, 2012

If bully Ishihara wants one last stand, bring it on

On Oct. 25, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced his resignation from office. He now plans to stand for election to the Diet as head of a new conservative party. He suggested political alliances with other conservative reactionaries and xenophobes, including Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto and Tachiagare...
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.
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 Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Nov 4, 2012

Breaking new ground with our Tohoku school in the woods

On Oct. 6, 2012, I took part in a Ji-chin-sai (Shinto ground-breaking ceremony) in the Nobiru area of Higashi Matsushima City in Miyagi Prefecture. Standing with me before an altar constructed in a wooded part of the Omokura Valley was Takahashi Yuugo, a volunteer who had been cutting trees and making...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 3, 2012

Free magazines zoom in on all things Japanese

While English-language magazines in Japan are fast becoming a species in danger of extinction, Europe is experiencing a renewed interest in this country thanks to a veteran French journalist who since 2010 has been publishing Zoom Japon (and its English version, Zoom Japan), a free monthly magazine about...
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.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 3, 2012

Time stands still on Amami Oshima

We had already been on Amami Oshima for a week waiting for Typhoon No. 21 to pass. But the typhoon was meandering around the Pacific like a drunken sailor, zigzagging a path north-west, once making a U-turn then righting itself, and another time its path taking a complete pirouette.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2012

'3/11 made Japanese treasure the simple and normal things in life'

The notion of a crowd-funded film — whose production is financed by money solicited from potential fans online — has begun to gain a bit of traction, but when it comes to crowd-sourced films, Ridley Scott and his production company Scott Free seem to be one step ahead of everyone else. Their 2011...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 30, 2012

Behind the no-nuclear option

The triple-meltdown crisis that began last year at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant jarred the public out of its complacent attitude toward nuclear power and every other assurance made by the government and Japan Inc.
BUSINESS
Oct 30, 2012

Firm's new HR placement goals focus on internationally minded recruits

Major human resources placement company Robert Walters Japan is strengthening its support for Japanese companies that want to hire people suited to international business, its president said in a recent symposium in Tokyo.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Oct 30, 2012

Science tells us that dolphins are something special

Dear people of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture,
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 29, 2012

Evidence of the Showa Emperor's deep regret

Checking the galley of the endnotes to "Persona," my biography of Yukio Mishima with Naoki Inose, I decided to augment a note on Japan's monarchical system. The tenno institution had a singular meaning for Mishima, and I set aside substantial space in the book for the subject.
Reader Mail
Oct 28, 2012

More views on gun control

Regarding the Oct. 22 article "Hattori's mom appeals for wider U.S. gun control effort," as a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association and a certified pistol and personal protection instructor, I would like to comment on this matter.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 28, 2012

You can't choose your (invisible) neighbors

Some animals are solitary. Others live in flocks or herds. Human beings are somewhere in between. Our sociability and our economic needs force us into communities, where our misanthropy, meanness and selfishness — or maybe it's an instinctive craving for solitude — can make our neighbors' presence...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 23, 2012

Samurai-armor restorers Chizuru and Fumio Nishioka

Chizuru, 58, and Fumio Nishioka, 59, are samurai-armor restorers. Among the handful of such specialists in Japan, they are the only ones who use the same techniques as artisans historically did in the past. Whether 900 or 150 years old, a samurai's armor reveals its history through its layers of skilled...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past