Tag - best-of-2016

 
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April 30, 2024
 

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BEST OF 2016

Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 31, 2016
Buried truths: Digging deep into Japanese media from 2016
Everyone agrees 2016 was a terrible year, and not just because so many popular celebrities died. In addition to the wars, both hot and rhetorical, that continue unabated throughout the world, the political situation in Europe and America veered toward isolationism. Hatred ruled, and no resentments were as sharp as those leveled at the mass media. There is a pointed distrust of the press, over and beyond the prevalence of "fake news," but how these biases manifest themselves is different depending on which side of the ideological divide you occupy. The situation applies in Japan, too, though in a more muted way. The problem here has more to do with what the media — on both sides of the divide and for various self-serving reasons — leave out; which isn't to say you can't get at some sort of truth, but you've got to dig.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 30, 2016
Change — the only constant for Tokyo restaurants in 2016
What a year it has been. Thankfully, the world of gastronomy hasn't followed the same spiral of sadness, frustration and despair as the political and popular music arenas. Even so, it's high time to get the Year of the Monkey off our backs with a rundown of some of the ups, downs, ins and outs at Tokyo's top restaurants.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 30, 2016
Who had the worst year? How Asian leaders fared in 2016
In a year dominated by Brexit and Donald Trump's surprise U.S. election win, Asia felt like a relatively stable part of the world. A closer look shows that the region endured its own seismic events in 2016, from a Philippine leader embracing China to massive street protests in Seoul to the elimination of 86 percent of India's hard currency.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 29, 2016
The top overseas news stories of 2016
The Japan Times newsroom selected these world news stories as the most important of 2016.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 27, 2016
Take your pick of the year's highlights in Japanese theater
From soccer minnows Leicester City winning the English Premier League to "That Election" in the (dis)-United States, 2016 has been a year of surprises, shocks and new directions.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Dec 24, 2016
20 Questions: the best answers of 2016
What has surprised you most about living in Japan? Who would win a fight between a lion and a tiger? What's the strangest request you've ever been asked in your line of work?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 24, 2016
Tales from the cracks: 10 of the best books about Japan released in 2016
It's been a difficult year — one that felt like humanity was living on a fracturing ice shelf. That uncertainty came from our exposure to wars and natural disasters, and even our struggles with "truth" itself. The best Japan-related books released in 2016 seemed to channel this feeling of instability by looking inside the growing cultural cracks. Here are 10 that went beyond old narratives about Japan and its people and delved deeper into Japan's fragmented past, present and future: from alternative views of the Pearl Harbor attack to Japanese prostitutes in the American West and from radical 1960s anarchists to the story of an inspector trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2016
A new wave of Japanese filmmakers matches the old
Nearly two decades after the Japanese New Wave of the 1990s, the directors who led it, including Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Hirokazu Koreeda and Naomi Kawase, are still the local industry's most prominent faces abroad. But this year a new generation of filmmakers has finally started to make itself heard, with 36-year-old Koji Fukada winning the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes for "Harmonium" ("Fuchi ni Tatsu") and 43-year-old Makoto Shinkai obliterating the box-office competition with his animation "Kimi no Na wa." ("Your Name."). Both generations found themselves on my best 10 list for 2016.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2016
Finding courage and hope in 2016
The Year of the Monkey is drawing to a close. Despite the events in the real world, this year at least brought us some soulful films. Perhaps the filmmakers wanted to prepare us for the impending yuckiness of future reality. Still, my picks for the best films of the year intriguingly combined sweetness and sentiment with a vicious streak — subtle in some cases, neon-lit in others. All are hauntingly memorable.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2016
The bad year that pervaded the screens
The past year has been a cursed one. It began with the death of David Bowie and proceeded to get worse on every level: political hysteria, impending ecological doom, the creeping encroach of net-connected tech into every corner of our lives, and a blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality now known as "post-truth." It was not a great year for cinema — as the gazillion-dollar franchises increasingly shoved everything else to the margins — but the best films seemed both timely and truthful, speaking directly to the chaos of 2016.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Dec 21, 2016
Quotes of 2016, from 'Die, Japan' to 'Trump shock'
Some of the good, bad and ugly of what various people said or shouted out loud in 2016.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 18, 2016
Japan's pop music scene saw a power struggle in 2016
Media, both domestic and overseas, spent a lot of time focused on the streaming services arriving in Japan in 2016. Months of "Can these platforms thrive in CD-loving Japan?" speculation reached a climax in September, when global market leader Spotify finally debuted here. There was a big press conference, launch parties and one final flurry of articles pondering if this could be the sea change so many thirst for in the country's music industry.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
Dec 18, 2016
South Korea's year of reckoning, from H-bomb test to Park impeachment
It began with a nuclear explosion and ended with a street party where some 800,000 people sang and smiled in the freezing Seoul sunshine to celebrate the impeachment of their president. Even for a country with a modern history as tumultuous as South Korea, 2016 has been an eventful year.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 17, 2016
Scientific discoveries inspire amid a turbulent 2016
A number of the notable science stories of the past year are, quite literally, out of this world.
When will Japan intervene to support the yen?
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has reiterated the government's readiness to take an appropriate action as the yen continues to slide against the U.S. dollar.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
Yen rebounds strongly after first slide past ¥160 since 1990
The yen dropped to ¥160.245 per dollar on Monday before heading into the other direction to ¥155.01 amid speculation of an intervention by Japanese currency authorities.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

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