Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 27, 2018

Is artificial intelligence killing Japan's banks?

As part of an ongoing series about artificial intelligence, the Asahi Shimbun on Jan. 11 published a story that asserts the financial industry has adopted AI more readily than any other. Because finance is a data-driven endeavor, designing AI software to do things such as read and analyze reams of economic...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 20, 2018

Debate grows over paying compensation to Olympic 'volunteers'

A constant concern about the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics is its cost. Projected operating expenses for the games as of the end of last year was ¥1.35 trillion based on calculations made last May. Although the figure is smaller than it once was, the International Olympic Committee says it is still...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 13, 2018

Press failing to question the legal process

To ring in the new year, TBS Radio’s “Session 22” asked several notable people on Jan. 4 about their predictions for 2018. Michiko Kameishi, a human rights lawyer, commented that she is looking forward to three criminal trials that turn on confessions extracted from suspects. Two of the cases are...

JAPAN / YEN FOR LIVING

Jan 12, 2018

Electric vehicles are here, but are they practical and economical?

The future seems to belong to electric vehicles (EVs).

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 6, 2018

Japan spends scant energy on renewables

Dec. 11, 2017, marked the 20th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty signed by 84 countries who committed to limit the release of greenhouse gases, which are considered the cause of global warming. Japan, of course, was one of the signatories, and a Dec. 14 feature in the Asahi Shimbun reviewed...

COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS

Dec 31, 2017

Lessons about Japan's school catchment areas

A neighbor recently asked us to sign a petition requesting that the local education committee keep a certain elementary school open. Due to falling enrollment, students who attended the school would be transferred to a different one in the near future.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 30, 2017

Japanese media's hits and misses of 2017

The term "fake news" was used in so many different situations this year that it no longer describes an agreed upon concept but rather anything you don't agree with. This is why the U.S. press has had a difficult time making sense of its president's conflation of cynical policy aims with his own deranged...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 23, 2017

Fuji TV's home-improvement wrecking ball

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 16, 2017

Why do some old men age disgracefully?

It's a universal belief that life is unfair, though there are many ways in which people manifest this belief. Some withdraw from the world, while others engage with it in an attempt to correct imbalances. Sometimes this engagement takes the form of anger.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 9, 2017

Without an official father, kids can be stateless

On Nov. 29, the Kobe District Court dismissed a suit against the state filed by a woman in her 60s who claimed that the law that allows only men to deny paternity of a child is unconstitutional, since it discriminates against women. She said the law meant she was unable to register her daughter as the...

BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING

Dec 8, 2017

Abe's free day care pledge may be an appealing solution for the wrong problem

Just before the recent Lower House election in October, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to make public day care services and kindergartens free for children between the ages of 3 and 5 and free for children below the age of 3 if they were from lower income households.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS

Dec 3, 2017

Can a death kill property value?

The apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, where police found the remains of nine bodies in late October is one of 12 units in a two-story wooden apartment building located 10 minutes from Sobudai Station on the Odakyu Odawara line. Each unit consists of one room and a kitchen and, according to various...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 2, 2017

Japan's plan to export arms is lacking ammo

When U.S. President Donald Trump was here last month, he said Japan should be buying more military hardware from America, and seemed to believe it would. Trump's penchant for talking off-the-cuff is well-known, but Japan's reluctance to address the matter forthrightly may have more to do with the fact...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 25, 2017

#MeToo movement confuses media in Japan

During a recent discussion on Bunka Hoso's radio talk show, "Golden Radio," about sexual misconduct in the U.S., the participants wondered if the #MeToo social media movement would catch on in Japan. "Me Too" as a movement was started more than a decade ago by American social activist Tarana Burke to...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 18, 2017

Ad money makes the news world go round

In a Nov. 8 press release, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center announced that Katsuya Takasu, the most famous plastic surgeon in Japan, was no longer a member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery (AACS). Previously, the center had been urging the AACS to expel Takasu because of his public...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 11, 2017

Fuji TV's wishful thinking is food for thought

Since 1987, Fuji TV has owned Monday night, specifically the 9 to 10 p.m. time slot, when it broadcasts fluffy romantic drama series starring the season's hottest actress and often a prominent member of a boy band.

BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING

Nov 10, 2017

Are libraries to blame for Japan's slump in bunko paperback book sales?

Kiyondo Matsui, the president of the publishing house Bungei Shunju, spoke at this year's All-Japan Library Conference, which took place in Tokyo on Oct. 12 and 13. During his talk, Matsui asked the assembled professionals to no longer acquire bunko editions of books for lending in their libraries.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS

Nov 5, 2017

A gut feeling that you need an extra toilet

Everybody knows that Japan produces the most technologically advanced toilets in the world. They pretty much do everything except pull up your pants when you're finished. And one of the more pleasant surprises greeting foreign visitors to Japan is the ubiquity and accessibility of public toilets.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 4, 2017

Abe: Will he be a man of his many words?

Since his big win in the lower house election on Oct. 22, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been talking about proceeding with measures to revise the Constitution, a project that has been close to his heart for most of his political career. However, during the official campaign period he almost never mentioned...

JAPAN

Nov 3, 2017

Tokyo International Film Festival closes with social issues in the spotlight

The Tokyo International Film Festival has always struggled to distinguish itself from other big film events. It doesn't have the cultural cachet of Venice, Cannes or Toronto, and even within Asia it falls behind Busan and Hong Kong in terms of the caliber of works it sometimes attracts. But it always...

author

Meta

Twitter

Podcast

Longform

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

In your social network

In your inbox

In your social network

In your inbox