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Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 21, 2014

Jackie Chan takes 'bow of apology' after son busted for drugs

Kung-fu movie star Jackie Chan offered the public a "deep bow of apology" after his son, actor, singer and socialite Jaycee, was arrested in Beijing for drug use.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2014

U.S. ice bucket challenge picked up by Japan's movers and shakers

A U.S.-based social media challenge daring people to douse themselves with buckets of ice water spreads to Japan, with celebrities from billionaire Masayoshi Son to singer Ayumi Hamasaki taking up the gauntlet to boost awareness of what is known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 20, 2014

Gala time for kabuki icon Sakata Tojuro IV

The eighth annual instalment of NHK Enterprises' Gei-no-Shinzui (Essence of Art) summer kabuki gala, to be staged August 22 at the National Theatre in Tokyo, will star Living National Treasure Sakata Tojuro IV, one of those rare actors as famed for his portrayals of men as for his prowess as an onnagata...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Aug 20, 2014

Osaka mayor paints ambitious picture of prefecture in 2025 plan

If Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has his way, by 2025, as it prepares to host that year's International Expo, Osaka will have become an international entertainment capital, home to a casino resort, the site of a major electronic car race and a bicycle race that rivals the Tour de France.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2014

Tokyu Corp. taps foreign students to help make Shibuya more tourist-friendly

Railway operator and real estate developer Tokyu Corp. has kicked off a nightly seminar during which some of its employees will live with foreign exchange students for two weeks, and discuss how to make Shibuya "the world's most fascinating tourist spot."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 18, 2014

Top-paid Nikkei 225 female exec shows Japan gender hurdles

Only one female executive made it to the top-earner list of the Nikkei 225 companies last year. She is an American who lives in New York.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 14, 2014

How Japan's art inspired the West

In the decades after Japan was forcibly opened to large-scale international trade in the early 1850s, a fever spread across Europe for items from the exotic country: its textiles, ceramics, paper fans, woodblock prints and more. Meanwhile, the term "Japonism" was coined to describe works made in Europe...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 13, 2014

Clowning gets serious in Slava's show

"Slava's Snowshow" feels like a dream — and occasionally a nightmare. Its surreal scenarios play out one after another on a stage set with seemingly oversized, fluffy blankets that give the audience a sense of being tucked inside a child's bed. There's no real narrative — but as in dreams, there...
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Aug 12, 2014

International woodblock art; an airport space for kids; heating up the hoodie

exhibitions
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 9, 2014

Critics get frank when it comes to Godzilla

Because Japanese media are incestuous in their inter-corporate dealings, those writers referred to as hyōronka (critics) tend to be less critical about popular culture than their counterparts in North America and Europe. They are more likely to engage in punditry or public relations, because complaining...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 9, 2014

Ah, vaginas! In defense of taboos

Two words have been let loose on society by an artist who, for better or worse, may find the rest of her life and career inextricably bound up with them, "vagina" being one and "taboo" the other. The artist herself needs no introduction. She is (or briefly was) the most famous woman in Japan, thanks...
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 8, 2014

Softbank sets first-quarter sales record of ¥1.99 trillion

SoftBank Corp. said Friday that it notched a first-quarter sales record of ¥1.99 trillion, thanks to its bold acquisition of U.S. telecom giant Sprint Corp. and other companies over the past year.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Aug 7, 2014

Aomori warns foreign players about fraudulent agents

Despite having a collection of 80-plus import players for all recent seasons and the fact that 30 foreign-born head coaches, including one (Howie Landa) who never coached in the preseason or regular season, have been hired since the league's first game was played in 2005, there's no information on the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2014

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno)

The jidaigeki (samurai period drama) is dying, we have been told again and again. Topknots and swords have become rare sights on television, while Japanese studios, which once devoted nearly half their production to the genre, now essay only the occasional chanbara (swordplay) film, with mixed box-office...
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 5, 2014

Abe's hollow Asia diplomacy

The Asia diplomacy — aka China-containment policy — of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is showing signs of falling apart amid irritation among Southeast Asian countries over the slow pace at which Abe's promises of assistance, equipment, and acceptance of foreign workers are being carried out.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 4, 2014

Tokyo: What's your favorite moment in Koshien high-school baseball?

Mark Buckton gets Tokyoites to wax nostalgic about the Koshien national high school baseball tournament.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 4, 2014

Who wants to be a billionaire? Son's SoftBank academy vets entrepreneurs

If Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder and CEO of SoftBank Corp. needs a fresh strategy to fend off a surprise French counterbid for a prized U.S. telecommunications target, he could do worse than ask budding entrepreneurs at the SoftBank Academia.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jul 31, 2014

Gunma hires longtime NBA assistant Parker as new coach

Charlie Parker, who spent more than a decade as an NBA assistant coach, this week was named the Gunma Crane Thunders' new bench boss.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2014

Lost in a dingy maze of booze, sex and crime

Golden-gai, a warren of tiny bars near Shinjuku's Kabukicho entertainment district, has long been a refuge for writers, musicians, filmmakers and other artistic types, who congregate at drinking establishments with like-minded patrons. The area also has a seedier, less reputable side, which is graphically...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2014

Hope (So-won/Negai)

It was every parent's worst nightmare: In South Korea in 2008, an 8-year-old girl was abducted and violently raped on her way to school. The perpetrator was caught and the girl identified her attacker, but she still had to appear at a public trial because the police couldn't build a solid case against...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2014

R-18 to G: Are pink films losing their potency?

Yuji Tajiri and Shinji Imaoka were two of the “Seven Lucky Gods of Pink” — a group of young pinku eiga (erotic film) directors who were hailed as the genre’s hope after they rose to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 30, 2014

Mitani brings new life to a love-suicide

If there's one thing I never expected to see in a bunraku play, it was a disco ball. Similarly, a scene in which the leading lady has her nails done by a bevy of kimono-clad attendants.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 29, 2014

Avengers in Sci-Fi talk about Zeppelin and the problem with festivals

You don't usually hear Led Zeppelin and science fiction mentioned in the same breath. But for Taro Kohata, who plays guitar and synthesizer, and sings for rock band Avengers In Sci-Fi, the two go hand in hand.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jul 27, 2014

Osaka bets big on TOEFL to boost English levels

The Osaka Prefecture Board of Education is pushing through a raft of initiatives to shake up English-language education, chief among them the introduction of TOEFL at top-performing high schools, which will be taught by an elite group of teachers earning approximately ¥8 million a year.
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2014

Godzilla's message still relevant

Ahead of the first run of the latest, Hollywood-produced version of 'Godzilla,' the digitally remastered edition of the original 1954 movie has been making the rounds at theaters across the country to mark the 60th anniversary of the birth of the pop culture icon. After some 30 sequels, Godzilla's message remains relevant today.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jul 17, 2014

Merger talks going slowly

Japan Basketball Association officials said that they would actively keep discussing how to overcome the differences between the nation's top two leagues in order to establish a new professional hoops circuit in two years.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 17, 2014

Time Warner win would make Murdoch U.S. media king

Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. made an audacious offer for Time Warner Inc. that, if it succeeds, would transform the American media landscape and cement the 83-year-old's status as the most powerful magnate in U.S. media and entertainment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 16, 2014

Europe rewards edgy dramatists

Tim Etchells, artistic director of Forced Entertainment, the English company whose "The Coming Storm" was a highlight of last year's Festival/Tokyo, told me then that they now play abroad more than at home — mainly because festival organizers pay their costs. In contrast, producers are loathe to take...

Longform

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