Search - 2013

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Jan 27, 2014

This week: Kirby's now triple the fun and brands release some monster collectibles

Dealing out some monsters
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2014

Mindless inventiveness for checkered legacies

To say that the late Ariel Sharon's eight-year-long coma had given Israel time to 'come to terms' with his checkered legacy is a cliche that deserves to be swept away.
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2014

Crime rate dips again in Japan

Although Japan's relatively low crime rate has just gotten lower, the police need to take the rising problems with frauds and scams seriously.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 24, 2014

Sony expected to lower profit outlook again

Nintendo Co. shocked investors last week by lowering its profit forecast for the year. Analysts are concerned Sony Corp. could be next.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2014

Gold bar sales balloon as inflation hedge

Gold sales by Japan's biggest bullion retailer surged 63 percent to a five-year high as prices slumped and investors sought refuge from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's campaign to stoke inflation and weaken the yen.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2014

Nomura sees Japanese IPOs doubling to ¥1 trillion in 2014

Nomura Holdings Inc., the nation's top manager of initial public offerings in 2013, expects debut share sales will almost double to ¥1 trillion this year as buyout funds recoup investments amid a stock rally.
Japan Times
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2014
Jan 23, 2014

Japan's economy strong enough to weather tax hike storm

Last year Japan's economy finally refound some backbone, with strong growth, better company earnings, falling unemployment and the key stock index soaring by a half to a six-year high, thanks mainly to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic measures, the so-called "Abenomics."
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2014

The real cause of Japan's renewed prosperity

Despite the apparent disconnect in recent years between the exemplary performance of Japanese students and the nation's stock and currency market fluctuations, the knowledge and skills that students bring to the workplace in the form of human capital make the companies that hire them more competitive.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2014

Is Hollande crisis the sauce of everyday fare in France?

Is the domestic crisis of President Francois Hollande considered the sauce of everyday fare in French society today?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jan 19, 2014

China, South Korea face familiar woes in English quest

Japan isn't alone in its struggles with teaching English. China and South Korea have experienced similar frustrations, but their responses and results have been quite different.
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2014

Kim Jong Un's $5 trillion price worth unification's benefits

As Park Geun-hye searches for ways to compete with China and Japan, the South Korean president is eyeing a rather surprising ally: Kim Jong Un.
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2014

Problematic nuclear accord

Japan should start considering right now how and whether it will assume liability for damages and casualties if a severe accident occurs at one of the four nuclear reactors that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is building with a French company in northern Turkey.
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2014

Assist Myanmar's reform efforts

Nearly three years after its transition from military to civilian rule, Myanmar faces difficult challenges in its path to democratization and economic reform, including the infrastructure necessary to attract business investment and a military-centered constitution.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Jan 15, 2014

Three cases, three paths to legitimacy for Supreme Court

When I began studying Japanese, one of my goals was to be able to read the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's version of The Wall Street Journal. Achieving that goal, however, meant realizing that it is possibly The Most Boring Newspaper on Earth.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Jan 15, 2014

Marketers capitalize on university entrance exam time

Special snacks, underwear, aquatic friends and more suddenly appear in support of academic victory for Center Test takers.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014

Power without purpose in Moscow

By suppressing opposition in Moscow, Grozny and elsewhere, Putin has only put a lid on a boiling pot. Part of the Kremlin's difficulty stems from its remarkable lack of vision — a fundamental failure to understand what Russia is, will be, or can become.
EDITORIALS
Jan 9, 2014

Tepco's flawed turnaround plan

Tepco should further streamline its operations and explore new avenues of business growth, such as the retail sale of electricity in parts of Japan, rather than return to its old model that depended on nuclear power for profitability.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jan 9, 2014

Tao makes the cut in new drama

At age 28, actress and model Tao Okamoto is already one of the few women in history — along with actress Farrah Fawcett and Jennifer Aniston's Rachel character from "Friends" to name a couple — to have a haircut named after her.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 8, 2014

New York's Apples make a big impression

In the last three months since I arrived in New York to study American drama with a grant from the Asian Cultural Council, a U.S. nonprofit dedicated to international cultural exchange, I have been to the theater more than 70 times — including at least a dozen visits to somewhere that's been a truly...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 8, 2014

Sake boom revives rice types as Abe eyes exports

Farmers on Japan's west coast will sow Nihonbare rice this year for the first time in a decade as growers around the country return to older varieties to meet demand for record sake exports.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2014

Will the bitcoin bite the dust?

Bitcoin was one of Oxford Dictionaries' runners-up for the word of the year for 2013. The virtual currency has received a partial blessing from the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. But will it bite the dust because of its volatility?
Japan Times
JAPAN / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Jan 5, 2014

Rebuilding hope, one stitch at a time

Most of the 19 women from the tsunami-hit city of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, who work for Tamako Mitarai's knitwear company had no professional experience as knitters.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 4, 2014

Kenya Hara: the future of design

Sitting at a plain white table in a meeting room high up on the 12th floor of a narrow building in central Tokyo, product designer Kenya Hara asks me to picture a shallow plate in my mind. "Now imagine a slightly deeper plate," Hara says, "that gets deeper and deeper and eventually becomes a bowl."

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?