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COMMENTARY
Nov 25, 2008

West Coast appreciates destiny with Asia

LOS ANGELES — Serious intellectual narrowing can happen to even the brightest folk once nested down on the U.S. East Coast. They become preoccupied (almost neurotically, almost provincially) with the problems of the past — especially with the Middle East and Europe — and lose sight of the new problems...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2008

Tamp down the old ways

Sixty years ago on Nov. 12, 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMT) handed down its verdict branding Japan an aggressor nation and leading to the execution of six military leaders and one politician for instigating the war. As if to substantiate the validity of this verdict,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2008

Deciphering the oil puzzle

What happens when the demand for oil flattens out or falls and the supply of oil continues as before or actually increases? The answer is economics at its simplest — the price plummets. And that indeed is what has occurred.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2008

Connecting the solutions while there's time

WASHINGTON — The world does not need to be reminded of the urgency of this historical moment. We sense it every day in the news. One day a major bank, insurance company, or automaker announces a record loss. The next brings word of the impact on nations and peoples least able to cope with these blows...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 23, 2008

We're just playing ball

It's an open secret that TV news shows tend to go easy on big advertisers in their reporting. In the many tributes to journalist Tetsuya Chikushi, who died two weeks ago of lung cancer, no one mentioned that he was a heavy smoker. The dangers of cigarettes were never covered on his nightly TBS show,...
BUSINESS
Nov 22, 2008

BOJ leaves key interest rate unchanged at 0.3%

The Bank of Japan left the key interest rate unchanged Friday at 0.3 percent, as widely expected, amid a stagnating domestic economy, a decelerating global economy and financial turmoil.
BUSINESS
Nov 22, 2008

Workers urged to knock off early, make babies

The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) is worried the nation's workers aren't having enough sex.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2008

Masuda defends 'hawkish' classes

The Defense Ministry will continue to provide a balanced education at its Joint Staff College, but will not immediately respond to criticism that some of its lecturers are known to hold nationalistic views, Vice Defense Minister Kohei Masuda said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2008

'Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai'

Based on a novel by Tetsutaro Kato, the 1958 TV drama "Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai" ("I Want to Be a Seashell") became a paradigm-shifting hit when it was broadcast on KRT Television, the predecessor to the TBS network.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2008

'The Bank Job'

"The Bank Job" is one of those movies that somehow winds up being far, far better than it has any right to be.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2008

Tamogami views no secret

Unsworn testimony before an Upper House committee last week shed light on axed Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami's nationalist views, but questions persist over how such a vocal revisionist was appointed ASDF chief to begin with.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2008

Muscle cars giving 'otaku' new platforms to flex their fetishes

Masaya Taniguchi has a "heartache" plastered across the hood of his flaming red Audi TT Roadster.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2008

Sticky details of Obama's clean-energy plan

SINGAPORE — U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is coming to power on a torrent of promises and high expectations. Yet as recession bites deeper into the world's biggest economy, investment slumps, jobs are lost, tax revenues fall, and the U.S. budget deficit grows ever larger. It is expected to more...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / WEEK 3
Nov 16, 2008

What do you know about Nippon?

These days, you have to accomplish a lot before calling yourself a Japan expert. Knowing the language, geography, history and customs of Japan is simply not enough.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 16, 2008

What's between sex and gender?

GENDER GYMNASTICS: Performing and Consuming Japan's Takarazuka Revue, by Leonie R. Stickland. Melbourne, Australia: Trans Pacific Press, 2008, 282 pp., with five plates (I through V). A$49.95 (cloth) The Takarazuka Revue is one of the several entertainment anomalies of Japan. It is an all-female presentation,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 16, 2008

The billionaire bad boys' club

Takafumi Horie, the former CEO of Internet company Livedoor whose trial for insider trading continues in the courts, recently made his first TV appearance in three years on TBS's new talk show "Terebitte Yatsu wa?" ("What the Hell is TV?").
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2008

Prefecture-merging panel sets goal

A policy panel of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said Thursday it will try to draw up by the end of December a bill to consolidate the nation's 47 prefectures into 10 larger, more powerful regional governments.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2008

A doctor in the house? Do you feel lucky?

After being turned away by eight Tokyo hospitals last month, a 36-year-old woman died of brain hemorrhage after giving premature birth by Caesarian section. A month before, a 32-year-old pregnant stroke victim was bounced among six hospitals before one finally accepted her for treatment. She is currently...
COMMENTARY
Nov 14, 2008

Hu touches base with Obama on economy

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Guess who telephoned Barack Obama for one of the first, if not the first, substance-packed reachout to the next U.S. head of state. It was Chinese President Hu Jintao. The conversation focused on the global economic freeze, but Hu knew how to warm up the president-elect as well...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 14, 2008

'Happy Flight'

Films that purport to go behind the scenes of an industry or institution — with the enthusiastic support of the folks they are supposedly unmasking — are almost by definition PR exercises if not outright recruiting tools.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic