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BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jun 24, 2011

Joyful Honda and the rise of the car-centric 'home center'

Are American-styled home centers Japan's retail model for the future?
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 24, 2011

Foreign residents take part in Japanese traditional dance contest

With summer just around the corner, the spirit of dancing will radiate in the heart of Tokyo as The 6th Foreigner's Traditional Japanese Dance Exhibition takes place June 25.
EDITORIALS
Jun 24, 2011

Restart of reactors is premature

Trade and industry minister Banri Kaieda on June 18 declared that the nation's operators of commercial nuclear power facilities had taken adequate measures to handle severe accidents and called for restarting the power plants.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 24, 2011

Prospects look grim for HeatDevils in Oita

The Oita HeatDevils' budgetary woes aren't surprising to longtime observers of the league. But the temerity with which they begged fans for money to help them make ends meet for the 2011-12 season caught people's attention over the weekend.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 24, 2011

Black Stripe gets weighty with new play

Black Stripe Theater (BST) is the creation of three expatriates residing in Tokyo: Ian Martin, Walter Roberts and Chris Parham. They founded the company in 2007 after meeting through the 115-year-old foreigners' theater company, Tokyo International Players.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2011

First Tohoku documentary captures tsunami aftermath

Japan will probably be seeing many more, but "Mujo Sobyo" beats all others as the first documentary on the aftermath of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and tsunami. A 75-minute film shot and made in 50 days and now playing at the Auditorium Shibuya theater in Tokyo (with screenings in Osaka and Nagoya...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2011

Director Ishii brings style to family drama

Japanese directors with any kind of ambition usually end up making a family drama, which is to Japanese cinema what the Western used to be to Hollywood: the core national genre.
BUSINESS
Jun 24, 2011

Saudi women, barred from driving, urge Subaru to go

A group campaigning for an end to Saudi Arabia's ban on driving by women called on Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.'s Subaru cars unit to pull out of the kingdom until the prohibition is lifted.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2011

Chopper group keeps up disaster-zone airlifts

After the March 11 quake and tsunami ravaged ports, railways, roads and bridges all along the Tohoku coast, leaving thousands of people stranded in isolated areas without water or electricity, the only way vital supplies could reach them at first was by flying them in.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 23, 2011

Ludovit Kanta's 20th year in Japan Memorial Concert

Slovakian cellist Ludovit Kanta plans to celebrate his 20th anniversary in Japan with a special concert in his adopted hometown of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2011

A marriage of East and West: something old, something borrowed and something blue

The Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg is showing its collection of Japanese prints for the first time on these shores as part of diplomatic celebrations around the 150th anniversary of Japan-German relations. It is a catholic exhibition that showcases ukiyo-e in its wide array of manifestations,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2011

Impressionists and friends: on the verge of the modern

There seems to be an exhibition of Impressionist art somewhere in Tokyo every year, such is its popularity in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 23, 2011

Red Dot Relief

A party taking place in Tokyo this weekend aims to support the disaster-stricken northeast of Japan through a night of club music ranging from organic and jazzy house to solid techno.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 23, 2011

Changing the climate of architecture

Hokkaido-born architect Jun Igarashi seems to be a bit out of his comfort zone in the stultifying humidity of Tokyo. As he chats in the Toto Gallery, where he is holding his first solo exhibition, he explains that he's accustomed to the cooler and more temperate climate of his northern prefecture, which...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jun 22, 2011

Sony's surprising speakers; Minebea's keyless keyboard

While all eyes have been on Sony because of the security breaches on its PlayStation Network recently, the company also quietly rolled out a device for all you audiophiles out there when it announced two new speaker-dock systems made for Apple's iPhone and iPods.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jun 21, 2011

Sharing Tepco's bill; family's tough choice

People must share Tepco burden Re: "A victim of Tepco's yakuza-style extortion" (Have Your Say, June 14) by Blues Bowman:
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2011

Art aid sent as therapy for disaster-zone kids

Fifth-grader Emiliano Renteria was sitting quietly in class on March 11 when his elementary school in Miyagi Prefecture began to shake violently.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 19, 2011

Summer's joys in snow country

If you'd only ever experienced Niseko under a four-meter blanket of snow, you'd barely recognize Hokkaido's most cosmopolitan winter-sports resort in summer — in the best way possible.
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2011

Stepping up the war on AIDS

Thirty years have now passed since HIV/AIDS began making headlines, and the deadly pandemic continues to reap a grim toll. What began as a mysterious illness afflicting the U.S. gay community in the summer of 1981 eventually snowballed into a pandemic that has infected more than 60 million people and...
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2011

Tepco begins work to clean coolant water

Tokyo Electric Power Co. confirmed Friday that the treatment facility to clean highly radioactive water accumulating at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant started full-scale operations at 8 p.m.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2011

Temple hopes for UNESCO nod and big cheer for Iwate

Hidden among giant cedar trees at the summit of a mountain in central Iwate Prefecture, Chusonji Temple, with its stunning golden hall dating from the 12th century, couldn't feel farther from the distraught, tsunami-ravaged coast just 50 km away.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2011

American woman pours self into noh

According to Rebecca Ogamo Teele, an American instructor, performer and mask carver for noh, falling asleep is a perfectly respectable response to attending such plays.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2011

Kepco under fire for power threat

Kansai Electric Power Co. is still drawing fire for asking local governments and businesses to cut power use 15 percent this summer to help it cope with the shutdown of four nuclear reactors for inspections.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 17, 2011

Meitoku players give famed kabuki piece the Kurosawa treatment

In 1985, director Akira Kurosawa released "Ran," a Japanese take on William Shakespear's masterpiece "King Lear." Kochi's Meitoku International Players are taking a similar approach to Namiki Gohei's 1840 kabuki piece "Kanjicho" by presenting it in an Italian setting and performed in English.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 17, 2011

Tokyo and Yokohama festival celebrates the art of brevity

Short films have traditionally been seen as a director's starting block toward making their first feature. Yet with the art of filmmaking becoming ever cheaper, many have been sidestepping the short-film format, instead heading straight for a low-budget feature film. Yet short films are an art form in...
BUSINESS
Jun 17, 2011

Takeda's diabetes drug Actos tied to bladder cancer risk: U.S. FDA

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.'s diabetes drug Actos may raise bladder cancer risks in patients who take the medicine for more than a year, U.S. regulators said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 17, 2011

Superfly takes a heavy trip

Hang on a minute, how did this happen? Somehow hippie-loving 1960s-throwback pop songstress Superfly has got, like, totally heavy, man. While her previous studio album, 2009's "Box Emotions," featured a couple of belters, new release "Mind Travel" does away with soppy ballads almost completely, favoring...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 17, 2011

French arts festival lifts any ennui in Yokohama

The relationship between Japan and France began in the early 17th century, when a Japanese ambassador and an accompanying samurai stopped off in Southern France on their way to Rome. They caused a stir with the locals. The infatuation must have been reciprocated because, 400 years later, Yokohama has...
COMMENTARY
Jun 17, 2011

Triple disaster proves need for an industrial revolution

Some three months since the colossal earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan, stricken areas are getting on track for recovery with local industrial production capacity having been restored to as much as 90 percent of pre-disaster levels.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji