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August 15, 2024
 

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Michael Hoffman

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Michael Hoffman
Michael Hoffman is a fiction and nonfiction writer who has lived in Hokkaido by the sea almost as long as he can remember. He has been contributing regularly to The Japan Times for 10 years. His latest novel is "The Naked Ear" (VBW/Blackcover Books, 2012).
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 23, 2019
Artificial intelligence debate raises more questions than answers
"The human race, version 2" — a thought to inspire hope or fear, maybe a little (or a lot) of both. "We today," says Komazawa University economist Tomohiro Inoue, whose thought it is, "will soon be 'the former human race.'"
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 16, 2019
There are many sides to a great warrior
Almost nothing is known of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's early years with warlord Oda Nobunaga, but by 1570 we see him commanding a detachment, 3,000 strong, in battle against a Nobunaga rival. The peasant boy has come a long way.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 9, 2019
Heisei Era hindsight gives new meaning to established terms
The ubiquitous word "productivity" last summer acquired a new meaning — or at least a new twist. Members of the LGBT community, wrote Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Mio Sugita, "do not reproduce. In other words, they are unproductive. I wonder if it is appropriate to spend taxpayer money on them."...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 26, 2019
End of an era gives Japan a chance to hit the reset button
Maybe we're immortal. It's not a new idea. Christianity's appeal over 2,000 years rests largely on its promise of eternal life. In Japanese Buddhism, the soul passes from life to life — a dreadful prospect, it was held, which only the enlightened escaped.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jan 19, 2019
Toyotomi Hideyoshi: The brutality of victory
In 1590, having already subdued Kyushu and northeast Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi successfully took Osaka Castle after a three-month siege. But with opposition defeated, what happened next?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 12, 2019
Perceived dearth of freedom in Japan's schools reflects wider woes
What a strange place a school is — a world within a world, a society within a society. Kids grow up in it asking themselves, "Is the real world like this?"
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 29, 2018
Year of the Dog fails to answer the tough questions
Sodanē.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 22, 2018
Doors to foreign workers no longer slammed shut
There's no such place as Imizustan. Warabistan is equally fictitious. "Stan" means "homeland" in ancient Persian — hence Pakistan, Afghanistan and so on. A substantial Pakistani community in Imizu, Toyama Prefecture, spawned the nickname Imizustan. Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, hosts a growing community...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 15, 2018
The war that spawned the way of the warrior
Spectacular battle scenes, honorable deaths and tragic pathos, 'The Tale of Heike' is like Japan's very own 'Iliad.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 8, 2018
Second opinion: Should you trust your doctor?
Do I really need this operation? Is this medication really good for me? Does my doctor really know what ails me?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 24, 2018
The Jomon Period: Modern Japanese art with ancient beginnings
Japanese art has a quality all its own. The ancient and the avant-garde merge. Prehistoric figurines seem 10,000 years deep rather than 10,000 years old. And modern art takes us back even as it propels us forward. Manga, for instance, predates its name by centuries — millennia even, you might suppose,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 17, 2018
'The Tale of the Heike' delivers a path for salvation
Some wars spawn myths. Some spawn epics. Some spawn both; others, neither. The 13th-century Mongol invasions of Japan spawned a myth — the "divine wind" that repulsed the invading fleet — but no epic. The 12th-century Genpei War spawned an epic — the "Heike Monogatari" ("The Tale of the Heike")...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 10, 2018
Japan struggles to keep loneliness at arm's length
Society is crumbling into its component elements.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 27, 2018
Moral education may not reflect the realities of life in Japan
What's wrong with the following story?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 20, 2018
Life lessons from the master of noh Zeami
Stately, stylized noh arose from primitive, rollicking ancestors — sarugaku (monkey music) and dengaku (rural music). Two qualities in particular define it: yu016bgen (mystery) and monomane (imitation).
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 13, 2018
Natural disasters shake the nation to attention in 2018
You wake to pitch blackness, the house shaking crazily. Nightmare? Yes — a waking one. "Where are my glasses?" You're helpless without your glasses. The shaking gets worse.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 29, 2018
Few question the death penalty for heinous crimes
Should murderers be put to death? Yes, says Japan. No, says (increasingly) much of the rest of the world. Japan swims against the current.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 15, 2018
News outlets fret over the nation's docile democracy
"Nazism." "Fascism." "1984." "Kamikaze." Strong words, suggestive language. It's going mainstream.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 15, 2018
The long struggle to become international
Eighth-century Japan was an infant civilization. Its prehistory had been long. Awakened at last, Japan drank eagerly from the source: China, then at its creative peak.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 8, 2018
Japan loses sleep over a variety of modern-day issues
"O sleep, o gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse" — Shakespeare, as usual, says it best.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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