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Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 7, 2017

Lawmaker Yamao resigns from the DP after alleged extramarital affair deepens opposition party's crisis

Long considered a rising star, Shiori Yamao exits the Democratic Party amid an emerging scandal, dealing a blow to the nascent leadership of the struggling opposition.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 8, 2017

Japan suffers from the grand illusion of prosperity

There are so many reasons to hate your job, if you're lucky enough to have one. The top four, according to Spa! magazine, are: stagnant salaries; a sense of being underappreciated and underevaluated; an overriding, unfocused anxiety; and a lost sense of purpose.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 4, 2017

Japan's magazines get misty-eyed over Showa Era brothels

Commencing with the death of Emperor Taisho on Christmas Day, 1926, the Showa Era ran for 62 years and two weeks, ending with the death of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Showa) at the age of 87 on Jan. 7, 1989.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 31, 2016

Japan and the world enter a long night of 'post-truth'

In an essay titled "The Future of Mankind," British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) laid out three possibilities: "The end of human life," "a reversion to barbarism" or "unification of the world under a single government." He saw the third as the only alternative to either of the first two....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 24, 2016

Japan reconsiders and reinterprets the Pearl Harbor attack

In May, U.S. President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to make a historic visit to Hiroshima, the city that became the birthplace of the age of nuclear warfare. It should come as no surprise that Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is scheduled to make a reciprocal gesture of reconciliation...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 17, 2016

Undercover journalist infiltrates Uniqlo

In her Dec. 14 Tokyo Shimbun column, media critic Minako Saito mentioned how the press is excited about the buzzword of the year and the kanji of the year. They are much less interested in another annual prize, the Black Company Award for the firm that most egregiously exploits workers. The nominations...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 26, 2016

Hand over the keys: getting Japan's elderly drivers off the road

On Nov. 12, in the city of Tachikawa in western Tokyo, an 83-year-old female driver — while reaching out her car window to insert a parking ticket into the toll gate machine in a hospital parking lot — accidentally pushed down on the accelerator and lost control of her vehicle. It crossed the road...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 19, 2016

Will Trump join forces with Abe or push him toward Putin?

What do intellectuals know?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 29, 2016

Japanese media cautiously tackle the U.S. election

During the first half of this year, coverage by Japan's print and broadcast media of America's presidential primary campaigns and debates was heavier than usual. But as the two remaining contenders stagger toward the finish line, one gets the impression that Japanese are just as weary as their American...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 17, 2016

'Elderly terrorists' and 'hidden poverty' — Japan's new normal?

It's hard to read Spa! magazine without feeling that something is dreadfully wrong with Japan. Week after week, it pursues themes that soon grow familiar: hopeless poverty, pointless toil, unrelieved loneliness. In just one issue this month (Sept. 6) it tackles, in separate articles, "hidden poverty,"...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 25, 2016

Can foreign media pressure force changes in Japan?

Former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's first-person "biography" of late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, "Tensai" ("Genius"), remains atop best-seller lists. It is interesting to note that when Tanaka was alive Ishihara berated him as a crude opportunist. The years have obviously tempered his view, or perhaps...
EDITORIALS
May 26, 2016

Masuzoe's questionable conduct

The Diet needs to plug a gaping loophole in the Political Funds Control Law so politicians cannot use political money for private purposes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2016

‘Spotlight’: a beacon for investigative journalism

In 1976 the film "All the President's Men" portrayed the true story of Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford) uncovering the Watergate Scandal. It wasn't the first time in cinema that journalists took center stage, but it was one of few films that...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 22, 2016

Opposition leaves Diet floor in boycott of Amari speech

Opposition lawmakers mount a humiliating boycott of embattled economy minister Akira Amari's annual policy speech in the Diet.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 21, 2016

Amari vows to answer claims over ¥12 million in undeclared funds

Scandal-hit economic minister Akira Amari vows to answer allegations that he and two secretaries received large undeclared donations and hospitality.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 2, 2016

Still dreaming of an end to household drudgery

As amazing as technology's ability to solve our problems is its inability to solve our problems. (Its tendency to create new problems is a subject best left for another day.)
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 12, 2015

No tolerance at the inns for China's shoppers

Last August, Nikkei Business magazine reported the travails of a businessman from a regional city on a sales trip to Tokyo. His company's accommodation allowance covered a maximum of ¥8,000 per night, but he couldn't find a centrally located hotel room for under ¥20,000.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 10, 2015

It's a small world, with no respect for islands

To what extent are your problems my problems? To what extent are Syria's troubles Japan's?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 19, 2015

Yakuza infighting puts nation on edge

Around the start of this year, the weekly magazines — Shukan Taishu, Asahi Geino and Shukan Jitsuwa in particular — were brimming with articles feting the centennial anniversary of the Yamaguchi-gumi, which had gone from being a small group of tough guys on the Kobe waterfront in 1915 to Japan's...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 26, 2015

Lawmaker Takaya Muto denies involvement in stock fraud, says he won't resign

Embattled Lower House lawmaker Takaya Muto on Wednesday dismissed an allegation that he was involved in investment fraud and said he had no plans to resign from the Diet.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 20, 2015

Shiga residents slam lawmaker who resigned from LDP amid money scandal

Lower House member Takaya Muto, who quit the Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday over allegations of a financial scandal, has come under fire among his constituents in Shiga Prefecture for betraying their trust, and faces an uncertain future as an independent politician.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 11, 2015

Dark humor won't shield us for much longer

'I hope," read an email from a colleague boarding an Osaka-bound shinkansen in Tokyo last week, "nobody sets himself on fire."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 4, 2015

Will hot-selling book bring Kobe killer in from the cold?

'June 28, 1997. I ceased being me. It was the day I was expelled forever from the world of sunshine. Up to then, I had nonchalantly spent my days unaltruistically, each passing day framed by the next as in a film, until the day when, suddenly, I began to be stigmatized as an enigmatic being.

Longform

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