Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 27, 2015

Okinawa's lobbyist-in-chief scores a subtle win in Washington

Chie Mikami's new documentary, "Ikusabanu Todomi" (which loosely translates as "Bring the War to an End"), is about the protests against the new U.S. Marine Corps base in Henoko, Okinawa. Her previous film, "Hyoteki no Mura" ("The Targeted Village"), was about protests against the deployment of the controversial...

BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING

Jun 27, 2015

Home electronics market loses its spark

On May 25, Yamada Denki Co., the largest home electronics retailer in Japan, announced that it would be closing 46 outlets. Given that the stores had been losing money for at least a year and Yamada operates more than 1,000, the announcement wasn't surprising, though the swiftness of its actions was....

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Jun 26, 2015

Countries with a pro-Japanese slant; the detective who loved criminals; CM of the Week: Asahi Beer

The theme of "Mirai Seiki Zipangu" ("Future Century Japan"; TV Tokyo, Mon., 10 p.m.) is Japan's role in the world, and the series has a subseries covering countries with a "pro-Japanese" slant that most Japanese "don't know about."

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 20, 2015

A final indignity for those who built Japan

The first time I visited the Sanya district in Tokyo's Taito Ward, I saw a lot of men drunk and passed out in the street and assumed they were all homeless, but as it turned out most worked and rented rooms in the area.

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Jun 19, 2015

Actresses enter a parallel universe; three species of romance; CM of the Week: Big

The comedian-turned-scriptwriter Bakarhythm specializes in surreal "what if" situations. In the new drama "Kamoshirenai Joyutachi" ("Maybe Actresses"; Fuji TV, Tues., 10 p.m.) he focuses on three famous Japanese actresses and places them in a parallel universe where they didn't become famous.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 13, 2015

Japan's masochistic approach to immigration

The Asahi Shimbun's online newsmagazine, Webronza, recently featured a conversation between former Asahi reporter Mieko Takenobu and sex-goods purveyor Minori Kitahara. They discussed the latter's brief imprisonment after being busted for displaying "salacious material" at her store associated with the...

BUSINESS / Economy / YEN FOR LIVING

Jun 13, 2015

Suntory gains ground in battle of the machines

Suntory Beverage is buying a bigger piece of a shrinking but lucrative pie with its purchase of the Japan Tobacco's vending machine subsidiary.

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Jun 12, 2015

Women in jungles and deserts; George Clooney and super-fabulous people; CM of the Week: Daiwa Securities

This week's special two-hour "life with ups-and-downs" edition of the travel show "Sekai Naze Soko ni Nihonjin" ("Why Are Japanese People in That Part of the World?"; TV Tokyo, Mon., 9 p.m.) focuses on two women, one working in a tropical jungle, the other living in the desert.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 6, 2015

Blame batted about for stadium blunder

The media is still very positive about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but its ardor has cooled significantly with regard to the way the central government is holding up its end of the bargain.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS

Jun 6, 2015

Watch out for hidden hazards of buying land

When we were looking for property we consulted topographical maps prior to checking a particular piece of land in person. Understanding the elevation of a plot is important if you're buying land near the coast or along a river. In the event of flooding or a tsunami, it's obviously better to be located...

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Jun 5, 2015

Analysis of a Japanese princess; the eternal struggle of the left-handed; CM of the Week: Uniqlo

Knowing about Japan's Imperial Family is considered very important, which is why the Broadcasting Ethics and Program Improvement Organization is recommending young people watch the two-hour special, "Nippon no Princess Monogatari" ("The Story of Japanese Princesses"; Fuji TV, Tues., 7 p.m.).

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 30, 2015

A media circus surrounds Japan's animal acts

The Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums has voted to stop buying dolphins captured during drive hunts conducted by fishermen in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. For the past decade, the town has received a great deal of negative publicity because of its dolphin slaughter, and the World Association...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 23, 2015

Lowball nuclear pitch is fooling no one

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced the results of a review of energy production costs, which concluded that nuclear will remain the cheapest alternative for Japan over the next 15 years while pointing out that the calculations took into consideration the...

BUSINESS / Economy / YEN FOR LIVING

May 23, 2015

Phone users in Japan still paying for plenty of stuff they don't need

Despite efforts to shake up competition in the cellphone market, consumers are paying more than ever for mobile services.

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

May 22, 2015

Queen of Japanese media; king of singer-songwriters; CM of the Week: P&G

Queen of all Japanese media, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, will celebrate the 10,000th installment of her long-running daily talk show, "Tetsuko no Heya" ("Tetsuko's Room"; TV Asahi, Wed., 12 noon), with two very special guests, Masahiko Kondo and Noriyuki Higashiyama, considered, respectively, the No. 1 and No....

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 16, 2015

JCP gains ground, but not column inches

Years ago a Japanese acquaintance applied for a green card when her American husband decided to move back to the United States. Someone told her she should not say she once voted for the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) during her interview, otherwise U.S. Immigration would reject it. As far as I know,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 9, 2015

It's all fun and games until war breaks out

Not far from where I live is a kind of amusement park where you can play soldier. It has a lot of chain-link fences and gray structures that look like bombed-out buildings. On weekends, men, and sometimes women, dressed in camouflage and armed with replica air rifles, re-enact the kind of military operations...

BUSINESS / Economy / YEN FOR LIVING

May 9, 2015

Stores struggle to adjust in a shrinking Japan

From McDonald's to izakayas and konbinis, food outlets are learning the hard way that as Japan's population drops, so will consumption.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 2, 2015

Progress is slow when it comes to societal views on adoption

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction went into effect here on April 1, 2014, but there is another Hague treaty that Japan has yet to sign.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS

May 2, 2015

Garden states: looking good on the outside

One problem with designing your own house is that you don't necessarily know what it's going to be like until it's finished. The company we hired to build ours doesn't make model homes the way some housing companies do. It's one of the reasons we chose them, since models add to the price of the product....

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