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November 23, 2024
 

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Philip Brasor
CULTURE / Music
May 2, 2008
Cajun Dance Party "The Colourful Life"
As the five members aren't old enough to play at venues that serve alcohol, Britain's Cajun Dance Party have channeled the creative energy new bands usually spend on touring into their debut album. Their first single, "The Next Untouchable," released a year ago, promotes their appeal magnificently:...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 27, 2008
Weighing up a media culture that sees 58-cm waistlines as the norm
Earlier this month, the French Parliament began contemplating a bill that would make it illegal to promote extreme thinness. Following the death in 2006 of a Brazilian supermodel from complications associated with anorexia, the issue of young women purposely starving themselves for the sake of self-image...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 25, 2008
Cass McCombs "Dropping the Writ"
Because everyone can theoretically sing but not everyone knows how to write songs, solo singer-songwriters tend to live or die by their compositions. Cass McCombs perverts this idea by making his songs difficult to understand, and it goes further than his rumored policy of providing transcripts of his...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 20, 2008
Notes on 'Later Term Elderly People Medical Treatment' joke
Stop me if you've heard this one. A bunch of elderly people are sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office, catching up on neighborhood gossip and their own health woes. As Mrs. Sato goes on about her lumbago, Mr. Kobayashi interrupts. "Where's Suzuki-san?" he says. "He's usually here by now."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2008
How Cheap Trick put the Budokan on the map
The first pop group to ever play Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo was The Beatles in 1966, a concert that caused quite a scandal because of the auditoriums' semisacred status as Japan's premier martial-arts venue. Rightwingers protested the show but in the end the prerogatives of capitalism prevailed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 17, 2008
Enduring anime reveals Japan's ghoulish spirit
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of "GeGeGe no Kitaro," an animated children's TV series about the supernatural that's become a Japanese institution.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 13, 2008
Confusion reigns after 'Yasukuni' doesn't tell us how to feel
The big media-related news story on April 1 was the ongoing controversy over the documentary feature "Yasukuni," screenings of which had been canceled by a number of movie theaters in Tokyo and Osaka out of fear of rightwing protests. That night, NHK's regular 7 p.m. news bulletin did not mention the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 6, 2008
Matsui's got a nice wife, but can she cook a mean hamburger?
As indicated by the content of newspapers like Nikkan Sports and Sports Nippon ("Suponichi"), reporters who cover athletes and reporters who cover show-business personalities are almost interchangeable. Though tabloid sportswriters are expected to have specialized knowledge of the sports they cover and...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 30, 2008
Flying in the face of common sense in building new airports
Several weeks ago while walking through Tokyo's Ueno Station a friend and I passed a poster advertising the new Ibaraki airport. After we boarded our train, we started talking about the poster. Neither of us were aware that Ibaraki had an airport and we wondered why the prefecture needed one.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 28, 2008
Club 8
Johan Angergard should be a major player in the Swedish pop game. He runs the respected indie label Labrador and is a member of three working bands, two of which he leads. Still, he doesn't claim to be much of a scenester.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 23, 2008
You'd have to be drunk to be fooled by Japan's booze commercials
A few weeks ago the Asahi Shimbun printed a letter from a 59-year-old man who complained about a TV commercial for Kirin's Tanrei, one of those beerlike beverages known as happoshu. In the spot, world-famous alpinist Ken Noguchi is seen climbing a mountain, the Gipsy Kings howling away on the soundtrack....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2008
Alice Cooper's psycho vaudeville
Alice Cooper, veteran rock star and all-around showbiz maven, is on the phone from Melbourne, Australia, where he plays two concerts before continuing on to New Zealand and then Japan. The singer promises that his Psycho Drama tour contains "all the hits," as well as the stage theatrics he's notorious...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 16, 2008
Car industry hitting the bumps as wheels lose their cachet of cool
Anew TV commercial for insurance company Tokyo Kaijo Nichido features two newborns lying next to each other in a hospital maternity ward, telepathically discussing the "pleasures" that await them in life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 14, 2008
Blood Red Shoes
After their respective bands broke up in 2004, guitarist Laura-Mary Carter and drummer Steven Ansell of Brighton, England, started jamming and decided to form a band, which they named Blood Red Shoes. Swearing they would always be "just two people" dedicated to the principles if not always the specific...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 9, 2008
Crown Prince could lead the way in effort for mutt emancipation
Next month, the environment ministry and the health ministry will jointly implement a new law that provides subsidies to local government health centers for the feeding of abandoned or captured dogs and cats. The money is designed to make it possible for these centers to take care of the animals an extra...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 7, 2008
Dance or no dance, here's The Locust
The last time The Locust played Japan they took part in what would turn out to be At The Drive-In's first and final tour of the archipelago. Though it was the California foursome's second trip to this country, opening for the now defunct prog-emo group from "Hell Paso," Texas at Tokyo's Shibuya-AX in...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 2, 2008
Compartmentalizing Japanese using prefectural stereotypes
At the heart of the current argument over whether or not to continue the special gasoline tax is a question that gets overlooked: Does the central government have too much control over prefectural governments?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 24, 2008
Rightwingers who scream the loudest allowed to win in Japan
Major media coverage of the legal standoff between the Japan Teachers Union (Nikkyoso) and the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo had little effect on the standoff itself, mainly because coverage didn't really take off until everything was over.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 17, 2008
Vultures circle as idol Koda licks her wounds
If the furor over comments that J-pop superidol Kumi Koda made on the radio a few weeks ago teaches us anything, it's to "be careful what you joke about." There are two problems with using humor in public: Either the joke falls flat and nobody laughs, or the topic is beyond the pale and people are offended...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 10, 2008
There's no way of stopping the poisoned food sent from abroad
Last week, when the Chinese government sent five experts to talk with Japanese counterparts about those pesticide-tainted frozen gyoza (Chinese dumplings) imported from their country, the head of the team, Li Chunfeng, expressed concern over the feelings of Japanese consumers. He also offered a veiled...
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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