Search - murakami

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 6, 2007

French luxury lobby captain mulls Japan's brand fixation

Japan is famous for its fondness of luxury brands, particularly those from France. In fact, when the money spent shopping on vacation is included, Japanese consumers may buy as much as 45 percent of all luxury goods sold worldwide, analysts at the HSBC Group in Paris recently estimated.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 4, 2007

Thoughts behind the picture book

Ehon: The Artist And the Book in Japan, by Roger S. Keyes, foreword by Paul LeClerc. The New York Public Library in association with the University of Washington Press, 2006, 320 pp., 250 color illustrations, $50 (cloth) "Ehon" means "picture book," that is, a volume comprising pictures along with some...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2007

Tokyo's dark side

Welshman John Williams first came to Japan in 1988, intending to stay two years, write a script and return to Britain to make a movie. He ended up making eight shorts, a documentary and finally a feature film -- the drama "Firefly Dreams" -- all in Japan and with Japanese casts and crews. Released in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2007

'Starfish Hotel'

Many foreigners, from visitors to longtime expats, have made films in Japan, but nearly all of them have ended up distinctly non-Japanese. That's not to say they were bad: Josef von Sternberg's erotic fable "Anatahan" (1953) was unlike anything Japan's film industry was making at the time, but it still...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 14, 2006

Plentitudes to show

'The thing that has been consistently with me is the notion of creating something today that didn't exist yesterday; to make things for me is a kind of curiosity," says the prolific 55-year-old artist Shinro Ohtake.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 12, 2006

Cameron Diaz presses all the right buttons for SoftBank

For some insight into the ruckus that SoftBank kicked up when it relaunched its mobile phone service with a zero-yen-per-call plan, check out its new ads and compare them with the competition's. NTT DoCoMo's ads showcase no less than seven famous personalities (eight if you count female comedy duo Othello...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Nov 10, 2006

Gucci hits Ginza

Gucci's new home in Tokyo is the first store built specifically to house the Italian superbrand. Last week, Gucci opened the doors of an eight-story glass-and-steel flagship store in Ginza.
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Oct 30, 2006

Will private equity boom in Japan? It did in Europe

After booming in the United States and Europe, private equity finally seems to have set its sights on Japan. Two of the world's top three private equity firms -- Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group -- have each opened offices in Japan or expanded their existing Japan operations over...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 8, 2006

Beware a 'beauty' that would deceive the nation

'Japan lost the war, and Bushido [the samurai spirit] perished. But then the human being was born for the first time in the womb of truth called decadence."
BUSINESS
Sep 5, 2006

Panel calls on BOJ to ban staff from most trading

An advisory panel to the Bank of Japan on Monday released a set of recommendations that would bar BOJ employees involved in making monetary policy from most types of financial trading, central bank officials said.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 9, 2006

Eying wars in the deep

It was the night of Oct. 6, 1941, in the Straits of Gubal in the southern Red Sea. Like most of the crew of the hybrid steam-sail ship SS Thistlegorm, moored in the safe haven in Egyptian waters off the shallow reef, merchant seaman John McKai was sleeping on the deck. There was no air conditioning,...
MORE SPORTS
Aug 7, 2006

Miyamoto, Nishii claim titles

Kotaro Miyamoto outperformed the competition in the men's platform dive event to win his first title at the diving national championships on Sunday. Miyamoto scored 393.35 points for first place while Gunma prefectural high school student Kazuki Murakami placed second with 363.85 at Tokyo Tatsumi International...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 7, 2006

From Poland to Japan: a contrasting tale of two central bankers

Two central bankers have been catching intense media attention over the past couple of months. One is Bank of Japan Gov. Toshihiko Fukui. He is in a bit of a dog house for his investments in the now notorious Murakami Fund, as well as for some of the other ways he has been moving his money about.
EDITORIALS
Jul 19, 2006

Hope of the marketplace

The Bank of Japan's lifting of its zero-interest rate policy last week represents an end to an extraordinary policy that continued for five years and four months. With its decision, which marks a step toward normalization of the nation's monetary policy, the central bank has signaled that the Japanese...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 15, 2006

BOJ terminates zero-rate policy

The Bank of Japan ended nearly six years of rock-bottom interest rates Friday, abandoning its "zero-interest-rate policy" and hiking the unsecured overnight call rate to 0.25 percent on the strength of Japan's steadily improving economy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jul 4, 2006

What's your favorite holiday read?

Geoffrey Rothwell Professor, 52 I love Japanese literature. Read "The Wild Sheep Chase" by Murakami. It's a combination of reality and fantasy that gets you out of the everyday reality of life. There are talking cats, sheep and magic and much more.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 26, 2006

Laws, morals and the delay of the financial products trade law

A mid the public uproar over insider trading prompted by the arrest of investment fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami, the Diet quickly enacted a new law to regulate transactions involving financial products on June 7. The legislation combines the previous Securities and Exchange and other laws in an attempt...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 24, 2006

Geta fliers and Bo(y) Derek on a jet ski

The Moooo! Bar season has started on Shiraishi Island and I have to admit that I am a little disappointed. Now into our third season, not one cow has come to the Moooo! Bar, even though I advertise that cows drink for free.
BUSINESS
Jun 14, 2006

U.S. rate fears pound Nikkei

The benchmark Nikkei stock index plummeted more than 600 points Tuesday as investors were spooked by the likelihood of further U.S. interest rate hikes and an admission by Bank of Japan Gov. Toshihiko Fukui that he has 10 million yen in an investment fund linked to insider trading.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 9, 2006

Eye looks to tranquillity after his contrived chaos

"I don't really think I have any musicianship. I can't play any instruments. I have no technique. I really can't do anything. I have no professional skill at all. I'm also a crap DJ. I'm really not very deft! Really I'm crap . . . and I've been doing it for 10 years!" says Yamataka Eye, leader of the...
BUSINESS
May 2, 2006

S&P puts Hankyu on its watch list

Credit rating firm Standard & Poor's said Monday it has put Hankyu Holdings Inc. on its watch list because the railway operator's planned merger with rival Hanshin Electric Railway Co. might prove too costly.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building