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November 24, 2024
 

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Roger Pulvers

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Roger Pulvers
Roger Pulvers is an author, playwright, theater director and translator who divides his time between Tokyo and Sydney. He has published more than 40 books. His latest book in English is "The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 11, 2012
Japan's disasters must prompt a radical rethink of citizens' quality of life
It's a long time now since my first visit to Uluru, the stupendous sandstone formation in Australia's Red Center that European settlers called Ayers Rock, but which has now officially reverted to the name by which it was always known to the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people. I had never before seen any...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 4, 2012
In the realms of true love and devotion, few could fault Akiko Koyama
On Feb. 21, 1996, Akiko Koyama, the actress wife of renowned film director Nagisa Oshima, received a phone call at her home in Kugenuma Kaigan, Kanagawa Prefecture. It was from an official at the Japanese Embassy in London.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 26, 2012
Welcome to the world we've made but don't want to share with children
"Love ... casts itself on persons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be hateful, contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. ... It seems as if, in making a marriage, either the individual or the interest of the species must come off badly."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 19, 2012
Has anything changed? Americans still feel the need for moral supremacy
When he published his brilliant cartoon in the Washington Post on Dec. 12, 1961, American cartoonist Herblock, may, oddly enough, just as well have been addressing one of the primary concerns of today's political debate in the United States.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 12, 2012
Depression is a national ailment that demands open recognition in Japan
The greatest public health issue facing the people of Japan today is not cancer. It is not vascular diseases than can cause heart attacks and strokes. It is not the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in the ever-rising number of the elderly.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 5, 2012
Facts, facts and more facts: 'Education' in Japan now only befits the past
Last week in Counterpoint I wrote about the three deep gaps crisscrossing this country, turning it into a kakusa shakai (society of disparities). These rifts, amply recognized today among the populace and in the media, are: the income, or wealth, gap; the goal gap; and the education gap.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 29, 2012
In disparity-ridden Japan, don't mind the gaps — just get out of them
This is a nation of gaps.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 22, 2012
Self-effacement is a fine thing, but does Japanese culture take it too far?
What is it that has aided the people of Tohoku in coping with the tragedy inflicted on that region of northeast Honshu by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011? The entire world marveled at their resilience, courage and stoic altruism.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 15, 2012
Recall, for inspiration, that young people made the last 'Japanese Spring'
How can Japan extricate itself from the morass it sank into two decades ago when its asset-inflated bubble burst? This is the question on nearly everyone's mind in this country today. One thing is for sure: You can't get out of quicksand by pulling on your own hair.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 8, 2012
Akira 'Harry' Mimura: A life uniquely focused on both sides of the Pacific
"Iwas put in charge of this unbearably painful filming job. Even if you consider a war between two countries to be unavoidable, why, you wonder, must innocent civilians be forced to go through such suffering?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 1, 2012
For how much longer will Japan's fate remain in the hands of amateurs?
As we enter into a new year in which last year's greatest event is still, dreadfully, uppermost in the mind of everyone in Japan, let's pause to think hard about the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, the tsunami it triggered, and the release into the environment of radioactive substances from...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 25, 2011
It's time to turn over a new leaf in the sheaf of identities we carry with us
Far be it from me to put soot in Santa's chimney, but there is a pet peeve I've just got to get off my chest.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 18, 2011
Their spirit seems willing but young Japanese are hesitant to get hitched
Back in the days of "there's gold in them thar hills," one of the prospectors' doleful refrains boasted the title "My Girlfriend's a Mule and a Mine." Across the Pacific and some 150 years on, I wouldn't be surprised if an echo of that plaintive air were not about to catch on among young Japanese males...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 11, 2011
Japanese artistry, by design, melds time and space into all its creations
Among the greatest of Japan's gifts to the world is surely the gift of design.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 4, 2011
U.S. base plan reveals obsequious Australia's frail sense of nationhood
"The unbreakable alliance." That is how U.S. President Barack Obama characterized the tie between his country and Australia in a speech to the Australian Parliament on Nov. 17, 2011.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 27, 2011
Jewishness infuses the works of Ben Shahn — even his Japanese ones
What does it mean to be a Jewish artist or writer? Is one obliged to assert one's Jewishness — ethnically, religiously, culturally — in order to be seen as such? Or are all Jewish creators by definition "Jewish" creators, even those who create little with what can be considered "Jewish content"?...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 20, 2011
A lost gem found confirms who was the father of Japanese filmmaking
In July 1959, Japan's leading film magazine, Kinema Junpo, published a list of what it hailed as "The best 10 Japanese films of all time." This list included works by such acknowledged masters as Mikio Naruse, as well as the young but by then amply acclaimed Akira Kurosawa.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 13, 2011
Will trickle-down class discrimination rob Britain of what's so great?
Britain may be broken, but London is hot. A recent trip to the city exhilarated me.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 6, 2011
'American Jesus'
Iwas thrilled when, around Easter this year, I received an email from a leading American publishing house.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 23, 2011
Post-Fukushima, 'they' can no longer be trusted — if ever they could
Every year when I was a child, my parents would take my brother and me from our Los Angeles home to Las Vegas on vacation. Back then in the 1950s, Vegas was still a family-oriented holiday destination. Dad would drop a few bucks at the crap table while the rest of us basked in the sun.
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Woman dies after train collides with car in Tochigi
A Moka Railway train car
Japan will spend ¥325 million in government funds on Princess Yuriko's funeral
Princess Yuriko waves during the New Year's public greeting at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in January 2019.
133-year-old Kyushu railway station remains to be partially preserved
The remains of the original Moji Station in Kitakyushu
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
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.

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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