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April 04, 2025
 

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Tomoko Otake

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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
Jun 26, 2009
Google should help make copyright agency: lawyer
Google Inc. should help create a Japan-based copyright dispute settlement agency over Japanese books the firm has scanned as part of its massive online library project, a lawyer representing 182 authors in Japan said Wednesday.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 21, 2009
Comedy with a sting in its tales
As a reporter, I don't particularly enjoy being swamped with breaking news to cover. That's when the pressure really becomes intense to get all the quotes and check all the facts in as short a time as possible.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 19, 2009
A chance to grab a bargain
Antique lovers will have a bargain-hunting opportunity at the 129th Heiwajima Antiques Fair, the oldest and the biggest fair of its kind, to be held in Tokyo's Heiwajima district from June 19 through June 21.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 18, 2009
The safety nets for would-be suicides
Every time the National Police Agency comes out with new suicide statistics, media reports tend to focus on the fact that the annual suicide count has reached a new high or has topped the psychologically significant 30,000 threshold for yet another year. (The latest figure available was 32,249 in 2008.)...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 12, 2009
Drinking the Japanese way
Sake lovers will have an opportunity to sample 500 varieties of the drink from around the country at the Nihon-shu Fair 2009, to be held at Tokyo's Ikebukuro Sunshine City on June 17.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 12, 2009
Tsukiji celebrates 350 years
Tsukiji-jishi Matsuri street festival, an annual festival in which locals will march through the streets of Tokyo's Tsukiji district carrying floats of lion heads, will be held from June 12 through June 14 at Namiyoke-Inari Shrine.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 12, 2009
Play portrays Afghanistan's 30 tragic years
A play about the history of Afghanistan inspired by former Afghan ambassador to Japan Haron Amin will be staged on June 16 and 17 at Space Zero in Shinjuku.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 31, 2009
Don't blame me, but I did do my bit
Born a son of a Japanese trading- company executive, and exclusively educated in Britain, Tetsuya Ishikawa got his first taste of life in the financial industry in the summer of 1998. That was during his pre-university "gap year," when he worked on the foreign-exchange trading floor at the Tokyo branch...
LIFE
May 31, 2009
Chronicle of calamities on the road to ruin
The credit crunch didn't happen overnight. Here is a timeline of how trouble spilled out from the United States and around the world, and from the financial industry to many other sectors of the international economy:
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
May 26, 2009
Waseda academic confident country's charms are to be had by the open-minded
Paul Snowden came to Japan 40 years ago — thinking that his visit here would only last for two years, after which he would go back to his native England and settle down as a grammar school teacher.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 24, 2009
The beat goes on in Japan's jazz hub
As one of Japan's longest-standing maritime gateways to the world, Yokohama has absorbed many cultures from the West over the last 150 years — not least its abiding love of jazz.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 10, 2009
Salon chain nails move to manicures for men
A man recently turned up at the Omotesando branch of Nail Quick, a major nail salon chain, for a 45-minute treatment. "It's not like I take care of my nails passionately," the man, in blue jeans and a black hat, said, visibly embarrassed to be interviewed and asking not to be identified, except to say...
Japan Times
LIFE
May 10, 2009
Blurring the boundaries
Every society has its own terminology for a young generation regarded as odd or unfathomable, and marketers are quick to give them catchy labels. It's no exception in Japan, which is now abuzz with talk of men with a soft spot who are becoming known as soshokukei, meaning "herbivorous" or "herbivores."...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 3, 2009
Manabu Miyazaki: Outsider looking in
Born the son of a yakuza boss in Kyoto, Manabu Miyazaki is now a best-selling author. His life may read like fiction, but he raises social, political and media facts in a manner that's as frank as it is hard-hitting
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 1, 2009
A rosy way to spend Golden Week
T he rose-blossom season is coming up, and many places are offering visitors a chance to admire the flower seen in many cultures as a symbol of love and beauty at its best.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 24, 2009
Explaining the science of fear
We all have something to fear in our lives, whether it's death, the loss of money or natural disasters. But how do we develop these feelings of fear? How can we soften or overcome our experiences of fear? And would alcohol help ease it?
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 19, 2009
Pedaling for the planet
One recent early morning, Franz-Michael S. Mellbin, the Danish ambassador to Japan, was to be found preparing for an important diplomatic mission at a rather unlikely venue — on the Tama River cycling track just by the Futakobashi Bridge linking Tokyo's Setagaya Ward and Kawasaki.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Apr 14, 2009
Job firing launched labor activist on career
You may have seen him on TV, commenting on Nova teachers who lost their income and housing when the language school went bankrupt in November 2007. Or you may have seen him marching through Shibuya, leading a chant of "Tatakau zo! (We'll fight!)" and calling for solidarity and action among workers. Or...
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Apr 14, 2009
'Sour Strawberries' spotlights plight of non-Japanese 'trainees'
The plight of foreign "trainees" in Japan, who often provide cheap labor at factories and in farm fields with no access to labor rights protection, is usually not something you discuss leisurely over a cup of coffee or a mug of beer. But people who showed up last month at Ben's Cafe in Tokyo had an opportunity...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 20, 2009
Free of cash concerns, Estonia produces top-class animation
A collection of witty and cynical animation films from Estonia are taking center stage at Laputa Asagaya, an art-house theater in Tokyo's Suginami Ward.
As ‘Buy Canadian’ grows, more U.S. firms say retailers turning away products
Empty shelves with "Buy Canadian Instead" signs are seen in the American Whiskey section of the BC Liquor in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 10.
U.S. tourist arrested after bringing a handgun into Japan
Hyogo police believe the handgun a U.S. tourist inadvertently brought into Japan slipped through security procedures at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture.
Trump unveils 10% global tariff, with Japan levy set at 24%
Trump tosses a MAGA hat to the crowd during an event in which he unveiled new tariffs in the White House on Wednesday.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
Japan’s leader didn’t read the job description
Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader Shigeru Ishiba is facing a political funding scandal that has damaged his reputation and sparked speculation that internal efforts to remove him are underway.
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.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
A Canadian made a weekend trip to Costco a Japanese pastime
Under the watchful eye of Ken Theriault, Costco representative director and Japan country manager, the American membership-model wholesaler has flourished in Japan.

Podcast

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

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan
By Johan Brooks

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