Judit Kawaguchi - The Japan Times

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Apr 23, 2009

Wataru Takekuma, 36, is a government worker in Toyama Prefecture's Kurobe City. With a population of 43,000, Kurobe is one of the four areas in Japan that made it to the 2008 UNESCO list of the 12 most abundant subsurface water resources in Asia. Takekuma was born and raised in this town where people...

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Apr 9, 2009

Tenkai Tsunami

Tenkai Tsunami, 24, is the World Boxing Association (WBA) female super flyweight world champion, a title she earned after only four years of training with Toshihiro Yamaki, who introduced women's boxing to Japan in 1999. At 160 cm and 52 kg, Tsunami is a petite right-handed powerhouse famous for a mean...

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Mar 26, 2009

Makeup artist Yukiko Takeda

Yukiko Takeda, 37, is chief makeup artist for Watosa, a skincare line created by famous beauty guru Sablo Watanabe. For the past 15 years, Yukiko has been making women look and feel so beautiful that over 80 percent of her first-time clients turn into hardcore fans who need their fix of "Yukiko magic"...

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Mar 12, 2009

Nihon Rikagaku President Yasuhiro Oyama

Yasuhiro Oyama, 76, is the president of Nihon Rikagaku Industry, known not only for being the first chalk-maker to launch dustless chalk in Japan, but for the employees who make its products: 54 out of the company's 74 employees are mentally challenged, with 60 percent of them having an IQ lower than...

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Feb 26, 2009

Jazz Taxi driver Toshiyuki Anzai

Toshiyuki Anzai, 67, is a cabbie in central Tokyo whose love of jazz drove him to start a unique Jazz Taxi service. His 90-minute cruises pair cityscapes with the most fitting music. Anzai plays songs that match not only the view but his passengers' moods — though he is partial to jazz, he sometimes...

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Feb 12, 2009

State minister Seiko Noda

Seiko Noda, 48, is Japan's state minister in charge of science and technology policy, food safety, consumer affairs and space policy. As a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and of Prime Minister Taro Aso's Cabinet, she is entrusted with running 21 different departments. Not one to crack under...

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Jan 29, 2009

Author/physician Shigeaki Hinohara

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world's longest-serving physicians and educators. Hinohara's magic touch is legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke's College of Nursing. After World...

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Jan 29, 2009

Author/physician Shigeaki Hinohara

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world's longest-serving physicians and educators. Hinohara's magic touch is legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke's College of Nursing. After World...

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Jan 15, 2009

Wildlife attendant Pat Kim

Pat Kim is a wildlife attendant at the Hyatt Regency Guam, where she takes care of the exotic birds in the hotel's gardens. Since the arrival of a flock of baby parrots in Guam 15 years ago, Kim's been a virtual mom to them, nursing eight little macaws and two cockatoos into the magnificent creatures...

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Dec 30, 2008

Koji Murofushi

Koji Murofushi, 34, is a two-time Olympic medalist hammer thrower — with a gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and a bronze in Beijing this year — and the Asian record holder at 84.86 meters (2003). He's been a national champion 14 times in a row, and at the Asian Games, his efforts earned him the...

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Dec 23, 2008

Handwriting expert Koshu Morioka

Koshu Morioka, 75, is the founder of the Japan Graphologist Association and the nation's foremost authority on the study and analysis of handwriting. Morioka started out as a psychologist, until his love of calligraphy eventually drew him to graphology. In his illustrious 30-year career, he has examined...

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Nov 25, 2008

Ruth Hetcamp

Ruth Hetcamp, 75, is the founder of Tokyo Inochi-no-Denwa (Lifeline), Japan's first telephone counseling service. Ruth moved to Japan from Germany in 1960 to offer face-to-face counseling to working girls in Tokyo's red-light districts. In time, she recognized the potential of a confidential, anonymous...

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Nov 11, 2008

Comedian Esper Ito

Comedian Esper Ito is famous for putting millions of TV viewers — and even Japan's funniest entertainers — in stitches. Wrapped in a gold cape and sporting red tights, he cuts a tragicomic figure, a court jester who's never afraid of risking bodily harm as long as he can make others' lives more...

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Oct 28, 2008

Paul and Neeta Daswani

Paul (61) and Neeta (60) Daswani are the owners of Sati's, a legendary clothing store in Okinawa City in the center of Okinawa Island. Since 1978, Sati's has been a one-stop shopping haven for hot tailor-made suits with cool matching accessories. Here beach bums turn into jazz cats thanks to the Daswanis'...

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Sep 23, 2008

Vivienne Sato

Vivienne Sato is a unique cultural concierge in Tokyo, full of the lowdown on both high art and mass culture. Vivi knows what and who's happening in the city 24/365, and if she's present, the party is on till the wee-wee hours. Always dressed to the nines — and often to the nine hundreds — with her...

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Sep 9, 2008

Tatsuo Asakura

Tatsuo Asakura, 29, is a driver on the Flower Nagai Line, a tiny one-car train in the middle of Yamagata Prefecture's rice and wheat fields. Although it's the only form of transportation for school children and the elderly who live in farmhouses scattered around the valley, the dire financial straits...

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Aug 26, 2008

Dewi Sukarno

Dewi Sukarno, nee Naoko Nemoto, 68, is the widow of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. When she married him in 1959, the then 19-year-old Japanese beauty was no accidental Cinderella: From age 5, she had meticulously prepared herself for a leading role in history. Much like Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the...

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Aug 12, 2008

"Harry Potter" translator Yuko Matsuoka Harris

Yuko Matsuoka Harris, age 64, is the translator of the "Harry Potter" books in Japan and the president of the series' Japanese publisher, Say-zan-sha. Similar to the series' Hermione, Matsuoka has always been exceptional: As one of the best simultaneous interpreters in Japan, during her 30-year career...

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Jul 8, 2008

Cherry farmers Mitsuyo and Shunji Ono

Shunji Ono, 71, and his wife Mitsuyo, 70, are farmers in Yamagata Prefecture's Sagae City. Besides taking care of the rice paddies their ancestors have tended for hundreds of years, the Onos are famous for growing Sato Nishiki, the sweetest and most expensive Japanese cherries. Developed about 90 years...

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Jun 24, 2008

Women's shoe designer Moe Enomoto

Moe Enomoto, 28, is a women's shoe designer whose Sellenatela brand is carried by exclusive stores in Tokyo's Ginza and Daikanyama districts, and in San Francisco's hip Venus Superstar Boutique. Fascinated by beauty and driven by a desire to empower women of all lifestyles, Moe hopes that her shoes give...

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