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BUSINESS
Oct 12, 2007

Sony Financial rises 3.8% in biggest Japan IPO of year

Sony Financial Holdings Inc. gained 3.8 percent Thursday on its first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after raising ¥320 billion in Japan's largest initial public offering this year.
COMMENTARY
Oct 11, 2007

Six-party talks make progress

HONOLULU — The joint declaration from the recently concluded round of six-party talks in Beijing points to a significant step forward, provided Pyongyang follows through as promised with a significant series of denuclearization steps between now and the end of the year. As has often been the trend...
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2007

Fukuda vows to regain public trust

urgent issue," Fukuda told the Diet in the 23-minute speech. "Without the people's trust, it is impossible to realize any policy or necessary reforms." The remarks followed Fukuda's warning to his Cabinet last week to keep their hands clean over political funds.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 27, 2007

Danger in distorted views of terrorism

WARSAW — A distorted view of the present is the worst way to prepare for the challenges of the future. To describe the struggle against international terrorism as "World War IV," as the leading American neoconservative Norman Podhoretz does in his new book, is wrongheaded in any number of ways.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 21, 2007

Tokyo Jihen "Variety"

Pop music's not just for kids, you know. And while there's plenty of it about for grownups, few artists offer such consistent and thrilling fare as Tokyo Jihen. On this, their third album since forming in 2003, the band offer 13 tracks dripping in jazzy cool, fronted by the shredded, throaty voice of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 20, 2007

Faces of the screen queen

The screening of "I'm Not There" at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month left many in the aisles whispering "Academy Award" in reference to just one member of the ensemble cast — Cate Blanchett.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 13, 2007

Twisting history for unpleasant purposes

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, New York — U.S. President George W. Bush is not generally known for his firm grasp of history. But this has not stopped him from using history to justify his policies. In a recent speech to American war veterans in Kansas City, he defended his aim to "stay the course" in Iraq by...
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2007

Ozawa threatens Abe's bills, demands his exit, election

attends an executive meeting at DPJ headquarters Friday in Tokyo with Naoto Kan (left) and Yukio Hatoyama. KYODO PHOTO
CULTURE / Books
Aug 19, 2007

Keeping up with anime is by no means kids' play

The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917, Revised and Expanded Edition, by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2006, 867 pp., illustrated, $29.95 (paper) The only real problem with anime is that there's way too much of it. Try to get a quick grasp...
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2007

Nintendo scores with brain-training, etiquette games

Since March, Natsumi Takita has spent 10 minutes daily on a Nintendo DS hand-held game machine, undergoing daily quizzes using "Otona-no Joshikiryoku Training DS" ("Common Sense Training for Adults").
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 9, 2007

The hidden treasures of Shikoku revealed in Ueno

Kotohira Shrine — popularly known as Konpira-san — is one of the main religious centers on the island of Shikoku. Until three bridges were built during recent decades to connect the island and the mainland — and ruin the previously magical scenery — Shikoku was remote and mysterious, a Shangri-La...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Aug 7, 2007

"The Boyhood of Burglar Hill," "Little Rabbit's New Baby"

"The Boyhood of Burglar Hill," Allan Ahlberg, Puffin Books; 2006; 181 pp.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 5, 2007

Keeping the horror of Hiroshima alive

Masako's Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, by Kikuko Otake, edited by Dr. Jesse Glass. Tokyo/Toronto: Ahadada Books, 2007, 94 pp. with photos and maps, $15 (paper) The cenotaph for the Hiroshima victims reads "Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil," but...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 5, 2007

Tojo and Bush: Trumpeting delusion on their way to defeat

Writing in the New York Times on July 17, the newspaper's well-known columnist David Brooks reported on a White House press conference he attended on July 13. "[Pres.] Bush was assertive and good-humored," Brooks noted.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2007

"Les noirs de Redon: The Monstrous Friends You See When You Close Your Eyes"

Bunkamura Closes in 25 days
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2007

DanDans meets Coco Chanel

Artists' lives are seldom easy, but the reality they face in Japan can be particularly daunting.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 1, 2007

Taiji officials: Dolphin meat 'toxic waste'

For what is believed to be the first time anywhere in Japan, elected officials have openly condemned the consumption of dolphin meat, especially in school lunches, on grounds that it is dangerously contaminated with mercury.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2007

Pollution fouling a legacy of eternal love

MADRAS, India — The Taj Mahal has always been considered a wonder. As India's best known monument, this white-marble icon is now ranked among the "New Seven Wonders of the World," along with the Great Wall of China and Rome's Colosseum.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 21, 2007

Mitsuya Goto

Mitsuya Goto can tell any aspiring student how to learn English. "You really have to want to," he might say, and "you must use any tool available to you."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 19, 2007

Sounds of smallness

Settling down into Yukio Fujimoto's "Ears with Chair" (1990) and adjusting the two long tubes on either side to your ears, the drone of the electronic organs on the surrounding walls both intensifies and hollows out. The hushed voices of mingling spectators magnify, as do passing footsteps. You cannot...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 19, 2007

Music busts myth of monocultural Japan

On the 30-odd subtropical isles of the Ogasawara Island chain that lie sparkling in the South Pacific, some 1,000 km south of Tokyo, there exists a unique music and dance form classified as an Intangible Cultural Property of the capital. Historians have traced the evolution of this performing art to...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan