author

 
Menu
Search
 
April 08, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
Tomoko Otake

Meta

Twitter

@Tomoko_Otake

Tomoko Otake
Tomoko Otake is a senior writer with a strong interest in health, medical and social issues. A native of Nara Prefecture, she obtained an M.A. in journalism from The University of Montana.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2013
Pulvers wins Noma translation prize
Roger Pulvers, a noted writer and veteran contributor to The Japan Times, has won the 19th Noma Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature, major publishing house Kodansha Ltd. said.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 29, 2013
Revamped Kabukiza theater aims to charm a new audience
The Kabukiza is back — with big ambitions and aspirations to make the nation's classical theatrical entertainment more attractive to a 21st-century audience.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 14, 2013
Miyabi Matsuoka takes an enlightened approach to teaching the harp
To Miyabi Matsuoka, the harp is a mirror that reveals who you really are. She says she can tell the personality of a harp player by the way he or she manipulates the instrument, which affects the sound they create.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 10, 2013
Filmmaker captures the 3/11 stress of Tohoku's deaf
Nobuko Kikuchi, a 72-year-old resident of Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, couldn't hear the emergency sirens that followed the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 3, 2013
Japanese women strive to empower themselves
When it comes to gender equality, Japan has never failed to disappoint.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 3, 2013
Yukari Horie: Making life easier for working moms
Yukari Horie, 30, is managing director of Arrow Arrow, a Tokyo-based NPO that offers consulting to companies with female workers who are in the later stages of their pregnancy or who have just become moms and are wondering how to adjust their work styles to accommodate their life needs. Horie's group,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 3, 2013
Maco Yoshioka: Battling the postpartum blues
Maco Yoshioka is the founder of Madre Bonita, a nonprofit group that offers postpartum fitness programs for women using elastic exercise balls. Yoshioka, 40, who studied sports physiology at the University of Tokyo, says she became aware of physical and mental difficulties for new mothers when, in the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 3, 2013
A visit to Usa, the Japanese city that knows how to win
It is the time of the year when many people get nervous about winning and losing. Students are cramming hard to pass entrance exams to get into the high schools and colleges of their dreams.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 3, 2013
Yu Negoro: Documenting the gender imbalance
Yu Negoro, 40, is a documentary filmmaker who has delved deep into the issues of gender and sexuality in Japanese society. Her first project was a series of three short films dealing with women suffering from eating disorders, a condition Neguro suffered in her 20s. Attributing her problems partly to...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 1, 2013
Sample Okinawan flavors on Yokohama walk
In order to escape the current harsh winter weather, some of us might be planning a getaway to somewhere nice and warm, such as Okinawa. But for the rest of us who can't actually make the trip to Japan's delightful subtropical region and lie on a beach, there's "Little Okinawa" in Yokohama.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 19, 2013
Sewing words for thought
Some words can evoke powerful images, values and stereotypes that have crept into our subconsciousness to sometimes dictate the way we think or behave. For Ruri Clarkson, this is something that needs to be challenged in Japan, and which she does herself with art.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 17, 2013
Tracing time's passing through faces of Tokyo
Petri Artturi Asikainen would regularly accost strangers in Tokyo, on the streets, in parks or bars and on trains. With a high-end Nikon D3 digital SLR in his hands, the lanky and bespectacled Finn would ask — somewhat timidly summoning one of the few Japanese phrases he had memorized: "Can I take...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 15, 2013
Skiers, head toward the lights
Skiers and snowboarders who pass through JR Nagano Station should make the effort to take a short side trip to nearby Zenkoji Temple during the week starting Saturday. Wooden buildings that line the street approaching the popular temple will be lit up in five colors for the annual Nagano Tomyo Festival....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 3, 2013
Hidetoshi Masunaga: making revolution through the Constitution
On Dec. 14, 2012, two days before the Lower House election in which the Democratic Party of Japan headed by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was eclipsed as the conservative Liberal Democratic Party swept back to power in a landslide, a one-page advert with a huge banner headline appeared in a vernacular...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Feb 1, 2013
Carp expo hopes to make waves with enthusiasts
The love of nishikigoi, an ornamental carp with characteristically red and black patterns, has recently spread worldwide, spawning a variety of koi (carp) clubs, associations and periodicals in various regions and languages. Anyone interested in taking a peek into this vibrant hobbyist culture of keeping,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 30, 2013
Local 3-D printing pioneers make it easy for all to join in
Whether it's hobbyists making toys, designers prototyping products or a doctor creating artificial organs, the 3-D printing boom has clearly hit Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 30, 2013
'Printed' copies of human organs can help surgeons and patients alike
Maki Sugimoto believes that 3-D printers can take medicine — and mankind — to the next level.
LIFE / Lifestyle / WEEK 3
Jan 19, 2013
Turnip-tossing turns up trumps for trader
Yoshio Otsuka's years of striving to revive a near-extinct strain of turnip known to have been grown some 400 years ago in the Shinagawa district of today's central Tokyo recently struck pay dirt in a most unexpected fashion.
LIFE
Jan 13, 2013
What Japan needs to do
With its economy spluttering, large parts of its northeastern region still devastated by the effects of the mammoth Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 — and releases of radioactive materials that followed — its population shrinking and aging at unprecedented rates and its citizens despairing of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 30, 2012
Testing out tourism in Tohoku
Some, though not all, of our travels change our lives; they cultivate sensibilities, shape values and alter our outlook on things. One such trip I experienced was a sixth-grade school excursion to Hiroshima when, at the Peace Memorial Museum, I saw photographs of people who had suffered massive burns...
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
Japan responds to Trump's tariffs with a polite phone call and request
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attends a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington on Feb. 7.
‘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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)
BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER