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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Feb 21, 2006

Party round-up: Chloe, Maison Martin Margiela, Bernhard Willhelm, Alexander Lee-Chang . . .

It's been a busy month for the Tokyo style scene, with a flurry of high-profile store openings culminating in an unveiling of the monumental Omotesando Hills that coincided with extravagant 100th anniversary bashes for luxury pen brand Mont Blanc and jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels. All this meant a punishing...
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2006

Asian relations won't improve soon: Aso

Foreign Minister Taro Aso suggested Sunday that Japan's soured ties with China and South Korea may not improve for some time, saying neighboring countries should not be expected to be friendly all the time.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 20, 2006

Japan's falling savings rate reflects a global competition for funds

The national savings rate dropped to as low as 2.8 percent in 2004, according to a report released by the Cabinet Office last month. This is incredibly low, given the figure had been above 10 percent until as recently as 1999.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 19, 2006

Tale of love and hatred in NTV's 'Drama Complex,' TV Asahi's "Ai no Apron" and more

On Tuesday, NTV's weekly "Drama Complex" series will air a two-hour presentation of master mystery writer Seicho Matsumoto's "Yubi (Finger)" at 9 p.m., a tale of love and hatred played out among an insular group of women.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 19, 2006

Winners are losers, too, in the lingering ledger of war

Ex-soldiers, dressed entirely in white hospital-like attire, some without an arm or a leg, stood or sat in the precincts of a shrine. Some played plaintive tunes on concertinas. Others had a little dog beside them to garner the sympathy of passersby. Often the dog wore a little beanie or sported cheap...
Japan Times
Features
Feb 19, 2006

Back in time with a legend reborn

Fifty years ago this week -- when Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama was reopening diplomatic relations with Moscow; bullet trains or expressways had yet to be built; and a bank staffer's monthly pay was about 25,000 yen -- Tokyo publisher Shinchosha launched the weekly Shukan Shincho, priced at 30 yen....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 19, 2006

Women writers opened window on Heian life

OBJECTS OF DISCOURSE: Memoirs of Women of Heian Japan, by John R. Wallace. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2005, 326 pp., with VII illustrations, $65 (cloth). The four major court memoirs written in the late 10th and early 11th century are the "Kagero nikki" (translated...
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2006

What right to torment?

Muslim furor in the Middle East and other parts of the world touched off by the appearance of cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad has led to diplomatic rows, embassy burnings and violent protests. It now begs serious thought about how the media should exercise the rights to freedom of the press...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2006

Condemned serial killer's book out

Condemned serial murderer Tsutomu Miyazaki has authored a book that compiles his letters to a publisher, branding the Supreme Court "an idiot" for sentencing him to death for killing four girls, the publisher said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 18, 2006

New Year's resolution: self-mutilation, a trance and some milk

How's your New Year's resolution progressing? What? You've already forgotten about it! What happened -- not enough determination? Well, I suggest you not tell the Hindu people in Malaysia about how you broke your New Year's resolution. Because unless your resolution involved sticking hooks into your...
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2006

State eyes selling prime property

Surrounded by Izumi Garden Tower, the Saudi Arabian Embassy and luxury condominium complexes in Tokyo's Roppongi district, an ugly old apartment block stands.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 17, 2006

Casa Vecchia: Good local fare with uncommon flair

A trattoria is by definition a neighborhood institution, usually a small, family-run affair with modest prices and few pretensions, serving down-home cooking for a local clientele. Casa Vecchia fits that description perfectly.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2006

Teens admit taking, killing school rabbit

Three 18-year-old boys are in custody for kicking to death a rabbit they stole from a Tokyo elementary school last year, police said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 12, 2006

The case for a baby princess

No wonder the Crown Princess gets depressed. The spectacle of the chasm between the Imperial family and the 21st century has long been enough to depress anyone. But then, just when the princess must have thought the gap might be closing a bit, given the prime minister's efforts to win the right of succession...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2006

A yen to help a dictatorship

LONDON -- So Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are now working to help support the dictatorship of the people in China -- as managed on their behalf by the Chinese Communist Party. So are most of the world's multinational companies -- as well as you (and me).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 11, 2006

Michiko Kohga

Ask Michiko Kohga what she wanted when she was a little girl, and she answers promptly, "I wanted to eat." She was a child during the early postwar years, when all Japan was hungry. She remembers her family receiving a food package from relatives in Sao Paulo. "The candy in it was like jewelry to me,"...
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2006

JBIC at cross-purposes?

The head of the state-funded Japan Bank for International Cooperation told the government recently that it can finance countries that are denied state loans for political reasons, naming Iran and China as examples, Kyodo News learned Thursday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2006

A-team imports 'water of heaven' back to Japan

Rocky Aoki and Keiko Ono are quite a team. They were in Japan just last week and now are here again, leading a tour group of 20 U.S.-based serious sake enthusiasts to taste the real stuff on the home ground of the "water of heaven."
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Feb 10, 2006

Last chance for Terao to shine in short track

Satoru Terao has never slowed down in his hunt for an elusive medal and he is hungrier than ever before in the build-up to what is expected to be his final Olympic appearance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 10, 2006

A unique take on Nazi Germany

Filmmaker Marc Rothemund says of the German film industry: "The environment has never been more suited to making quality films. Young people are now avidly watching German films whereas 10 years ago the theaters were all about Hollywood productions. And, surprisingly, there's a great demand for historical...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2006

Aya Kondo : Rock 'n' roll with manners

What can you say about Aya Kondo, a woodblock-print artist who has taken staid wafu -- traditional Japanese style -- and turned it into girly sass? In doing so, Kondo encapsulates everything we love about Japanese youth culture at its best: well-mannered rock 'n' roll, cultural self-consciousness, the...
COMMENTARY
Feb 8, 2006

Sri Lanka has so much, and stands to lose it all

LOS ANGELES -- If there is one country in Asia that can serve as a metaphor for all the good and the evil in the world, it may well be little Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 7, 2006

Was casting Chinese actresses in "Memoirs of a Geisha (Sayuri)" a blunder?

Josh Chua Student, 20 In Hollywood, it's common for an actor of a certain ethnicity to play a character of another ethnicity. I don't think Scots were in uproar over Mel Gibson in "Braveheart." If anything, it says more about a lack of Japanese actors.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?