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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Oct 7, 2022

Yoshio Osakabe: ‘There are probably a lot of old fans who actually don't want Murakami to win the Nobel’

Coined 'Harukisuto,' or 'Haruki-ists,' for their passionate devotion to Haruki Murakami, one fan talks about the joy he gets from the work of one of Japan's most-treasured authors.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 15, 2022

Salman Rushdie off ventilator and 'road to recovery has begun'

Rushdie was set to deliver a lecture on the United States' role as a haven for targeted artists when a man rushed the stage and stabbed him.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 19, 2022

How the Jewish community found a home in Japan

A bestseller from 1970 compares and contrasts two peoples more different than alike, and yet both sharing a sense of uniqueness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 16, 2020

The suspended traveler’s reading list

Travel writing can change your life, or at least nudge it in a different direction. In these troubled times, it can also console and inspire.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 8, 2019

'Dr. Hoffmann's Sanatorium': Delving deep into the weird world of Kafka

Playwright Kazumi Kobayashi, better known as Keralino Sandorovich, unveils his latest play, in which a fictional discovery of a lost Franz Kafka novel is made
JAPAN / History / Defining the Heisei Era
Oct 27, 2018

Defining the Heisei Era: When anime and manga went global

The Heisei Era commenced after two gods fell in rapid succession. The first, Emperor Hirohito, was no longer officially a god, having repudiated his quasi-divine status under the terms of Japan's surrender in World War II, but he remained god-like in stature. His January death in 1989 at age 87 signaled...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets
Jul 1, 2018

Is bitcoin creator writing a book? Cryptic note indicates yes

Is the unknown creator of bitcoin writing a book about it?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2016

Board examines the future direction of news coverage

Identity of The Japan Times
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2016

Bob Dylan and the wind of literary idiocy

The 'Bard of Hibbing' is a poetico-musical revolution in one man and one body of work. It is this tour de force that the Nobel committee has recognized in its selection.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 20, 2016

The ink-stained road: 'age of experience'

In the new age of experience that defines the travel accounts on Japan from the immediate pre- and postwar periods, writers began resisting the easy enamor of the Orient. Instead of viewing Japan as an exotic wonderland, they took a more considered, critical view of what they encountered.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2015

'Base Nation' reveals the destructive tentacles of U.S. hegemony

People are often only aware of what is in their own backyard: the intrusiveness of a radar tower here, an ammunition dump there. David Vine's new book, "Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World," succeeds in shaking us out of our provincialism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
May 9, 2014

Manga becomes a major draw at Toronto Comic Arts Festival

The 11th annual Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) kicks off May 10. As its title suggests, it's less a fan-focused pop convention than a platform for comics and graphic novels as art, and for the artists who create them. It has also emerged as a great friend to manga over the past few years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2013

An economist's guide to romance

THE ROMANTIC ECONOMIST, by William Nicolson. Short Books, 2013, 304 pp., £12 (hardcover)
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 28, 2013

Feminists split over first lady

In the opening moments of her second turn at history, as Michelle Obama waved at celebrants along Pennsylvania Avenue, Americans clamored to see the first lady, who remains one of the most popular public figures in the country. In the most recent poll, 73 percent said they approve of the way she is handling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 24, 2013

'Pi' among 'unfilmable' books conquered at last on the screen

There are certain novels they say just can't be filmed, but guess what? Most of them have been. "Dune"? "Naked Lunch"? "The Virgin Suicides"? "The 120 Days of Sodom"? "Ulysses"? All done — "Ulysses" twice, even.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 3, 2012

Strong winds linger from the microaggressions tempest

Readers' responses to Debito Arudou's May 1 Just Be Cause column, "Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday 'microaggressions' that grind us down," his followup June 5 JBC column, "Guestists, Haters, the Vested: Apologists take many forms," and Colin P.A. Jones' counterarticle, "Much ado, but microimportant"...
LIFE
Aug 22, 2010

Uneasy neighbors across the sea

August 22 is the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Annexation between Japan and Korea that came into effect on Aug. 29, 1910 — commemorated now in North and South Korea as a day of shame.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 20, 2010

Tales of Ueda Akinari and his contemporaries

With the advent of postmodernism in Japan from the 1980s, which fostered eclecticism and diverse stylistic practices, interest in the earlier Edo Period (1603-1868) was revived and it subsequently was embraced as a kindred spirit.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 21, 2010

Truly unique version of the foreigner's tale

Like a Yemenese bride-to-be who first sees the countenance of her fiance in a photo presented by relatives, Rebecca Otowa experienced a presentiment of her future in a black-and-white image of a building, a 350-year-old farmhouse in rural Japan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 27, 2009

Inner life of a giant revealed

REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS DOOR: Memory and Melancholy in the Personal Writings of Natsume Soseki, by Marvin Marcus. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 2009, 268 pp., $49 (hardcover) Author of a well-received study of the biographical writings of Mori Ogai ("Paragons of the Ordinary," 1993), Marvin Marcus...
EDITORIALS
May 5, 2008

Raise journalistic ethics

In November 2007, a Kyoto psychiatrist was prosecuted for leaking investigative materials to a journalist concerning a 17-year-old boy who was tried in family court in connection with a fire that killed his stepmother and two siblings. But the freelance journalist, who published a book using the leaked...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 11, 2007

Trapped between borders

Frontier Mosaic: Voices of Burma from the Lands In Between, by Richard Humphries. Orchid Press, 2007, 180 pp., $29.95 (paper) "A man on a motorbike comes by and we then follow him through the streets of Mae Sot." So begins one of the narrative vignettes from "Frontier Mosaic." Based on extensive travel...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 12, 2007

Japan's Paradise Lived

It's a strange world we're about to enter.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 16, 2006

An ambassador of enlightenment

When I was a teenager living in New York some 20 years ago, I bought a tiny introduction to Zen Buddhism from a bookstore in midtown Manhattan. A $1 clearance-sale copy, it was so small that I could slip it into my back pocket.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 20, 2006

The unique voice of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

RASHOMON AND SEVENTEEN OTHER STORIES, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin, introduction by Haruki Murakami. London: Penguin Classics, 2006, 268 pp., £9.99 (paper). In what is still the finest assessment of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's life and work, Howard Hibbett complained that for most, the...
After last year’s controversy over using AI to write about 5% of her novel, Rie Qudan was asked by an advertising magazine to write a short story where she uses AI for 95% of it. The resulting short story, “Kage no ame” (“Rain Shadow”), was published March 25.  
CULTURE / Books
May 24, 2025

AI fiction is already here. Are humans ready?

Last year, Rie Qudan faced controversy after admitting that chatGPT wrote 5% of her novel. Now she’s published a story she only wrote 5% herself, leaving 95% to AI.
A firefighter works during the Eaton Fire in Pasadena, California, on Jan. 8.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 19, 2025

Warning signs on climate flashing bright red: top scientists

Greenhouse gas emissions hit a new high in 2024 and averaged a record 53.6 billion metric tons per year of CO2, they reported in a peer-reviewed update.

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