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JAPAN
Nov 28, 2004

MMC, Merrill Lynch eye car-loan business

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said Saturday it is considering setting up a joint venture with Merrill Lynch & Co. to engage in North American financing operations as part of the struggling automaker's rehabilitation efforts.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 28, 2004

A clotheshorse for all seasons

"What will she be wearing?"
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 28, 2004

Light remains green for Filipinos in Japan -- well, kind of

The announcement of a basic free-trade agreement between Japan and the Philippines at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Santiago, Chile, was met with a positive response in the Japanese media. Japan, after all, clearly came out ahead: Tariffs on Japanese imported steel products will be substantially...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 28, 2004

"Chikyu: Fushigi Daishizen" on NHK and more

It's easy to believe that whenever humans come into contact with nature, nature suffers. However, this week's installment of NHK's nature show, "Chikyu: Fushigi Daishizen" (The Earth: Wondrous Nature; NHK-G, Monday, 8 p.m.), visits an area of Japan where people and nature have been living in harmony...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 28, 2004

A clever yarn crafted from a hoax

MY LIFE AS A FAKE, by Peter Carey. Faber & Faber, 2004, 276 pp., £6.99 (paper). One of the most stunning acts of literary criticism in modern times was perpetrated in an Australian magazine called Angry Penguins during World War II. It consisted of a small body of faux experimental poetry, purporting...
Japan Times
Features
Nov 28, 2004

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES

On a rainy Saturday night in the neon-drenched streets of Shinjuku, Kenji Shimura looks like 1,000 other salarymen: off-the-rack black suit, sensible shoes and a face made for anonymous middle-management in an insurance firm.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 28, 2004

Kanye West

The term "old school" can be taken several ways on Kanye West's "The College Dropout," easily the overground hip-hop album of 2004. The once and future producer of Jay-Z, West obviously makes a lot of money so he doesn't have to convince anyone that his lack of higher education didn't hold him back....
Japan Times
Features
Nov 28, 2004

Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Modernity

Who was this man who wrote, "When I die I forbid the erection of anything resembling a monument, and if erected I am vehemently opposed to any words being engraved into it, and if people must engrave words into it I absolutely despise when they gush on and on, because I'd rather that someone just rolled...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 28, 2004

So many deities for still many troubled lives

EIGHT MILLION GODS AND DEMONS, by Hiroko Sherwin. Plume Books, 2003, 320 pp., $14 (paper). When "The Name of the Rose" transformed Umberto Eco from obscure Italian academic to international best-selling author, a common complaint among readers of his dark novel was that only after wading through the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 28, 2004

Kaki King: "Feet to Make Us Longer"

Guitar virtuosos often sacrifice melodic beauty for string-bending technique. Many guitar-lovers' CDs sound more like showy practice routines than musical statements. Kaki King's sophomore release, "Feet to Make Us Longer," like her debut, "Everybody Loves You," avoids this pitfall. Her stunning guitar...
MORE SPORTS
Nov 28, 2004

'Golden Jubilee Day' at the races

R acing fans will be treated to a must-see today at Tokyo Racecourse. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Japan Racing Association, two of the biggest Grade I events of the year -- the Japan Cup Dirt and the Japan Cup -- both international invitationals, follow each other in a one-two, top-level...
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2004

Kokudo employee found dead in suspected suicide

An employee of scandal-hit Kokudo Corp. was found dead Nov. 21 on the seashore in Yamagata Prefecture, and police are looking into the possibility he killed himself, according to sources familiar with the case.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 28, 2004

Fighters hoping to sign Omura

The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters are moving to acquire the services of Naoyuki Omura, who filed for free agency after 11 seasons with the Kintetsu Buffaloes, team executive Kesaharu Misawa said Saturday.
COMMENTARY
Nov 28, 2004

Labour's path to nowhere

LONDON -- Tuesday was one of those quaint ceremonial occasions that cling like barnacles to the slow-moving body of the British ship of state: The queen announced the next year's legislative program.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Nov 28, 2004

The power of one note

Power and imagination have been Kazumi Watanabe's mainstays for over 30 years. As a prodigy on electric guitar, his first release was in 1971 at the age of 18 and his ever-evolving guitar technique has served as the central pillar of near-annual releases. In the 1980s, his progressive and very muscular...
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2004

Education minister slams textbooks as 'self-torturing'

Education minister Nariaki Nakayama said Saturday that history textbooks used in secondary schools contain passages that are extremely "self-torturing" and suggest "Japan has done nothing but bad things."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Killer of coed gets life despite disorder

The Tokyo District Court sentenced a man with slight mental disability to life imprisonment Friday for stabbing a college student to death in 2001 after trying to sexually assault her.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

10 women hurt while jostling for glimpse of 'Yon-sama'

Ten fans of popular South Korean actor Bae Yong Joon, who has rocketed to fame in Japan for his leading role in the hit South Korean TV drama "Winter Sonata," were injured Friday while jostling at the Tokyo hotel where he was staying, police said.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Koizumi an official at Yasukuni

The Thursday court ruling on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001 visit to Yasukuni Shrine indicates he may longer be able to continue to be ambiguous about the nature of his contentious visits, many scholars agree.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

NHK voluntarily airs correction to wife's story

NHK TV aired a correction Friday to a program broadcast in 1996 -- one day after the Supreme Court rejected a demand for the correction by a woman who had won redress for defamation committed by the broadcaster on a program that referred to her marriage.
SOCCER / J. League
Nov 27, 2004

JEF Utd striker arrested on suspicion of rape attempt

Brazilian-born striker Sandro Cardoso Dos Santos is in police custody on suspicion of attempting to rape a Japanese woman visiting his home in May, an official said Friday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 27, 2004

Nintendo ups stake in Mariners

Nintendo Co., the Japanese maker of Pokemon and Super Mario video games, raised its stake in baseball's Seattle Mariners to more than 50 percent, a company spokesman said Friday. Nintendo's U.S. subsidiary spent $67 million to acquire the stake held by former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi, who...
EDITORIALS
Nov 27, 2004

A revealing melee in Chile

It seemed like a sideshow at the time, but the incident in Santiago last weekend in which U.S. President George W. Bush intervened to "rescue" one of his Secret Service agents from a scuffle with Chilean police has been mushrooming all week. In retrospect, that melee -- and a dispute last Sunday involving...

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell