Search - alpha

 
 
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 8, 2008

Motorcycle makers battle it out in Vietnam

HANOI — Red roses, field flowers, baskets of vegetables, slaughtered hogs. In Vietnam, farmers bring anything that can be loaded onto a motorcycle to market in the morning. In early evenings, bikers jam the streets as they return home.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / LIQUID CULTURE
Sep 26, 2008

Red Carpet treatment

Like Da Vinci or Mozart, every bartender wants to make something that lives on after they die," says Takahiro Watanabe of the Keio Plaza Hotel's Polestar bar. "A bartender's dream is to make a cocktail that appears on every bar's menu."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 12, 2008

Sonomi

Tell your average Tokyo hipster that there's a subarashi (cool) dance and hip-hop festival taking place in a beach paradise on the far-flung southern coast of Kochi in Shikoku and, before their jaw drops in excitement, you might be met by head-scratching confusion as they try to remember where exactly...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Aug 13, 2008

Gamers can tap into their neural impulses

Head games: A magician's hand may be faster than your eye, but is your eye faster than hands on a keyboard? PC gamers now have the chance to find out with the new Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) from OCZ Technology.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 2, 2008

Asia

When AOR supergroup Asia came to Japan in March last year, all seven dates of their tour sold out. The excitement was, perhaps, forgivable: It had taken the band's original lineup more than 25 years to get here.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 1, 2008

'Half-alien' group foresees disaster, Japan UFO landing

In December, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura caused quite a stir with his bold statement that "UFOs definitely exist." In subsequent clarifications, the government claimed that there have been no confirmed sightings, but if a UFO was to appear, "fighter jets would be scrambled to attempt...
BASKETBALL
Mar 27, 2008

Sea Horses capture JBL title

The Aisin Sea Horses captured the JBL Finals title on Wednesday, topping the defending champion Toyota Motors Alvark 93-79 in the decisive Game 5 at Yoyogi National Gymnasium Annex. J.R. Sakuragi scored a team-high 25 points and grabbed 18 rebounds for Aisin, which controlled the glass by outrebounding...
BASKETBALL
Mar 26, 2008

Sea Horses even series with Alvark

The Aisin Sea Horses forced a decisive fifth game in the JBL Finals, defeating the defending champion Toyota Motors 88-69 on Tuesday at Yoyogi National Gymnasium Annex. Aisin outscored Toyota 30-15 in the fourth quarter, evening the series at two games apiece. J.R. Sakuragi led the Sea Horses with 25...
BASKETBALL
Mar 23, 2008

O'Bannon, Alvark tie series

Forward Charles O'Bannon single-handedly carried his Alvark team to a victory in Game 2 of the JBL Finals on Saturday, scoring 37 points and 13 rebounds as Toyota Motors beat the Aisin Sea Horses 82-76 to even the series at one game apiece. The ex-UCLA player O'Bannon, who was 3-for-5 from the 3-point...
BASKETBALL
Mar 20, 2008

Perennial powers square off for JBL title

The Toyota Motors Alvark and Aisin Sea Horses are perennial powerhouses in the JBL, and as most people anticipated, the familiar names are the last teams standing.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2008

Last chance for millions of Zimbabweans

PRAGUE — As the world rooted for former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in his recent efforts to end the violence in Kenya, many also found themselves wondering whether a weary Annan, or some other global leader, will be battling another fire by the end of this month: this time in Zimbabwe....
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Feb 6, 2008

Tokyo's 'video people' come together

On Jan. 27, a new keyword climbed to the top of the rankings in Japan to steal first place on the blog search engine Technorati. Dougajin — literally "Video People" — was the name coined by organizers of Japan's first video-blogging event, held one day earlier, to describe the country's latest category...
BASKETBALL
Jan 15, 2008

Sakuragi muscles Aisin past Toyota in final

Aisin Sea Horses center J.R. Sakuragi attempted 24 field-goals in the All-Japan Basketball Championship title game.
BASKETBALL
Dec 27, 2007

West wins JBL All-Star Game

The West defeated the East 122-112 in the JBL All-Star Game on Christmas Day at Tsukisamu Alpha Court Dome in Sapporo, but sharpshooter Takehiko Orimo of the East squad stole the spotlight. Orimo, a veteran of the Japan National Team, scored a game-high 39 points, wooing the crowd with an electrifying...
BASKETBALL
Oct 12, 2007

Sea Horses beat Sunrockers in JBL opener

In a sense, it was a typical fashion of basketball. One team build a huge lead early, but the other came back with lots of determination.
Reader Mail
Sep 26, 2007

Losses from forced retirement

The Sept. 13 Opinion page headline "Here's to the rise of the alpha geezer" caught my eye because I now occupy that age bracket. I don't mind the term "senior" because it allows me to see movies for ¥1,000 yen instead of ¥1,800. Geezers in rocking chairs are as out of date as rotary phones.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Sep 25, 2007

Hakuho, and other foreign-born wrestlers, dominate the Autumn Basho

Of the 700 men active in professional sumo less than 10 percent are foreign-born. Of the six divisions in which they compete, only one went the way of a Japanese rikishi at this year's Autumn Basho. The remaining five divisions were dominated by men from afar.
Reader Mail
Sep 2, 2007

Nothing like conventional bombs

Regarding Grant Piper's Aug. 26 letter, " 'Greatest evil' is not apparent": Noncombatants should not be targeted in war, under any circumstance. No matter what countries at war have already done to civilians, it is still illegal to target women, children and people outside the military.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jul 3, 2007

Anticipation tarnished by tragedy before Nagoya basho

At a time when sumo fans were excitedly anticipating the first tournament since late 2003 that boasts two yokozuna, tragedy struck: In late June, a 17-year-old rikishi died after a training session.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 2, 2007

Sony goes drag-and-drop for digital music

Sony's missteps in the world of digital music players provide lyrics for enough blues albums to populate, well, an iPod. But while the electronics behemoth may never script another legend like the Walkman, it refuses to shuffle quietly off the stage. Sony is set to bring out the B100 series of MP3 players....
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 13, 2006

Polonium, peacocks -- and a dead spy

It's one of the biggest stories of the year -- and certainly the most unusual. I'm talking about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy living in London who was poisoned with a radioactive isotope last month. Nothing like this has been seen for nearly 20 years, back when the Cold War...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 21, 2006

Future is now for feel-good Fighters

NAGOYA -- In hindsight, bringing baseball to Hokkaido seems as much a no-brainer as bringing Trey Hillman in to manage the Nippon Ham Fighters.
BASKETBALL
Oct 8, 2006

Kashiwagi triggers Sea Horses' win

KAWASAKI -- Shinsuke Kashiwagi came off the bench and played for only about half of the game.
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2006

Toshiba plans to build LCD TV plant in Poland

Toshiba Corp. plans to build a liquid crystal display television plant in Poland to boost production of large screen LCD television sets for the European market, company sources said Sunday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2006

Softening northern borders

MARIEHAMN, Finland -- It was cruel irony that the Aug. 16 killing of a Japanese fisherman by Russian security forces in the Northern Territories took place just as a group of Japanese and Russian scholars and former government officials were meeting with a group of Alanders to discuss possible creative...
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2006

Koizumi unveils Africa medical research award

The government has formally announced an award named after scientist Hideyo Noguchi to honor medical researchers and personnel working for Africa, with the first presentation scheduled for 2008.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 21, 2006

Waving goodbye to the city

The sound of waves lapping on the shore. The cool sea breeze. Beautiful people wearing very few clothes. Overdressed cocktails. What better way could there be to while away a hot summer's day than a beach-bar crawl along Shonan Bay?
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2006

Matsushita, Hitachi plan to triple LCD panel output capacity

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Hitachi Ltd. jointly said Wednesday they will triple the liquid crystal display panel production capacity at their joint venture in Mobara, Chiba Prefecture.

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly