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Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Apr 27, 2008

Verdy halts Nagoya's run at six

Tokyo Verdy killed off the unbeaten start of Nagoya Grampus to the J. League season with a shock 2-0 win at Ajinomoto Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 27, 2008

U.S. democracy's history of violence

DEMOCRACY WITH A GUN; America and the Policy of Force, by Fumio Matsuo, translated by David Reese. Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 2007, 306 pp., $26 (cloth) As a child in wartime Japan, Fumio Matsuo, now a journalist, and his family were nearly wiped out by U.S. incendiary bombing of regional...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 27, 2008

Travel information, talk show product review, family melodrama

In 2007, more than 8 million people visited Japan from overseas, double the number that visited 10 years ago.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Apr 27, 2008

Ito, Nakamura grow as rivals, swimmers

Reiko Nakamura and Hanae Ito occasionally chat with each other. But consciously or not, they almost never talk about swimming.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 26, 2008

Overrated and underrated — again

Over the past couple of years I have twice offered lists of overrated and underrated aspects of Japanese life as seen from my bespectacled point of view. My glasses aren't exactly rose-colored, but neither do I have the evil-eye. These are just some friendly peeks and pokes at what I have come to like...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 25, 2008

'There Will Be Blood'

It's 1898, somewhere in Southern California. A grit-encrusted silver miner works in his pit, scrabbling for a find. In wordless scenes, in the middle of nowhere — set to a queasy sweep of strings — we see this man fight with nature to get at her resources, sinews bulging as he hacks away with a pick,...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 25, 2008

La Folle Journee au Japon 2008

Musical zing is coming to Tokyo International Forum and the city's Marunouchi district next week when the La Folle Journee (Days of Enthusiasm) festival presents its fourth annual classical-music spectacular, here titled La Folle Journee au Japon.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 25, 2008

It's hands-on in Kyoto

The standard visit to Kyoto is a test of endurance: you stay until you are sick of temples. This comes as a shock to first-time visitors, for while the city is rich in beautiful tourist spots, a true understanding of the nation's cultural heartland remains as elusive as a maiko (apprentice geisha) scurrying...
Reader Mail
Apr 24, 2008

Produce food, not missiles

I applaud the recent decision by the Japanese Cabinet to extend economic sanctions against North Korea. North Korea poses a big threat to Asia due to its hardheaded response to calls for nuclear-arms disarmament. North Korea should feed its hungry people instead of building life-destroying missiles....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 24, 2008

One hell of a time

What wasn't to like about an artist who painted the scroll "Hard Times in Hell," in which the king of Hell and his coterie of demons ascend to paradise in search of more suitable employment?
Reader Mail
Apr 24, 2008

Keep out torch-protection unit

Recently I saw video footage of members of the Chinese government's Olympic Games Sacred Flame Protection Unit -- reportedly from the same paramilitary People's Armed Police that crush protesters in Beijing and Tibet -- roughing up Britons in Britain and Frenchmen in France. It is odd that the Olympic...
BUSINESS
Apr 24, 2008

With credit tight, real estate growth tails off

Japan's real estate market is becoming lackluster after the growth of the past few years due to the ripple effect of the credit squeeze triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage loan crisis.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 23, 2008

Is growth driving us to oblivion?

Last month, when I wrote a column headlined "Apocalypse when? Can three experts all be wrong on looming disaster?," I expected that readers would harangue me for taking up ranks with the pessimists. After all, for every doomster, there seems to be a Pangloss reassuring us that all will be well.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Apr 22, 2008

A prototype in your livingroom

When architect Keiji Ashizawa decided to move his Tokyo studio into a new space last year, he wanted to do something with it before settling in. So he arranged an exhibition last December in which a group of Tokyo-based designers presented all manner of prototypes for commercial products such as the...
Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Pets deserve better food

Regarding the April 4 article "Be wary: It's a dog-eat-dog food world out there:" This article on pet food indicated that in previous years pets such as dogs and cats were fed on scrap food. As a result of being fed on remnant food, pets live relatively short lives. But scientists have since developed...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 20, 2008

Belly-laughs boffin puts mirth to the test

When people laugh, it is often their cheery sounds or the wrinkles around their eyes that mark out their mirth. Yoji Kimura believes, however, that the key to determining the nature of laughter lies in the diaphragm.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Apr 20, 2008

Sojourner promoting game on and off court

There are professional athletes in all sports who fit this bill: They are outgoing, passionate about their chosen profession and more than willing to speak their mind about what they think the powers that be can do to improve the sport on levels.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 19, 2008

Putting faces on the subculture crowd

Sitting in a watering hole in Shinjuku's Golden Gai, meeting new people, exchanging name cards, one is likely to come across a tiny square name card with color caricatures on its front and back.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Apr 19, 2008

Looking in the same direction for four decades

As president of Triumph International Japan Ltd., Koichiro Yoshikoshi helped the women's lingerie maker post revenue and profit growth for 19 straight years by introducing strategies focused on efficiency and swift decision-making.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 19, 2008

A disturbing sign of wildlife

When I first came to Japan, I thought "Where is all the wildlife?" You know, everyday urban-adapted wildlife like we have in the United States such as squirrels, raccoons, and chipmunks. . . Such animals and small rodents can be found living in almost any city or city park in the U.S., but in Japan,...
COMMENTARY
Apr 18, 2008

A passport to peace in the Middle East?

TUCUMAN, Argentina — Daniel Barenboim, the noted Israeli musician, is no stranger to controversy. By recently accepting Palestinian nationality, although in itself only a symbolic act, he will only fuel the controversy about his role in the Middle East process.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 18, 2008

Photo exhibit illustrates effort behind battle against HIV/AIDS in Kenya

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a French organization also known as Doctors Without Borders, open a photo exhibition this weekend showing how HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya, and the medical professionals who care for them, cling to hope in desperate circumstances.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
Apr 18, 2008

"Mongol"

"Mongol"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 18, 2008

'Shaolin Girl'

Chihiro Kameyama, Japan's most successful film producer, is not a man to miss an opportunity. When Stephen Chow's comedy "Shaolin Soccer" became a smash in Japan in 2002, Kameyama had the idea of joining with Chow to make a Japanese spinoff. Now, six years later, we have "Shaolin Shojo (Shaolin Girl),"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2008

How Cheap Trick put the Budokan on the map

The first pop group to ever play Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo was The Beatles in 1966, a concert that caused quite a scandal because of the auditoriums' semisacred status as Japan's premier martial-arts venue. Rightwingers protested the show but in the end the prerogatives of capitalism prevailed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 2008

A simulacrum of the city

'With love from . . ." — it's the kind of message an expatriate might pen. Implicit in it is the warmth in the offering, a written embrace.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat