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April 08, 2025
 

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Philip Brasor
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 20, 2011
The sticky subject of Japan's rice protection
Twenty-five years ago, Japan was a very competitive manufacturing country, and much of its economic policy since then has been in response to trade friction with the United States, which demanded greater access to Japanese markets for American agricultural products in order to offset Japan's trade surplus....
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 19, 2011
Annals of cheap: Only Free Paper
Print publishers find success in the formula of 'make it free, and they will come.'
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 14, 2011
More reasons to spend money on chocolate, as well as reasons not to
Expressing your true feelings, and obligations, with chocolate is a tricky affair.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 13, 2011
K-pop takes on the world while J-pop stays home
Last week, the Fuji TV newsmagazine "Mr. Sunday" looked at Korean pop's success in Japan from two angles. Taking a street-level perspective, the show's host, Seiji Miyane, hung out in Tokyo's Okubo district, which has become "the new Harajuku" because young Japanese women flock there to rub up against...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 10, 2011
Driving is believing: Don't trust manufacturers' mileage claims
What kind of mileage do you get in that hybrid? Depends on who you ask.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 8, 2011
Seniors reconnecting to retail
Creative retailers and caregivers are finding ways to empower the growing legions of elderly shoppers.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 6, 2011
The bitter pill of Japan's high-cost medical treatment
When NHK's in-depth news program, "Closeup Gendai," addresses a pressing social issue, it usually offers possible solutions articulated by experts. Two weeks ago, however, the show covered a problem that seems to have no solution. The subject of the opening segment was a middle-aged man who was diagnosed...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 4, 2011
Strawberries: The gift that keeps on growing
In Japan, there are the kind of the strawberries that you buy for yourself, and there are the GIANT strawberries that you give as gifts.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 2, 2011
For movie freaks some good news and some bad news
Will the last picture show in Japan be in 3-D and only seen on multiplex screens?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 30, 2011
Cultural insensitivity no laughing matter
The tempest in a teapot whipped up by a segment on the British quiz-cum-comedy show "QI" has prompted debate on cross-cultural sensitivity. The BBC has apologized for the segment, which, contrary to a statement issued by Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, did not make fun of its subject, the late Tsutomu...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 29, 2011
Kaiten-zushi chains gird for battle
You got your exclusive high-grade sushi, and you've got your bargain sushi, good for the whole family.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 25, 2011
Hilton Hotels bag white elephant, turn it around
What is a luxury brand hotel like Hilton doing with a hot spring resort in the mountains of Shizuoka?
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 21, 2011
Future of Japanese pension system as cloudy as ever
Rather than overhaul the pension system, the welfare ministry continues to tweak a failed system.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 17, 2011
Love hotel operators lose some loopholes
Laws overseeing the operation of love hotels in Japan get stricter to weed out the fakes.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 16, 2011
Japan's tribe of lonely people continues to grow
Results from Japan's national census last year are dribbling in and the reaction in the media often focuses on one pair of statistics: The number of households is increasing while population is declining, which means that there are a lot more single-person households than there were 10 years ago and...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 15, 2011
More independent women taking out insurance
The number of women buying life insurance is on the rise. Should we be surprised?
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 11, 2011
Got your back: Randoseru makers enjoy a captive, if shrinking, clientele
No surprise that anonymous good Samaritans are giving out randoseru, those boxy backpacks that every Japanese schoolchild simply must have.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 9, 2011
Cheater exposed by tweeting ex
The micro-blogging service Twitter is an effective PR instrument, but one fraught with risk for celebrities who want to juice their notoriety by connecting directly and on their own terms with the public. Forgoing the filtering function of publicists, they may endear themselves to fans even more powerfully;...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 6, 2011
Telephone swindlers adapt; old folks don't
The 'ore-ore' scam is no longer de rigueur but that hasn't stopped swindlers from bilking money from seniors in other ways.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 3, 2011
'Tis the season for shrines and temples to rake it in
Come the new year, shrines and temples really cash in on a giving tradition.
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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