Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 20, 2008

People keep their eyes on the TV screen — well, at least one eye

When home-appliance manufacturer Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. announced earlier this month that it was renaming itself Panasonic Corp., the company said it was doing so in order to unify its various brand names, which, in addition to Panasonic, included Matsushita and National. This strategy would...

CULTURE / Music

Jan 18, 2008

Spoon tune in to Radio Ga Ga

Spoon always seemed to be on the verge of greatness. Each successive album from the indie-rock quartet since they formed in Austin, Texas, in 1994 has sold more than the one before. Critics, too, have been supportive — even in the '90s when they were the tiniest of blips on the radar.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 13, 2008

Media pundits ponder Japan's prospects for year ahead

With the yearend summaries behind us and the stockpile of New Years' TV variety specials exhausted, the media turns its attention to the business of looking at Japan's future. It's an annual ritual that rarely results in anything edifying, but 2008 may turn out to be a watershed year.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jan 6, 2008

Politicians, dogs and bowels mix it up in our annual media awards

Media Personality of the Year: Hideo Higashikokubaru.

CULTURE / Music

Jan 4, 2008

Linda Thompson "Versatile Heart"

When she and Richard Thompson were setting the standard for English folk rock in the 1970s, Linda Thompson was burdened with interpreting her husband's songs of "doom and gloom." Twenty-five years after their divorce, and two albums into a late comeback, Linda finally seems to be lightening up, at least...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 23, 2007

Japan faces up to a world of gun crime

As is often the case with breaking news stories, the on-site, real-time television coverage of the shooting at the Renaissance Sports Club on the evening of Dec. 14 in Sasebo City, Nagasaki Prefecture, was a flurry of vague incidentals and conflicting accounts.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 16, 2007

Japan stands back as the poor get poorer

One of the year's biggest selling books is Hiroshi Tamura's "Homeless Junior High School Student," a memoir focusing on the 28-year-old comedian's adolescence.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 9, 2007

Media shows little respect to family of young murder victims

On Nov. 27, 11 days after 58-year-old Keiko Miura and her two preschool grandchildren went missing from Miura's home in Kagawa Prefecture, and the same day Miura's brother-in-law Masanori Kawasaki was arrested for their murder, the online Ohmy News service compared the coverage of the incident to that...

CULTURE / Music

Dec 7, 2007

Youssou N'Dour "Rokku Mi Rokka"

Since escaping from Sony's fusion fixation around the turn of the millennium, Senegal's most vital musical export has rebooted his career by exploring styles he only touched on in the past. "Nothing's in Vain" (2003) appropriated chanson and "Egypt" (2005) was a full-throated tribute to the Middle Eastern...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Dec 2, 2007

Japanese media reaches for the stars in restaurant coverage

The first Michelin Guide to Tokyo's best restaurants has sold extremely well since going on sale Nov. 22, which isn't surprising given the huge amount of press it has received. The media love it when a foreign entity pays close attention to Japanese culture, and in this case it's culture you can eat,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 25, 2007

Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over your head

As shown by the media frenzy sparked by lapses in decorum on the part of women like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, the value of a person's sins increases exponentially in direct proportion to her fame. Women celebrities are subject to closer scrutiny for their mistakes than are men,...

CULTURE / Music

Nov 23, 2007

Cut 'n' paste chaos on a stage near you

A seldom discussed reality of the indie-rock life is the day job, since most bands cannot afford to quit work and spend all their time on music. Take The Go! Team, the sextet from Brighton, England, whose debut album, "Thunder, Lightning, Strike," was an instant hit in Britain on release in 2004 and...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 18, 2007

Losing the plot and ratings when jumping on the Showa bandwagon

In order to keep people watching a TV drama series every week, it helps to have a loose plot thread — an overarching mystery that remains unexplained while the various story lines develop over time. The protagonist of the Friday night TBS serial, "Uta-Hime (Song Princess)" (10 p.m.), is Taro Shimanto...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 11, 2007

Boy band's effort to recharge battery in solar debate falls flat

In the fall of 2003, the boy band TOKIO embarked from Tokyo on a journey to cover the entire coastline of Japan in a 1997 Daihatsu Hijet minivan that they had refit themselves with a solar roof-panel and a battery-powered engine. Driving in shifts of two, the five members have, as of the most recent...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 4, 2007

It's where you live, and not where you're at, for those bureaucrats

Last week, the Cabinet rejected a recommendation from the National Personnel Authority to raise bonuses and special allowances for some government employees, believing that the public, disillusioned by a constant stream of money scandals involving politicians and bureaucrats, wouldn't stand for it. But...

CULTURE / Music

Nov 2, 2007

Shins wince their way to success

In a recent article in The New Yorker, music critic Sasha Frere-Jones said that the term "indie rock" has become "an aesthetic description, and no longer has anything to do with (record) labels." If that's the case, then exactly what kind of aesthetic does indie rock describe?

CULTURE / Film

Nov 1, 2007

Curios spice commercial fare

Tokyo International Film Festival remains an ambitious also-ran on the circuit, even if its regional-movie showings give cheer

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 28, 2007

And the government says: Let them eat rice

When I tuned in to NHK's "Nihon Kore Kara (Japan From Now)" on Oct. 20 to watch a live citizens' debate about Japan's food-security crisis, I felt the issue was a no-brainer. Who could argue against the importance of food security, meaning the self-sufficiency of a country to feed itself? And given the...

CULTURE / Film

Oct 25, 2007

Yasukuni through Chinese eyes

'Yasukuni," a two-hour documentary about the controversial Shinto shrine in Tokyo, had its world premiere at the Pusan International Film Festival earlier this month. It comes two years after "Annyoung Sayonara," a feature about a South Korean woman who sued the shrine to have her father's name removed...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 21, 2007

TV in cahoots with the shamed Kameda boxing clan

In the fuss over the Oct. 11 WBC flyweight title match between 33-year-old world champion Daisuke Naito and 18-year-old contender Daiki Kameda, the media has been the object of criticism as much as Kameda, who has since been punished with a one-year suspension by the Japan Boxing Commission for rules...

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