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COMMENTARY
Jan 18, 2012

Loyalty alone is not enough

Japanese have been taught over the centuries that loyalty is the supreme virtue. Loyalty to Japan and to the emperor was inculcated into every child in prewar Japan. The emphasis now seems to be on loyalty to the company employing you, loyalty to your section in the company and loyalty to your immediate...
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2011

Economy sees first signs of nasty drop

Kiyohito Okuda is a businessman and an optimist, and so he has found at least one redeeming angle to Japan's slow-motion economic decline: Never has the pain felt too acute to bear.
BASKETBALL
Nov 6, 2011

Road to recovery: Sendai 89ers help healing

March 6, 2011, was a typical Sunday for the Sendai 89ers.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Nov 6, 2011

Kiyoshi Nakabayashi: Ex-Tokyo cop speaks out on a life fighting gangs — and what you can do

Kiyoshi Nakabayashi well remembers how, when he was a high school student in the late 1950s and early '60s, newspapers were full of stories of violent gang wars being fought out openly on the streets of Tokyo.
BUSINESS
Nov 5, 2011

Olympus delays earnings release pending M&A probe

Olympus Corp. said Friday it was postponing the release of second-quarter earnings pending the results of a probe into $1.4 billion in writedowns and fees related to the company's acquisitions.
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2011

Olympus backtracks on Gyrus fee

Olympus Corp. said Wednesday it paid $687 million in advisory fees for its acquisition of Gyrus Group PLC, almost double the ¥30 billion Olympus Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said the day before.
BUSINESS
Oct 18, 2011

JT may raise dividend targets like rivals have

Japan Tobacco Inc., the world's third-biggest publicly traded cigarette maker, may raise its dividend payout target to trim gaps with rivals including Philip Morris International Inc. and British American Tobacco PLC.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Oct 4, 2011

Buying a brand new home: cookie cutter or order made?

We went for the six-pack of beer, which the manufactured-housing company was giving away to the first 10 people who came to inspect its new model homes. Competition is fierce among Japan's many manufactured home builders, and the one we were visiting is No. 10 in terms of units sold per year, though...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 8, 2011

Toshiba to purchase Shaw's stake in Westinghouse for $1.6 billion

Toshiba Corp. will buy Shaw Group Inc.'s 20 percent stake in nuclear-plant designer Westinghouse Electric for about $1.6 billion, increasing its share to 87 percent.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2011

Apple core of capitalism

For a few hours this month Apple, once regarded as a maverick upstart company, became the world's biggest company by stock market capitalization, until Exxon Mobil again seized the title.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 7, 2011

Tadanori Yokoo: An artist by design

In conversation, Tadanori Yokoo jumps nimbly between the past and the present. One moment he's watching the sky glow red as bombs rain down on Kobe during World War II. The next he's riding in a taxi with Yukio Mishima. And then he's back in the present, here at his studio in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, discussing...
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2011

APEC workshop focuses on disaster preparedness

A gathering on disaster preparedness by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members officially kicked off Tuesday, featuring case studies on how businesses overcame the damage inflicted by the March 11 catastrophe that wiped out many of their footholds in the Tohoku region.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / MAKING INROADS
Feb 15, 2011

Acer antes up in Japanese market

Ever since it began seriously competing in Japan a few years ago, Taiwan-based computer maker Acer has been expanding its presence in a market long dominated by domestic brands.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 14, 2010

Mail-order buyer, be aware

In retrospect, I didn't really need a new baseball cap. But this one, advertised by the publisher of a nationally circulated magazine, had a humorous logo in Japanese that tickled my fancy, making it — like much of the merchandise sold via mail order — a novelty item not sold in stores.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 7, 2010

Uniqlo billionaire Yanai goes back to the basics

Tadashi Yanai, Japan's richest man, used advice from management guru Peter Drucker to build his Uniqlo clothing empire. To pull out of a slump that's hammered profits and shares, the billionaire is revisiting the lessons.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 22, 2010

Tokyo Game Show exhibits signs of mobile-game trend

Major video-game makers wowed game fans at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) on the weekend with products such as Sony's 3-D games, Microsoft's controller-free motion-sensor system Kinect and Capcom's super popular "Monster Hunter" series.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 22, 2010

Rakuten's English- only policy endures close media scrutiny

Learn to speak English, or else!
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2010

Foreign talent feeling gypped by top agency

Inagawa Motoko Office, one of the largest and oldest show business agencies catering to foreign performers in Japan, recently came under fire from some of its registered artists for not paying them in a timely manner for work they have done.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 18, 2010

Lack of funds fail to stop Tokyo's young theater brigade

As a promising playwright, director and actor, 31-year-old Junichi Hirota highlights a cruel fact running through Japan's theater world — namely that once technicians such as lighting engineers, sound people and set-builders are paid from box-office profits, there's often little or nothing left for...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 18, 2010

Still waiting for that last paycheck

Reader TS writes: "I return to the U.S. next week and I was supposed to receive my final pay check from a really bad ALT company . . . last week, but did not receive payment. I've called them but the secretaries say that the people in charge are not in the office. I called my direct contact and he has...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 4, 2010

Eikaiwa on the ropes after fall of Geos

RICHARD SMART Special to The Japan Times A chain of English conversation schools is closed down. Thousands of employees are left worrying whether they will get paid or keep their jobs. Students are told refunds will not be given on advance payments for lessons. G.communication steps in to pick up the...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2010

IMAX to build more 3-D screens

Megascreen theater company IMAX Corp. said Tuesday it will expand in Japan in the latest in a series of international deals inked recently amid growing demand for 3-D movies following the success of the science fiction blockbuster "Avatar."
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2010

Ex-Prada exec claims harassment

Former Prada Japan senior retail manager Rina Bovrisse, who is suing the company over emotional distress from alleged harassment, said Friday she took the action to support mistreated working women in Japan who don't feel they have the power to fight their employers.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 17, 2010

Belfor Japan carving out a niche in Asia disaster-recovery services

Any smooth-running business can be devastated by fire, typhoon or earthquake, especially in Japan.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 16, 2010

Crisis-handling goes far beyond apology bow

Toyota Motor Corp. recent massive global recalls and subsequent safety worries should serve as a wakeup call for many Japanese companies seemingly ill-prepared to survive corporate crises.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 11, 2010

Investors unconvinced by Fujitsu claims, TSE probe

Fujitsu Ltd. has drawn renewed calls from investors to shed more light on the departure of former President Kuniaki Nozoe after the Tokyo Stock Exchange ended a probe Tuesday into the conflicting reasons given by the firm.
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2010

Kirin-Suntory merger talks break down

Kirin Holdings Co. and Suntory Holdings Ltd. said Monday their tieup negotiations failed because they could not agree on the merger ratio.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2009

Wal-Mart's sensible turnabout on health care

LOS ANGELES, LOS ANGELES TIMES — Is Wal-Mart turning blue — blue enough to pull President Barack Obama's health care chestnuts out of the fire?

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