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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 24, 2012

Wi-Fi, Facebook and all that jazz

Fumito Fukuchi, owner and proprietor of Kissa Sakaiki jazz cafe in Tokyo's central Yotsuya neighborhood, grins as he puts the finishing touches to an online schedule.
JAPAN
May 24, 2012

Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building set to reopen

An "old and new" landmark will soon be back up and running at JR Tokyo Station.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 24, 2012

Matthias von Stegmann creates a modern German myth for Japan

Modern and mythological perspectives converge as the New National Theatre Tokyo's Opera Division looks to its past to envision the future. From June 1-16, German-Japanese director Matthias von Stegmann guides this new vision of Richard Wagner's opera "Lohengrin," last produced at NNTT in 1997, when the...
JAPAN
May 23, 2012

Skytree has elevator glitch on first day

Despite cold and rainy springtime weather Tuesday, Tokyo Skytree attracted thousands of people to the new landmark as the world's tallest tower opened to the public.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
May 22, 2012

The elephant in the foreigner's room now has a name: microaggression

Some positive and negative readers' reactions to Debito Arudou's provocative and widely read May 1 Just Be Cause column, "Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday 'microaggressions' that grind us down":
JAPAN
May 22, 2012

Rare eclipse delivers spectacle despite cloudy weather

Monday's rare annular eclipse wowed millions nationwide as they looked up in the morning sky to witness the astronomical event.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 22, 2012

Foreigners disqualified as blood donors for wide range of reasons

From the many responses to our April 3 column, "Less-than-fluent foreigners may have trouble giving blood," it seems that Japanese language ability is an issue at some centers, but not all. Other factors sometimes took precedence, such as medical conditions and other rules.
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
May 21, 2012

For better or worse, Japan might remain nuclear-free forever

On May 5, Japan's last operating nuclear reactor was shut down, turning it into a nuclear energy-free country. The government is working desperately to restart two reactors in the town of Oi in Fukui Prefecture, but the outcome is difficult to predict.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 20, 2012

Time-travelling reporters; celebrity genes; CM of the week: Schick

As if there wasn't enough news to cover now, NHK has started sending reporters back in time on the variety show "Time Scoop Hunter" (NHK-G, Tues., 10:55 p.m.). Journalists use "warp technology" to travel to different eras to collect information about how people really lived in the past.
EDITORIALS
May 19, 2012

A rare annular eclipse

The morning of May 21 will give many people a opportunity to start becoming interested in the universe and science. An annular eclipse of the sun can be observed in large areas of Japan along the Pacific around 7:30 a.m. that day.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 18, 2012

Dancer to honor late artist who balked at death

Shusaku Arakawa (1936-2010) was an enigmatic man. The late Japan-born, New York-based artist and his partner, Madeline Gins, once jointly declared they had decided "not to die," and even added that it was "immoral" for people to have to die. Based on their philosophy, the two created a series of houses...
BASKETBALL
May 18, 2012

Ryukyu star Newton set for seventh straight Final Four

This is arguably the most remarkable statistic in the bj-league's seven-year history: Center Jeff Newton's teams have advanced to the Final Four every season.
JAPAN / BULLETIN BOARD
May 18, 2012

Fulbright orientation sessions for students heading to U.S.

Fulbright Japan will host two sessions in Tokyo in June for people who will enter undergraduate or graduate programs at U.S. universities this fall.
EDITORIALS
May 18, 2012

Helping people help NPOs

Nonprofit organizations play important roles in such areas as education, social welfare, public health and medical services and environmental protection in communities; after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, they have also been active in disaster relief efforts.
CULTURE / Music
May 18, 2012

Will the world soon wake up to the scent of Perfume?

When the Nippon Budokan was built in 1964, its architects probably never envisaged it one day resembling a massive nightclub filled with hundreds of laser beams in every shade of neon as three women in lightup minidresses danced like finely tuned robots to the sound of the bassiest bombast imaginable....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 17, 2012

Andymori "Hikari"

Tokyo rock trio Andymori formed in the fall of 2007. The following summer — before the group had released any music — it earned an invite to perform at the Fuji Rock Festival. In 2009, Andymori issued its eponymous debut and appeared at Summer Sonic. Continuing to build upon its initial successes,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / IN THE RECORD
May 17, 2012

A Taut Line

Tokyo-based British DJ/producer Matt Lyne, aka A Taut Line, coruns the record label Diskotopia, with Brian Durr, aka BD1982. A Taut Line's melodic broken house, garage and techno productions are just as influenced by the Chicago jazz and postrock scenes as by the 1980s Chicago house scene. Meanwhile,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 17, 2012

Agent Orange 'tested in Okinawa'

Recently uncovered documents show that the United States conducted top-secret tests of Agent Orange in Okinawa in 1962, according to a veterans services employee.
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2012

Argentina's old-school economics

Resource nationalism was supposed to be a throwback, a discredited school of economics that failed the governments that embraced it. Apparently, Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner never got the memo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 17, 2012

There is trouble on Kafka's shore

Seventy-six-year-old theater director Yukio Ninagawa is famed and honored the world over for his magnificently visualized stagings of Shakespeare and Ancient Greek tragedies — as well as modern Japanese plays.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami