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April 08, 2025
 

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Philip Brasor
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 14, 2010
Media sheepish over island disputes
Last Tuesday, when Tokyo prosecutors raided the offices of YouTube in order to find the person who leaked those videos of a Chinese fishing boat ramming a Japan Coast Guard vessel near the Senkaku Islands, the Asahi Shimbun published a letter from a man who said he had worked in media for 30 years. He...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 9, 2010
Pachinko parlors pulling in pensioners
Bored? Need to get out the house but nothing too strenuous? How bout a friendly game of pachinko, gramps?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 7, 2010
The darker side of motherhood
In the first edition of the famous book of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, published in 1812, the story that has become known as "Snow White" had a different villain than the one we all know and hate. Snow White's original nemesis was her biological mother. In later editions, the evil queen became...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 5, 2010
Price of mercy can be dear when it comes to transplants
Government policies regarding health insurance coverage of organ transplants aren't exactly making the procedure any easier.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 1, 2010
Annals of Cheap: Pan no mimi
When the recession gives you bread heels, make sweets, doughnuts and pizza crusts.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 31, 2010
Japan's Afghanistan news blackout in the spotlight
Veteran freelance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka was finally freed last month by kidnappers after five months of captivity in Afghanistan. Though the Japanese media reported the kidnapping when it happened last April, and then Tsuneoka's release on Sept. 6, any details about his confinement or what he was...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 29, 2010
What's the real cost of quitting?
Smokers who kick the habit are healthy for the economy ... or are they?
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 24, 2010
Flood control: Destroying neighborhoods to save them
If there was ever an example of government overspending, the long-term flood control project involving super-levees would be it.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 24, 2010
Some recent adventures in intellectual property
Much has been made in the Japanese press about the commercial ramifications of the research in palladium- catalyzed cross couplings in organic systems that won Eiichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki the Nobel Prize in chemistry this year. The long-term studies by the pair and an American colleague, Richard...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 20, 2010
Ramen chain widens definition of 'new graduates'
A ramen chain causes a stir by dropping the tradition of hiring from only this year's pool of graduates.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 18, 2010
Lawyers' livelihoods to get needier
Six years ago, the LDP raised the bar of number for the number of practicing lawyers in Japan but is passing the bar still that attractive?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 17, 2010
Aeon 'digging grave' for temple funerals
Last year, a friend who lives in Tokyo received a letter from the Buddhist temple where her family grave is located. The temple is in a town in Gunma Prefecture, and while none of her relatives live there any more, they visit the grave for the proper seasonal observances.
JAPAN / Media
Oct 17, 2010
Pusan festival delivers rich lineup of movies despite budget slump
Earlier this year, Kim Dong Ho announced that the 15th Pusan International Film Festival, which ran from Oct. 7 to 15, would be his final one as the event's director. Kim launched PIFF in 1986 and quickly made it the most important Asian film event of the annual calendar. As a farewell gesture, the traditional...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 13, 2010
Landlords getting tough with families of suicides
Unless you want to put your family deep in debt, you might want to square things up with your landlord before your final exit.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 10, 2010
Rising racket hoodwinks the have-nots
The gap between the haves and the have-nots continues to widen in Japan, and one attendant development is the rise of hinkon bijinesu (poverty businesses), enterprises that are blatant attempts to take advantage of people who are already poor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 8, 2010
Tokyo celebrates a wide world of cinema
Because it offers few world premieres of high-profile films, the Tokyo International Film Festival is not the world's most significant. European and American festivals get all the good premieres, and South Korea's Pusan International Film Festival, the region's best, has a wider selection of Asian premieres...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 6, 2010
JAL pilots may become wage earners
Will JAL's corporate restructuring plan actually put the ailing airline back in the black?
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 4, 2010
What's in a name when it comes to real estate?
Why oh why is Kichijoji such a popular place to buy a condominium?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 3, 2010
Media racism: How unsportsmanlike
Local favoritism is built into organized sports. At the macro level you have whole countries rooting for national teams at the Olympics or the World Cup. At the micro level you have fans cheering a hometown boy who plays for a team far away. By the same token, nationalistic fans denigrate opposing countries'...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 1, 2010
Japan's toilet business flush with success
Asia loves the Washlet. In fact, some people can't leave home without it.
Nissan says it will not take new U.S. orders for Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs
A Nissan manufacturing complex in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Nissan says it will not take new orders from the United States for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs following new auto tariffs levied by the U.S.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Nikkei plunges in third-biggest daily loss ever amid Trump tariff concerns
Pedestrians stand in front of an electronic board showing the numbers of the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in the Japanese capital on Monday.
Ride-hailing services spreading in Japan
Vehicles used for ride-hailing services in the city of Kiryu, in Gunma Prefecture
Taiwan eyes zero tariffs with U.S., pledges more investment
Kids view the area from a lookout point over cranes and containers at the Port of Keelung, Taiwan, on Thursday.
‘Let’s make it practical’: NATO chief eyes greater defense-industrial ties with Japan
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte plans to visit Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday — his first to the Indo-Pacific region since taking office in October, as he seeks to implement lessons from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Tottori takes a bold leap forward in the arts
The city of Kurayoshi in Tottori Prefecture celebrated the opening of its public art museum with festivities such as a parade that drew 1,000 revelers.
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
By Alex K.T. Martin

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