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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 13, 2011

Furano: A winter wonderland

Here I am, taking a holiday in minus-20 Hokkaido instead of plus-20 Okinawa. I'm either losing my marbles or just a normal Canadian pining for a winter wonderland.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 13, 2011

Living with the bomb

THE DRAGON'S TAIL: Americans Face the Atomic Age, by Robert A. Jacobs. University of Massachusetts Press, 2010, 151 pp., $24.95 (paper) FILLING THE HOLE IN THE NUCLEAR FUTURE: Art and Popular Culture Respond to the Bomb. Edited by Robert A. Jacobs. Lexington Books, 2010, 276 pp., $32.95 (paper) There...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 13, 2011

K-pop takes on the world while J-pop stays home

Last week, the Fuji TV newsmagazine "Mr. Sunday" looked at Korean pop's success in Japan from two angles. Taking a street-level perspective, the show's host, Seiji Miyane, hung out in Tokyo's Okubo district, which has become "the new Harajuku" because young Japanese women flock there to rub up against...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 12, 2011

How 'bout that sumo?

The March Grand Sumo Tournament has been canceled due to bout-rigging. The May tournament is now in doubt as well. Who knows, sumo may be the world's first canceled sport.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 11, 2011

Miila and the Geeks take Tokyo 'riot grrrl' sound international

A small girl, stylishly dressed in a short, black-and-white dress crouches hunched over a microphone, spitting out vocals that might be English or might be Martian for all the audience can tell beneath the thick overlay of distortion; a sax player with crazy hair is engaged in some kind of intense, seemingly...
Reader Mail
Feb 10, 2011

Worldwide problem with 'honor'

Sumo's continued troubles demonstrate a problem that afflicts the world, not just Japan. Some years ago it was safe to assume that all young individuals coming up into the world had been taught certain fundamentals at home: basic things about right and wrong, respect for others, courtesy toward elders...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2011

Kato shouldn't be hanged: lawyers

Tomohiro Kato was mentally ill and lacked the ability to control his actions when he murdered seven people and wounded 10 others on the streets of the Akihabara electronic district in 2008, defense attorneys told the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday, hoping to keep their client off death row.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Feb 10, 2011

Blue moon rising over Tokyo

Comme des Garcons' Marunouchi: no longer alone
Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Feb 10, 2011

J. League exodus a double-edged sword for Japanese game

With yet another raft of Japanese players currently making their European club debuts, J. League fans could be forgiven for wondering what is left for them when the season starts next month.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2011

Sumo-rigging born of necessity?

The sumo bout-fixing unearthed in seized cell phone texts points to a practice that, according to at least one expert, was born out of a need by young wrestlers to survive a short-lived career where the spoils at the top are elusive and the threat of demotion and loss of pay is ever-present.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 9, 2011

Marriage has little to do with romantic love

You want to know the truth about why fewer Japanese are dating, getting married or even splurging on the occasional French dinner for two? We can of course, blame it on the big bad fukeiki (不景気, recession) but that would be a big fat lie.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 8, 2011

Tokyo: What do you make of the decision to publish the book by Tatsuya Ichihashi, prime suspect in Lindsay Ann Hawker's murder, about his years on the run?

Sri Wahyuni
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Feb 8, 2011

Indian works to serve expat enclave

Once you get out of Nishi-Kasai Station on the Tozai subway line, it's likely that you will bump into at least half a dozen Indians in the first five minutes on the street.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Feb 8, 2011

Hooked on U.S., Japan risks going down with it: responses

Following are responses to "Hooked on U.S., Japan risks going down with it" by Brian Victoria (Hotline to Nagatacho, Jan. 4):
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 6, 2011

Tsumago: Living off its past

Tsumago is, indisputably, a charming place. Low mountains swing the former post-town's main street around in a curve of weathered wooden houses, backdropping the scene with the dark green of the firs that cloak the hills.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 6, 2011

The bitter pill of Japan's high-cost medical treatment

When NHK's in-depth news program, "Closeup Gendai," addresses a pressing social issue, it usually offers possible solutions articulated by experts. Two weeks ago, however, the show covered a problem that seems to have no solution. The subject of the opening segment was a middle-aged man who was diagnosed...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Feb 6, 2011

A window on our woods

When I'm sitting at my desk working in my study, I can look up through a large window and enjoy the view of some woods with a meadow beyond. Except that I'm not too happy with the woods, that is, because they belong to a neighbor who has left the trees untended and neglected for all of the 30 years I've...
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2011

Precious Japanese asset

Japan won the Asian Cup on Jan. 29 for the fourth time by taking the breathtaking final against Australia that went deep into additional time in Qatar. In the six matches it played from the elimination round through the cup final, the Japanese squad caught up with their opponent squad to secure a tie...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 6, 2011

Ailing Japan Inc. must combine tradition with a new world view

One of the clearest memories I have of my Los Angeles childhood revolves around a car. By the early 1950s, my parents had managed to eke their way into the middle class; and for Los Angelenos, nothing signified that social status more than the automobile. For my dad, the symbol of this par excellence...
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2011

Egyptian community backs protests at home

Representatives of the Egyptian community in Japan expressed support Friday for the widespread protests in their homeland targeting President Hosni Mubarak's regime.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2011

Less is more for Japan travel buff

Harry Cheng, a globe-trotter who travels about 320,000 km a year, believes a simple list of names is enough to stir people's interest in scenes they haven't seen before. With this belief, he will soon launch a unique travel guide dedicated to recording travel experiences in Japan.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2011

Costs driving steel merger

Nippon Steel Corp. and Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd.'s plan to create the world's second-largest steelmaker is aimed at gaining leverage over raw material purchases and metal pricing as costs soar.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2011

Higashikokubaru noncommittal on Tokyo run

Hideo Higashikokubaru, the popular former Miyazaki governor, would not say Thursday if he will run in the Tokyo gubernatorial race in April.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2011

'Teenage Paparazzo'

A drian Grenier was an actor with a long resume of bit parts before he landed the role of Hollywood actor Vince in the HBO series "Entourage," which launched him to stardom. Apparently not lacking a sense of irony, Grenier was bemused to find that having played a celebrity of whom everyone wanted a piece...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2011

'Tsumetai Nettaigyo (Cold Fish)'

Sion Sono is a self-confessed chameleon, who can switch effortlessly from the laugh-a-minute black comedy of 2008's "Ai no Mukidashi (Love Exposure)" to the heartfelt medical melodrama of 2009's "Chanto Tsutaeru (Be Sure to Share)" and the splatter shock of his latest, "Tsumetai Nettaigyo (Cold Fish)."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 4, 2011

Tadasu Takamine shocks us, yet again

In their endless efforts to make us see things in new ways and generally mess with our minds, contemporary conceptual artists such as Tadasu Takamine may often do more to distort their own view of the world than change the way the wider public sees it. This would explain why, in 2004, Takamine attempted...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 4, 2011

Bashamichi Taproom: Where there's smoke, there's BBQ and beer

The Celebration Ale was flowing and foaming down in Yokohama last month, and for a very good reason. Baird Brewing, one of our favorite small-scale craft-beer producers in all of Japan, has been marking its 10th year in business. And it's done it in style, by opening its newest and best pub to date....
Reader Mail
Feb 3, 2011

Men need to look at themselves

Grant Piper's Jan. 23 letter, "Safe life for celibate homebodies," suggests that young men's lack of interest in sex is the fault of women. Specifically, he cites "feminist ideology," despite the studies that have shown that men who are in relationships with feminist women report the highest levels of...
Reader Mail
Feb 3, 2011

Educational reforms too slow

It was heartening to read — in the Jan. 27 Kyodo article "Job drive by firms to be delayed (until well into a student's senior year)" — that university organizations recognize that the job-hunting system in Japan has negative long-term effects on Japan's economic competitiveness. Unfortunately, the...

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