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Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 21, 2009

Comedy with a sting in its tales

As a reporter, I don't particularly enjoy being swamped with breaking news to cover. That's when the pressure really becomes intense to get all the quotes and check all the facts in as short a time as possible.
BUSINESS
May 21, 2009

Fuji Heavy may launch hybrid vehicle by '12

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. may introduce a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle by 2012, as the United States, Japan and Europe tighten their emission rules.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2009

Eisler: international author of mystery

Start with an image. A man walking down a street in Tokyo. Steep, like San Francisco. Maybe Daikanyama. As the man walks toward Shibuya, two men follow in the shadows.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 19, 2009

A rip and a burp and the land is ours

It's that time of year when Japan's media are meticulously monitoring the iconic cherry-blossom front as it passes up through the archipelago in a wave of warming temperatures and bursting buds.
COMMENTARY
Mar 22, 2009

Legacy of a 'disappeared' family in Argentina

Politics can have a devastating effect on a country and its people, as I discovered during a recent trip to Argentina.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2009

Key actor tells of plot to kill Hitler

Until almost the end of 2008, British actor Bill Nighy was one of those faces you couldn't put a name to.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2009

Key actor tells of plot to kill Hitler

Until almost the end of 2008, British actor Bill Nighy was one of those faces you couldn't put a name to.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Mar 15, 2009

45s at 60 just keep groovin' on their 7-inch way

It was 60 years ago this month when a country crooner from the South released the first-ever single to spin at 45 rpm.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 27, 2009

Ivan Ramen, ready in an instant

The success of Ivan Ramen, a noodle shop founded in 2007 by U.S.-born chef Ivan Orkin, has been well documented in the press over the past year. Indeed, it is not unusual for the 10-seat restaurant in Minami Karasuyama, Setagaya Ward, to have dozens of people waiting outside its doors to try the handmade...
BUSINESS
Feb 27, 2009

Deterioration outpacing predictions

Bank of Japan Policy Board member Tadao Noda said the economy is deteriorating more than the central bank forecast last month as the global recession triggers unprecedented drops in exports and output.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 8, 2009

Revealing artistic shades of pink in Japanese cinema

Porno gets little respect as a film genre in the West, with its makers relegated to a ghetto that few escape. How many A-list directors in Hollywood, past or present, started by making even the milder sort of sex stuff seen on cable?
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2009

Toyota loss to balloon to ¥400 billion

NAGOYA (Kyodo) Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to again revise sharply downward its business 2008 group operating loss projection due to slumping sales, sources said Friday.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 4, 2009

A collection from Tokyo's nests of creativity

More "like a machine than a city" is how Paul Theroux recently characterized Tokyo, a city many of us see as a breeding tank for creativity. True, the more subtle voices of the megalopolis are often drowned out in the din, but this is where artists can help, by adding warmth, depth and texture. Among...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 25, 2008

Dueling with a rare Japanese superhero

Japanese pop culture, by and large, doesn't do human superheroes. Super-powered robots (Atom Boy, aka Tetsuwan Atom), monsters (Godzilla) and aliens (Ultraman) exist in abundance, but it's harder to find the local equivalents to Spider-Man or Batman, especially on the big screen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2008

No joking — 007's in Japan

"Quantum Of Solace," the 22nd film in the 007 series, opened in the U.K. before Halloween, and in the rest of the civilized world a week later. While even Kuwait and Ecuador have seen "Quantum" in their cinemas already, Japan won't get to see the tuxedoed secret agent until Jan. 24. (Presumably Sony,...
BUSINESS
Nov 28, 2008

Nipponkoa ups target in response to Southeastern

Nipponkoa Insurance Co., the nation's fourth-largest casualty insurer, has raised its profit target and vowed to cut costs and increase sales in response to pressure from its biggest shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management Inc.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 16, 2008

The billionaire bad boys' club

Takafumi Horie, the former CEO of Internet company Livedoor whose trial for insider trading continues in the courts, recently made his first TV appearance in three years on TBS's new talk show "Terebitte Yatsu wa?" ("What the Hell is TV?").
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 13, 2008

Yes we can . . . what, Mr. Obama?

KYOTO — America appears to have been swept up in a feel-good moment. But as much as U.S. President-elect Barack Obama appeals to me as a public speaker and wordsmith, as much as I appreciate his candid, inclusive style as an antidote to everything redolent of President George W. Bush, as thrilled as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2008

War as wisdom and gore

A prominent example of how modern technology altered the world is seen in the way men wage war. In John Woo's battle extravaganza "Red Cliff," set in China in 208, armies fight with spears and shields and bare hands; they traverse deserts and treacherous mountain paths on foot and subsist on little more...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 5, 2008

Cardiff band get Los in translation

Los Campesinos!, a pop septet from Cardiff, Wales, were an inspired choice to open the Marine Stadium stage at Summer Sonic Tokyo last month. Each tune kicks off with a catchy riff and proceeds to burn rocket fuel as lead vocalist Gareth twitches and yelps — nothing the band plays is slow, or even...
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2008

Toyota posts bleak results for quarter

Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday it posted a 28.1 percent drop in group net profit for the April-June quarter as sales in North America, the biggest market for many Japanese carmakers, were hit hard by the U.S. economic slide.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 10, 2008

G8 couldn't push emitters to set targets

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — The three-day Group of Eight summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, concluded Wednesday as the major industrialized powers and key emerging economies agreed to jointly fight global warming but failed to set any quantitative goals to substantiate their pledge.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2008

A first lady's diplomatic mission

A natural calamity is usually an occasion to set aside political differences and show compassion. But Burma, ruled by ultranationalistic but rapacious military elites distrustful of the sanctions-enforcing West, came under mounting international pressure to open up its cyclone-wracked areas to foreign...
COMMENTARY
Apr 28, 2008

A little too much help for Israel

You have to admire the macho instincts of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Asked on the day of the Pennsylvania primary what she would do if Iran made a nuclear attack on Israel, she replied: "If I'm the president, we will attack Iran . . . we would be able to totally obliterate them." And it's perfectly...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 8, 2008

"Yasukuni" director Li on his tough-love letter to Japan

"Yasukuni" director Li Ying shares his thoughts with John Junkerman and David McNeill on the contentious Tokyo shrine, the motivation behind the movie, and his reaction to the furor in Japan over the documentary's release.
COMMENTARY
Apr 6, 2008

Suppose Texas was like Iraq

LONDON — Suppose the shoe were on the other foot. Suppose that the former United States had splintered into half a dozen fragments after the South won the Civil War 145 years ago.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?