Search - weekly

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Dec 9, 2007

Japan's 'fix'ation with a risky ride

A group of young men huddle around a bicycle in a small shop named Carnival on the second story of a cream-brick building peering over the Yamanote Line in Shibuya.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 9, 2007

Media shows little respect to family of young murder victims

On Nov. 27, 11 days after 58-year-old Keiko Miura and her two preschool grandchildren went missing from Miura's home in Kagawa Prefecture, and the same day Miura's brother-in-law Masanori Kawasaki was arrested for their murder, the online Ohmy News service compared the coverage of the incident to that...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Dec 7, 2007

Winging it in Ota Ward

Ota Ward is totally fly. For starters, it hosts Haneda, the only airport actually situated in Tokyo's 23 wards. Although a plane would come in handy in navigating this southernmost and largest of the city's wards, you'd miss out on roasting wieners at Ota's weekend barbecue hot spot, Jonanjima Seaside...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 4, 2007

Digital terrestrial TV coming but work remains

More than half a century has passed since commercial television debuted in Japan, and now TVs are a main component of the mass culture.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Nov 30, 2007

Golden Kings' No. 1 draft pick Takushi realizing big potential

Ryukyu Golden Kings point guard Naoto Takushi, the No. 1 pick in the 2007 bj-league draft, is living up to the high expectations placed on him.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 30, 2007

Gallows "Orchestra of Wolves"

"Mayday, Mayday/The captain lost control again/The f***ing ship is breaking up/We're going down in flames" is from Gallows' "Abandon Ship.' The catchy, brain- gnawing melody is catapulted into hardcore heaven by Frank Carter's ferocious vocal assault. Maybe he's shouting about the ailing U.K. music scene,...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 27, 2007

Japan zeroes in on homegrown jetliner

On Sept. 30, 2006, Japan retired the last of its only domestically produced airliner, the YS-11.
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 25, 2007

Jobs journal reflects social change

Back in 1980 when the weekly job-seekers' magazine Travail was launched, it was a social phenomenon that gave women the information they needed to independently switch jobs and build their careers. People even adopted the magazine's title (which means "work" in French, and is written in hiragana as torabayu)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 23, 2007

'Midnight Eagle'

Why do national cinemas excel in some genres but not in others? Whatever its many sins, Hollywood makes thrillers that for sheer visceral kicks — car chases! explosions! Matt Damon leaping across a chasm through a tiny open window! — are the global standard.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2007

Japan's schools flunking at global level: symposium

In this age of globalization, firms and businesspeople must compete with their rivals on a worldwide scale. This is also spreading to academicians and educational institutions, universities in particular.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 20, 2007

World's suicide capital — tough image to shake

Japan has attained a reputation as the suicide capital of the world. A 2007 international comparison of suicide rates (per 100,000 people) by the World Health Organization ranked Japan sixth for females, at 12.8, behind Sri Lanka, South Korea and Lithuania, and 11th for males, at 35.6, well below Lithuania,...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 18, 2007

Divorce rate boom special, interviewed female entrepreneurs, dealing with lonely deaths

Divorce is the main topic on the "Megami no Antena Special (Antenna of the Goddess Special)" (Asahi, Monday, 7 p.m.). Hosts Shinsuke Shimada and Shin Murakami discuss the rise in the nation's divorce rate, particularly among older couples.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 18, 2007

Losing the plot and ratings when jumping on the Showa bandwagon

In order to keep people watching a TV drama series every week, it helps to have a loose plot thread — an overarching mystery that remains unexplained while the various story lines develop over time. The protagonist of the Friday night TBS serial, "Uta-Hime (Song Princess)" (10 p.m.), is Taro Shimanto...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2007

'Waitress'

Pie-making is a tricky business, as are most other things in life. In "Waitress," pie-maker (or rather, pie-genuis as she's known to her friends) and waitress Jenna's habitual reply to "How are you doing today?" is a rolling of the eyes and a quiet, heartfelt, "Same old shipwreck."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 15, 2007

A big noise about what?

'I think the best pop is always subversive in its nature," says James Righton over the phone from London a few days after his band Klaxons beat the bookies' odds to win the Mercury Music Prize, a major award that gives $40,000 to the "best" British or Irish album of the year. "Even things like Abba —...
BASKETBALL
Nov 14, 2007

Newton receives weekly accolade

Osaka Evessa center Jeff Newton helped his team win back-to-back games over the Takamatsu Five Arrows last weekend, scoring 32 points in the series opener on Saturday and 23 more in Sunday's rematch.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 13, 2007

Dialect-rife Japan can be tongue-twisting

The islands of Japan have many dialects, and students of the language often realize these variations are not taught in classrooms.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 9, 2007

From trailer park to catwalk

"Sorry, I'm having pure chaos!"
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2007

Biofuel quest, climate, urban flight endangering key staple

havoc with rice crops," Zeigler said in an interview last month. Rice is a staple in more than 100 countries and provides 20 percent of the calories humans consume. About 90 percent of the land used to grow rice is in Asia, with India, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 6, 2007

Sales tax hike economic cure or curse?

Policymakers have waged heated debate in recent months over how to reduce Japan's mounting fiscal debt as the yearend deadline for compiling the government's next fiscal year budget nears.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 1, 2007

Eyes on Japan's crazed radicalism, twisted psychology

This year's Tokyo International Film Festival was a bit different for me. For the first time since 2003 I was not on the jury for Japanese Eyes, a section spotlighting Japanese movies that might otherwise get lost in the glare of big commercial releases. This gave me more leeway to pick and choose what...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 30, 2007

Textbook screening — not always on same page

The spotlight has fallen again on textbook screening as people in Okinawa denounce the government's March instruction that publishers delete descriptions about the role the Imperial army played in ordering mass civilian suicides during the Battle of Okinawa.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 23, 2007

Ships out at sea or troops in a war zone?

The special antiterrorism law that expires Nov. 1 is the hottest dispute in domestic politics and could even determine the fate of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and his administration.
Reader Mail
Oct 16, 2007

Where are the spotless streets?

In his Oct. 9 article, "The vanity in 'green' virtues," David Howell says roads and streets in Japan are spotless except for cigarette butts. As a longtime volunteer garbage collector in our neighborhood in a typical city of the Tohoku region, I cannot agree with him.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 16, 2007

No-tell love hotels cash in catering to the carnal

In any town bigger than a hamlet, you are sure to find a patch of gaudy hotels styled after rococo palaces, Grecian temples, even rocket ships. Some sport a miniature Statue of Liberty on the roof, others lurid neon signs.

Longform

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