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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Nov 29, 2013

Prolific Swedish ambassador indulges passion for haiku

Over the years, Swedish Ambassador Lars Vargo has published 15 books related to Japan, but for the past decade, his love affair with the country has largely been told in one literary form: haiku.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 25, 2013

Lions and dragons of Japan's islands

When I arrived at the workshop of Setsuko Oshiro in August, the sky was a clear blue and the heat like the inside of a kiln, but there were storm clouds gathering, dark thunderheads over the East China Sea.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 18, 2013

It's a dog's life, but architects can find ways to improve it

What would our cities look like if they had been built with a different scale in mind? What if we considered building structures for creatures other than humans? "Architecture for Dogs" explores that idea with an exhibition of 13 architectural works made for specific canine breeds. After debuting at...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 13, 2013

An audience with Sylvie Guillem

There are many wonderful ballet dancers the world over, but Sylvie Guillem is undoubtedly in a category of her own — and not only because of her famously self-willed ways.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2013

The politics behind Japan's modern era of proletarian art

"Art and Literature in Japan 1926-1936" follows the close of the Taisho Era (1912-1926), which was characterized by democracy, artistic experimentation and widespread social self-absorptions by the citizenry in new fashions such as the "beach pajama" outfits of "modern" girls. The successive Showa Era...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2013

'Yosooi'

Covering the aesthetics of clothing, dress style and appearance, this show features black-and-white photographic prints from the gallery's collection of around 10,000 works. The exhibition focuses on the significance of the stylistic appearance of garments and the facial expressions of its wearers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 6, 2013

Wrestling with Verdi's 'foul truth'

Women wearing flashy East-meets-West dresses and men in dark suits frolic drunkenly in a hotel lounge. Behind them can be seen the ends of the hallways for each floor of guest rooms. Couples slip away from the group from time to time, disappear down a hallway and into a room. The whole set is a cylindrical...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 31, 2013

Festival/Tokyo pushes a return to storytelling

In 2009, when Festival/Tokyo took over from the annual Tokyo International Arts Festival, it burst forth with the slogan "Towards a New Real" and the resolve to stamp the city's name on the global arts map.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Oct 28, 2013

Getting published is easy; getting noticed is trickier

How can writers make themselves heard in the age of blog and self-publishing saturation? Japan-based authors offer a diverse range of views
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2013

'Bashauma-san to Bigmouth (The Workhorse and the Bigmouth)'

It's hardly surprising that gaman ("perseverance") is the watchword of many a local movie. Just as their heroes gut through to glory in film after film, real-life Japanese endure everything from deadly natural disasters to boring meetings, telling each other to ganbaro ("keep trying"). How admirable,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 23, 2013

Tears shed for puppets in the City of Love

Japanese photographer/artist Hiroshi Sugimoto is inescapable in Paris just now, with posters all over the Metro for his "Accelerated Buddha" exhibition at the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent and "Sugimoto Bunraku: Sonezaki Shinju" ("The Love Suicides at Sonezaki") at the Théâtre de la Ville...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 23, 2013

'Architecture for Dogs'

Despite being "man's best friend," we rarely design our world around the happiness of dogs.
LIFE
Oct 22, 2013

Apathy is the real enemy in NSA affair

One of the most disturbing aspects of the public response to Edward Snowden's revelations about the scale of governmental surveillance is how little public disquiet there appears to be about it. A recent YouGov poll, for example, asked respondents whether the British security services have too many or...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 16, 2013

'Great Masters of Modern Japanese Painting from the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art'

Featuring pieces on loan from the Hokkaido Museum of Art, this exhibition focuses on contemporary nihonga (Japanese-style painting), a modern form of Japanese painting, which was pioneered in the late 1800s by American art historian Ernest Fenollosa along with his Japanese assistant Kakuza Okakura.
LIFE / Digital
Oct 15, 2013

As viewing habits change, Facebook, Twitter eye up a big slice of TV's future

Talk to your neighbors about their television viewing habits and you will probably find that, although the range of programmes watched is pretty narrow, the methods for receiving them vary wildly from house to house. Some people get their favorite shows via gaming consoles, some by downloading them on...
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 11, 2013

Wales set to restore Dylan Thomas' faded reputation as centenary nears

The little park where he played as a boy in Swansea, on Wales' south-west coast, has had a facelift, and a bronze statue is to be erected outside his childhood home. Manuscripts and rare photographs have been borrowed from an archive in New York, and his quotations have been liberally applied to council...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

Explore the many ways to read cinema

Marcel Broodthaers' films mostly deal with relations between images and words, which is unsurprising given that he was a poet first who turned to film because he came to understand the medium as an extension of language. In their combination, he sought harmony between poetry, visual art and cinema. It...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

Complex issues knitted into the fabric of art

It's difficult to say something new about the Holocaust in face of an immense body of work produced over seven decades. Consequently more outlandish forms of expression are often required to inspire a fresh reaction.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2013

'Turner from the Tate: The Makings of a Master'

British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner's experimental style allowed him to become one of the most prominent artistic figures of 19th-century Romanticism.
EDITORIALS
Oct 2, 2013

Consumption tax raise misdirected

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirms that the government will raise the sales tax from 5 to 8 percent beginning in April. But will the tax hike lead to an economic downturn
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 1, 2013

11 pieces of not-so-conventional wisdom on Obamacare

As we approach the Great Unveiling of Obamacare, Americans are going to see a lot of these talking points repeated as if they're facts. Most of the talking points are not dead wrong — they could be true. But they're considerably more uncertain than most pundits seem to think.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 27, 2013

FYI: Agricultural World Heritage status

After our 3,776-meter-tall friend Fuji-san won the coveted UNESCO World Heritage status this year, many people are wondering what site will win the status next? Only one Japanese site per year can be nominated for the award, and recent reports have said the government is considering a steel works, a...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 27, 2013

When worlds collide

My Japanese language skills mostly stink. And always have.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 22, 2013

Pacman, Peso and Pyongyang

A few weeks ago, a Kickstarter project was posted on the Internet featuring two young men who went by the names of Pacman and Peso.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 18, 2013

It doesn't have to be all true to be the life of Akihiro Miwa

"Miwa has carried on being a true monster (kaibutsu), whereas many amazingly talented freaks have gone back to looking and behaving normally after enjoying a brief boom in popularity," said dramatist Hideki Noda at a press conference last month for "Miwa," his play based on the real-life 78-year-old...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2013

'Roppongi Crossing 2013: Out of Doubt'

Returning for a fourth time since its first installment in 2004, the "Roppongi Crossing" series of exhibitions aim to provide an extensive overview of the current contemporary Japanese art scene. For 2013, the state of modern Japanese art is explored through works influenced by current events and global...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 17, 2013

Eiji Toyoda was instrumental in turning Toyota into export giant

Eiji Toyoda, who died Tuesday in Aichi Prefecture, spearheaded Toyota Motor Corp.'s expansion in the U.S. as the automaker's longest-serving president.

Longform

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