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November 22, 2024
 

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Philip Brasor
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 26, 2004
Japan's abandoned kids live with the label
The murders of 4-year-old Kazuto Hayashi and his 3-year-old brother Hayato by an acquaintance of their father two weeks ago in Tochigi Prefecture has sparked outrage over Japan's insufficient child-welfare system. Though local police and child-welfare officials were aware the two boys were being beaten,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 19, 2004
"Discovered, Covered: The Late Great Daniel Johnston": Various Artists
It's not a new idea, but somehow it's more interesting with Daniel Johnston's songs than with almost anyone else's: one disc of covers by well-known musician-fans, and a second disc with all the same songs performed by the songwriter himself in the same order.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 19, 2004
Chaos theory you can dance to
Things are looking good for Grandadbob. The quirky house music duo of Dave Johnson and Vanessa Robinson released their debut album, "Waltzes for Weirdos," on Fatboy Slim's Southern Fried label to rave reviews in Britain last year and are about to tour Japan with the wild and crazy DJ himself. Now that...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 19, 2004
9/11 conspiracy theories enthrall Japanese audiences
Only three years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American mainstream media are providing scant coverage of ceremonies to mark the tragedy, according to Japanese reporter Akihiko Reizei on the Internet news service Japan Mail Media. A resident of New Jersey, Reizei said that unlike the...
CULTURE / Music
Sep 12, 2004
Joseph Fiddler
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 12, 2004
Adjusting McLuhan's reception of 'hot' and 'cool' media
Almost 25 years after the death of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian writer who coined the term "global village" and philosophized about the impact that television had on our minds and bodies, some of his theories are taking on a larger meaning.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 5, 2004
Bottoms up to those misfiring weather forecasters
Liberal Democratic Party honcho Ryutaro Hashimoto needs all the positive PR he can muster to counteract the bad press he's received since his alleged acceptance of a bribe from the Japan Dental Association came to light.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 5, 2004
Clinic: "Winchester Cathedral"
On the back cover of Clinic's third album is an image of an upright piano made up of separate photographs of parts of the instrument, like one of those David Hockney collages. It's an apt visual representation of the group's music, which is not organic but rather a mishmash of distinct components. Despite...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2004
Prince Po: "The Slickness"
Prince Poetry, who was Pharoahe Monche's better half in the influential rap duo Organized Konfusion, has abbreviated his moniker for his solo career, and it would be nice to think he appropriated "po" to distance himself from the overground hip-hop obsession with money. Taking up where OK left off, he's...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 29, 2004
Media nets gold in ensuring Olympic success
Anyone who has a TV could see that the attendance at the Athens Olympics has been spotty at best. Scalpers have been practically giving tickets away.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 22, 2004
Sim Redmond Band
Alot of bands form during their players' university years, but the Sim Redmond Band could be said to have congealed in the leafy college town of Ithaca, New York, back in the '90s. Starting from the kernel of brothers Sim (guitar, vocals) and Asa (drums) Redmond, the band grew into a truly organic outfit....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 22, 2004
N.K. officials bitten by bulldog Japanese journo makes good TV
One of the problems the Japanese government has to contend with in its dealings with North Korea is the fact there is interaction between the two countries that it can't control, such as that which travels over the airwaves. Being a totalitarian dictatorship, North Korea doesn't have the same problem,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 15, 2004
Still waiting for the final whistle in this Japan vs. China 'game'
A war of words is always preferable to any other kind of war, and for what it's worth the recent controversy over the behavior of Chinese soccer fans toward the Japanese national team at the Asian Cup tournament did offer an opportunity for the governments of the countries involved to express their views...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 8, 2004
Japan hopes to bear it out to gain a World Heritage Site
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization convened the 28th World Heritage Committee in Suzhou, China in early July to screen candidates for World Heritage sites, which are cultural or natural treasures meant to be preserved intact forever. The big news out of the session was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 1, 2004
David Grubbs
'I'll choose what's next," David Grubbs sings repeatedly on the opening cut of his latest album, "A Guess at the Riddle." The Kentucky-born guitarist seems to accept the inevitable, which is one way of looking at his unusual career. Having begun by making fairly conventional indie rock in a group called...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 1, 2004
Koizumi: Robot? Dummy? Dictator? All three?
A comedy troupe called The Newspaper has recently been lampooning Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's performance at the last G-8 summit. According to the weekly magazine Aera, in one skit, a member dressed as Koizumi explains why he committed Japanese troops to a multinational force without first consulting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 25, 2004
Little Wings: "Magic Wand"
Portland, Ore.-based singer-songwriter Kyle Field, who performs under the alias Little Wings, initially comes across as one of those new folkies, like Will Oldham and M. Ward, who appropriate old-fashioned religious imagery for purely dramatic purposes. However, with his fragile, druggy voice and gentle,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 25, 2004
Home is where the financial heartbreak is
If you have a dedicated telephone line, you probably receive calls from sales people pitching new condominiums or single-family homes in your area. The pitch always starts the same way: "Do you rent? Do you pay more than 100,000 yen a month? If you were paying that much a month for a mortgage, you could...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 21, 2004
Staying ahead of the name game
More than 250 artists will be playing at the Fuji Rock Festival and Summer Sonic this year. You've probably never heard of most of them, and since so many bands have similar-sounding names you might wonder at times if what you're hearing is what you thought you came to hear. No one will mistake The Whyte...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 18, 2004
If Japan does get Jenkins, will he really want to stay?
Ever on the lookout for sneaky connections, the media had characterized the July 9 reunion of Hitomi Soga and her family in Indonesia as being rushed through by the Liberal Democratic Party in time to help its election chances July 11. Some people even thought North Korea was in on it.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

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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