Search - list

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2012

Instinct and appetite will guide Putin's next term

Few people, least of all Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — who plans to return to Russia's presidency on March 4 — could have imagined last December that Russians would, for the first time in 20 years, wake up and rally in their tens of thousands against the government. Unlike the Arab Spring rebellions,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012

Morning movies: 50 audience favorites to get you out of bed

Moviegoers set your alarms early, because the Toho Cinemas chain will in March begin its third annual Gozen Jū-ji no Eiga Sai (10 a.m. Film Festival). This year's event is the second series under the tag line "50 Films That Never Get Old," and the yearlong "festival" showcases 50 classic films, ranging...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Feb 21, 2012

Focus on 'exceptions' waters down abduction pact

For the attention of the Japanese government:
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 10, 2012

Sweet somethings

JAPAN
Feb 2, 2012

Okinawa poll meddling irks defense chief

A senior Defense Ministry official came under suspicion Wednesday of not only trying to tamper with the upcoming mayoral election in Ginowan but taking similar action in 2010 for a vote in Nago — the two cities in Okinawa deeply connected to the controversial relocation of the Futenma U.S. air base....
COMMENTARY
Jan 25, 2012

A snapshot of freedom of expression in America

Shawn Nee, 35, works in television but hopes to publish a book of photographs. Shane Quentin, 31, repairs bicycles but enjoys photographing industrial scenes at night. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department probably wishes both would find other hobbies. Herewith a story of today's inevitable friction...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 24, 2012

Tepco pole position may scupper land buy

Mr. A writes: "We are seriously considering buying a property (house and land) in a residential neighborhood. On a corner of and inside the property, Tepco installed a light pole several years ago, apparently under an agreement with the current owner. It is believed that a nominal payment from Tepco...
BUSINESS
Jan 7, 2012

Airline may spur busiest share offering year since 2007

Japan may see its busiest year for initial public offerings since the global financial crisis, with Japan Airlines Corp., social network providers and manufacturers preparing to issue shares.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011

Soseki leaps to defense of Japanese literature

Most people probably have a list of universally acclaimed geniuses, icons and luminaries whose greatness they simply fail to appreciate. "Am I stupid?" you wonder — or do claims of greatness tend to be inflated? Topping my personal list, as far as Japan is concerned, is novelist Natsume Soseki (1867-1916)....
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 17, 2011

Redknapp wants two refs per match

It has been another bad week for referees. Chris Foy (Stoke vs. Tottenham) and Mark Clattenburg (Chelsea vs. Manchester City) became the latest to be blamed for the defeats of Spurs and City by, unsurprisingly, the losing managers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 16, 2011

'Cut'

A director who makes a film that loudly complains about the sad state of current cinema is setting himself up as a critics' punching bag ("You, sir, are part of the problem ..."). Also, if he inserts his list of 100 all-time best films into his climax he is asking for some impolite comments about his...
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Dec 1, 2011

Japan's top 10 buzzwords of 2011

The phrases and buzzwords that were on everyone's lips in 2011.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 24, 2011

Beatmakers just wanna have fun

British magazine DJ Mag caused some ripples among critics this month when it released its list of the most popular DJs from around the world and there wasn't one woman among the 100-strong pick. Though the magazine points out that its editors don't decide the list, which is comprised of write-in ballots...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 20, 2011

A lost gem found confirms who was the father of Japanese filmmaking

In July 1959, Japan's leading film magazine, Kinema Junpo, published a list of what it hailed as "The best 10 Japanese films of all time." This list included works by such acknowledged masters as Mikio Naruse, as well as the young but by then amply acclaimed Akira Kurosawa.
Reader Mail
Nov 20, 2011

Creating domestic energy jobs

Regarding the Nov. 11 editorial "Nuclear export policy misguided": It would be interesting to get a list of countries to which Japan's nuclear know-how has been, and will be, exported. Vietnam and India are mentioned in the editorial as was Jordan before. From a European news source, I learned that Turkey...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 15, 2011

Tokyo ordinance a potential contract-killer

A prediction: if Japan ever becomes a police state, it will come about not by national law but municipal ordinances. And the war on organized crime could be the engine that drives the process.
BUSINESS
Nov 11, 2011

Possible Olympus delisting discredits Japan governance

Olympus Corp.'s admission that it hid losses by overpaying advisers may lead to its delisting by the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is sparking criticism of corporate-governance standards in the world's third-largest stock market.
Reader Mail
Oct 23, 2011

Useful expressions for U.S. visits

On a recent business trip to the United States I chatted with some Japanese passengers next to me on the plane about what would be the most useful expressions for travelers with only a little English.
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2011

Olympus backtracks on Gyrus fee

Olympus Corp. said Wednesday it paid $687 million in advisory fees for its acquisition of Gyrus Group PLC, almost double the ¥30 billion Olympus Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said the day before.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2011

Love and loathing of racial preferments Down Under

In 2009, in two articles published in the Herald Sun and the Herald and Weekly Times, columnist Andrew Bolt wrote that many light-skinned — that is, those who did not look Aboriginal — Australians had chosen to identify themselves as indigenous in order to gain material or professional advantage....
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Oct 6, 2011

Cola Lemon KitKat? Let's take a vote on that

What? Companies are actually letting consumers choose what they want to be sold? Yes, it's true.
EDITORIALS
Oct 6, 2011

Another blow to al-Qaida

ACIA drone strike has killed Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the world's most wanted terrorists. Awlaki's death is another blow to al-Qaida, and proof yet again of the extraordinary reach bestowed on the United States by its technology.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011

Japan in a European club?

Hitherto unknown and self-styled "loach" Yoshihiko Noda must learn to swim in an ocean of problems as Japan's new prime minister of the year. He has more than a plateful of domestic issues, but he should also realize, as his predecessors forgot, that Japan needs to re-engage the world if it is to find...
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2011

Nuclear refugees struggle to cope with uncertain future

Like thousands of other people, Miwa Kamoshita's life was turned upside down when the March 11 tsunami struck the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, leading her and her family to voluntarily evacuate their home in Iwaki, some 40 km south of the crippled power station.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 23, 2011

Peace Boat-Rolls Royce talks lay bare ethical minefield

Convinced the recovery in Tohoku will result in the birth of widespread corporate philanthropy in Japan, in the same way the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake prompted the proliferation of volunteerism, Peace Boat director Tatsuya Yoshioka spent a day in June shepherding a busload of businesspeople on a...
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2011

Lessons from the affairs of Cuban crocodiles

The recent finding that the seriously endangered Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) has been hybridizing in the wild with the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) offers a sobering lesson. It shows that there is no real antagonism between Cuban and American crocodiles, something that policymakers...
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Aug 17, 2011

Why do Japanese advertisers suggest Internet-search keywords?

It seems that everywhere you look in Japan these days, printed advertising has Internet-style "search buttons" somewhere in the design, with Japanese text inside a box indicating the term to be searched. And many TV commercials end with a short phrase "such and such de kensaku" ("search on the Internet...
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2011

Trading in rice futures resumes at ominous time

When the Tokyo Grain Exchange, operator of the nation's largest agricultural bourse, bet its future on rice trading, it didn't expect radiation fallout would be part of investor decisions and volatility.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan