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LIFE / Digital
Oct 25, 2000

Xpect the unxpected

SEATTLE -- What does Microsoft know about fun? The engineers who designed Xbox, the new 128-bit video game console that Microsoft plans to release sometime next year, know too much for their own good.
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2000

Seller of fake smokes avoids prison

The Tokyo District Court on Monday sentenced a 51-year-old company executive to 21/2 years in prison, suspended for four years, for selling counterfeit cigarettes sold by Japan Tobacco Inc.
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2000

Insurance industry shakeout sees three firms plan alliance

Upheaval in the domestic insurance industry continues as Nippon Life Insurance Co., Mitsui Marine & Fire Insurance Co. and Sumitomo Marine & Fire Insurance Co. plan to form alliances in areas including product distribution and computer system development.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 22, 2000

Young talent surfaces at Tokyo Designers Week

If you happened to be in the Aoyama, Shibuya or Daikanyama districts of Tokyo over the last week you may have noticed a brightly patterned bus zooming around. It was transporting whoever was interested in going to the many spots in this area that were exhibiting the work of Japanese and international...
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2000

Mitsubishi Motors makes bid to regain customer trust

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. announced a set of measures Friday that it said it will implement in an effort to improve the quality and information-management of its product-recall system.
JAPAN
Oct 20, 2000

11 trillion yen plan gets official nod

The government adopted a comprehensive stimulus package Thursday worth nearly 11 trillion yen in its latest bid to place the long-stagnant economy on a full-fledged recovery track.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 18, 2000

Yonezawa's tourist industry rises from the ashes

YONEZAWA, Yamagata Pref. -- When he received a phone call saying that a fire was blazing through the hotel where his grandfather was once a carpenter, local shop owner Masahiro Ohta rushed to help.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2000

Japan's pop culture conquers the world

JAPAN POP Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture, edited by Timothy J. Craig. M. E. Sharpe, 235 pp., $58.95 (cloth). Japan is undergoing a quiet revolution. Long known for its talents in miniaturization and for the mass production of electronic consumer products, Japan is gaining a new image:...
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2000

Firm reads tea tablets to get view of new profitable brew

A Tokyo-based company is marketing heart-shaped tablets of compacted tea that it claims produce a superior brew more easily, taking the ancient art of the tea ceremony to a new plane.
COMMUNITY
Oct 5, 2000

Vanity, thy name is . . . Vince?

SAN FRANCISCO -- Clairol, the staid manufacturer of women's hair dyes, tried something new this year: It went after kids.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2000

Activists find endangered birds for sale in shops

About 90 species of native wild birds are on sale in pet shops across the nation despite regulations forbidding their sale, the Wild Bird Society of Japan said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2000

Don't shortchange young readers

Despite all the talk about the need for educational reforms, little serious attention is being paid to a fundamental way in which Japan's schoolchildren are being shortchanged. Except among the educators directly involved, few have expressed concern over the Education Ministry's announcement that libraries...
COMMENTARY
Oct 2, 2000

Is drug-price cure worse than the disease?

WASHINGTON -- Election years in the United States are good for political consultants but bad for everyone else. Especially the average citizen who bears the brunt of Washington-style "reform."
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2000

Time to reassess the nuclear-energy option

Safety and cost competitiveness: These two factors are clearly incompatible when it comes to nuclear energy. Yet these were some of the key words used by the government and the nuclear industry to promote nuclear energy.
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

Matsushita to join Toray in plasma display panels

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Toray Industries Inc. announced Thursday that the two companies have agreed to set up a joint venture next month by integrating their plasma display panel businesses.
BUSINESS
Sep 27, 2000

Food-shopping Web site targets Japan's housewives

NTT Communications Corp. President Masanobu Suzuki (left), actor Yuzo Kayama and management consultant Kenichi Ohmae pose for a photo Tuesday. Kayama will be the image character for a new online shopping venture. EveryD.com Inc., led by management consultant Kenichi Ohmae, said Tuesday it will launch...
BUSINESS
Sep 26, 2000

Textile trader Fujii requests rehabilitation

OSAKA -- Fujii & Co., an Osaka-based textile trader, said Monday it has applied for court-led rehabilitation with total liabilities estimated at 10.8 billion yen as of the end of August.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2000

Dead pets returning to haunt the neighbors

ICHIHARA, Chiba Pref. -- It was the start of a real-life horror story for the people of Ichihara's Otsubo district when a smokestack suddenly appeared in a neighbor's yard in August last year.
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 23, 2000

An old tradition with a modern twist

NEW YORK -- Puppet troupes from around the globe are taking to New York stages this month as part of the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater. The Japan representative is the extraordinary yet little-known OtomeBunraku Troupe, an all-female puppet troupe which derives from the mainstream male...
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2000

NCB's Honma dies 16 days after bank's rebirth

Nippon Credit Bank President Tadayo Honma passed away Wednesday morning of heart failure. He was 60.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 21, 2000

Japan insurance market just a phone call away

For the past several years, the insurance industry has been battered on two fronts by bad publicity. On the one hand, the collapse of almost all the major life insurance companies has been blamed on poor investment choices and even poorer management, while on the other, the spate of recent murder-for-insurance...
LIFE / Style & Design / SIMPLY DIVINE
Sep 21, 2000

Cosmetic makers target tots

While wearing your school uniform is considered the ultimate in cool, it's little wonder that the next phase is a young face full of slap. Younger and younger girls in Japan are reaching for the rouge and in response cosmetic companies are deliberately targeting teeny-boppers.
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2000

JAL, ANA, JAS share counters at Haneda, Kansai airports

OSAKA -- Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Air System opened shared counters Wednesday at Tokyo's Haneda airport and Osaka's Kansai airport for passengers using shuttle flights between Tokyo and Osaka.
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2000

Obituary: Ichiro Mikuni

Television celebrity Ichiro Mikuni died Friday of malignant lymphoma at a Tokyo hospital, his family said Tuesday. He was 79.
BUSINESS
Sep 20, 2000

FRC welcomes bank's early repayment

The head of the government's Financial Reconstruction Commission said Tuesday that the government would allow Mitsubishi Trust & Banking Corp. to repay ahead of schedule the public funds it received to replenish its depleted capital base.
BUSINESS
Sep 20, 2000

Three F plans e-commerce business

Convenience store operator Three F Co. said Tuesday it will establish a joint venture Oct. 1 with six other companies to launch an electronic commerce business based on Three F's shops.

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