search

 
 
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Feb 25, 2008

Is ethnic passing finally becoming passe?

NEW YORK — Just about the time Bliss Broyard's book "One Drop" came out last year, I received the latest book from my prolific friend Inuhiko Yomota, "Japan's Marrano Literature."
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2008

Pakistan set to lift its ban on Bollywood

MADRAS, India — Cinema is a powerful weapon, though it is often called soft power. Men like Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Germany's Adolf Hitler understood the awesome might of movies.
Japan Times
SOCCER
Feb 25, 2008

United puts squeeze on Arsenal

NEWCASTLE, England (AP) Alex Ferguson is preparing for Manchester United's title tussle with Arsenal to be settled on goal difference. That's not causing him too much concern with Cristiano Ronaldo virtually unstoppable.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 25, 2008

G7's changing world and the need for microeconomic steps

The Feb. 9 meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank chiefs — the first one held in Tokyo in eight years — adopted a statement recognizing that the global economy is facing more challenging and uncertain circumstances.
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2008

Security beefed up for visit by Israeli leader

Japan is deploying maximum-level security for the Israeli prime minister's visit this week, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday, amid intensifying tension in the Middle East since the assassination of a terror mastermind.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2008

Down to one DVD format

Toshiba Corp. has decided to exit the HD DVD business, ending its war with a group led by Sony and Matsushita over the next-generation DVD market. The group has been pushing the Blu-ray format. The decision is a bitter one for Toshiba but will benefit consumers, who no longer need worry about which format...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2008

Think tank pushes stronger stand on Russian-held islands

Japan should never compromise in negotiations with Russia over the return of the four islands off Hokkaido, a private think tank has proposed.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2008

Right to know takes a hit

The Tokyo High Court has rejected a damages suit filed in 2005 by Mr. Takichi Nishiyama, a former Mainichi Shimbun reporter, who alleged he was illegally indicted over his news gathering on the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan. The crux of the trial was whether Japan and the United States had had a...
BASKETBALL
Feb 24, 2008

Evessa edge Golden Kings

In Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, Kazuya Hatano scored 23 points, Jeff Newton had 19 and Mikey Marshall had a triple-double (18 points, 14 rebounds, 10 assists) to lead the Osaka Evessa to a 79-77 win over the Ryukyu Golden Kings on Saturday night.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 24, 2008

Persistence helps Lawrence extend career, connect with heritage

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which is in its third season. Aaron Sakai Lawrence of the Saitama Broncos is the subject of this week's profile.
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2008

How many rapes in 60 years?

The first five contributions to Readers in Council on Feb. 17 were all reactions to Japanese exasperation over the alleged rape of a 14-year-old Okinawan girl by a U.S. Marine. And they all showed evidence of an extraordinary historical ignorance.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 24, 2008

Coming of age mini-series, cop-thriller-drama, Kazakhstan documentary

Owing presumably to TV viewers' dwindling attention spans, drama series are becoming shorter. This week, Fuji TV presents a four-part dramatization of an award-winning novel over the course of four consecutive nights rather than four consecutive weeks.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 24, 2008

Stephen Barber: Re-imagining the Megalopolis

THE TOKYO TRILOGY by Stephen Barber. Creation Books, 2008, 320 pp., $16.95 (paper) Apocalyptic orgasms, feral abattoir gangs and the digitalization of Hitler's ghost rarely appear in mainstream literature, and Stephen Barber's "The Tokyo Trilogy" — comprising "Tokyo Sodom," "Tokyo Slaughterhouse" and...
Japan Times
LIFE / THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Feb 24, 2008

Mum fights nuke power

Yurika Ayukawa, the special adviser on climate change to the environmental organization World Wide Fund for Nature Japan (WWF Japan), believes the key to combating global warming lies in changing humans' means of generating energy.
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2008

Critique of culinary culture

I am a food barbarian. The Feb. 21 article "Tokyo's samurai chefs devoted to their craft" got me thinking more about the wasted concern that restaurants, hotels and food professionals afford their Michelin ratings. There are only three things important to me about food: (1) is it delicious? (2) can...

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan