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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 21, 2013

The bell tolls on Demon Pond

The sound of the temple bell of "Yashagaike (Demon Pond)" will ring for the first time at the New National Theatre, Tokyo (NNTT) — but it's the bell's silence that will reverberate for the characters of this new Japanese-language opera.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

How top lowbrow U.S. humor translates in Japan

Somewhere in the history of American cinema, someone (maybe John Waters?) decided that gross and profane and funny could all sit on the same park bench and start up a friendship. That was way back in the 1970s.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / ON: TECH
Jun 18, 2013

Apps to keep track of everything, Acer's new tablet and a better way to make presentations

Keeping track of your assets
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 15, 2013

Soul singer has handle on the ups, considerable downs of creative life

When vocalist Herb Kendrick, better known simply by his nickname "Q," takes the stage next week in Tokyo, he will be appearing onstage for the first time in nearly a year. The gig at What the Dickens in Ebisu is being billed as the singer's comeback. Not only is it a comeback, it's nothing short of a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 12, 2013

Preserving a classic Japanese art form: tokusatsu magic

Our monster is scaly, spiky, reptilian — a cross between a dinosaur and an irradiated insect that shrieks like an angry bird. Our hero is lean, faintly muscular in a rubbery skintight suit with inscrutable praying-mantis eyes. They face one another, stomping left to right like sumo wrestlers, posing...
LIFE / Digital
Jun 12, 2013

You're not a customer, you're just a user

A reader writes: "Dear John Naughton, As you write about the Internet, I wondered if you knew how long it takes Yahoo to get back to people. I have an iPad, but went to the library to print a document (attached to an email). Yahoo knew I wasn't on my iPad and asked me to name my favorite uncle. I replied,...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 7, 2013

Yokohama needs to set new course after capturing title

More than two weeks have passed since the Yokohama B-Corsairs captured a championship in their second season. It was a remarkable achievement in a 21-team league.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 7, 2013

Russia's homophobic curse

With the general mood in Russia's populace favoring a ban on gay culture, homophobic mobsters of all colors feel cozy under an official umbrella.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2013

Jobs' role focus of Apple e-book trial

Apple's late founder, Steve Jobs, was a key figure Monday in the Justice Department's suit against the Silicon Valley giant for allegedly leading an illegal scheme to raise the prices of e-books.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 2, 2013

Taking anime too seriously

'Why study anime?' the author of this study of anime asks himself. Good question, thinks the reader. Why indeed 'study' a pop art whose appeal is less to thought than to mass, unreflecting, spontaneous enjoyment?
Japan Times
WORLD / TICAD V SPECIAL
Jun 1, 2013

Short excursions for exploring Yokohama's waterfront area

When U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry sailed his fleet of "Black Ships" from America and urged Japan to open up, there was much fury and discussion as to which ports should be permitted for use by the foreigners. The original treaty between the two countries suggested the opening of Kanagawa, in addition...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 1, 2013

Destroyer of domestic chaos charts way for others to lead organized lives

Jo Ebisujima describes herself as "a hybrid of MacGyver and Martha Stewart."
BUSINESS / Companies
May 31, 2013

Sony taps Apple alumni for board

Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai is trying to win back customers from Apple Inc. with new Xperia smartphones. Adding two former executives of the iPhone maker to Sony's board next month may help.
CULTURE / Music
May 30, 2013

Is the stream less green than CDs, albums?

Technology changes everything, but it seems to change music the most. Four or five generations of recorded music technology have passed in my lifetime. As a child, I listened to Marlo Thomas's "Free to Be You and Me" on vinyl. During middle school, I bought Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock on cassette. Then...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2013

Mayor's spin deepens suspicions

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's attempt to spin his earlier remarks about Japan's wartime sex slave system deepens suspicions about his fitness for public office.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 29, 2013

Sony lab offers a peek into the future

A miniature rotor craft controlled through a head-mounted display and Lego blocks manipulated with a PlayStation controller: These were just a couple of examples of new ideas and creativity on display last week at a two-day open house held by Sony Computer Science Laboratories Inc.
BASKETBALL
May 29, 2013

Niigata dumps Coach of Year

Matt Garrison, the 2012-13 bj-league Coach of the Year, has not been retained for next season.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2013

Weighing the costs and benefits

Judging from Chris Flynn's May 16 response, "Secondhand smoke is the enemy," it appears that the debate on the socialization of health care costs is off the table. Flynn states: "The main thrust behind banning smoking in most places is to reduce the harmful effects of secondhand smoke on nonsmokers."...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 25, 2013

Uganda boxing trainer gives expert advice to aspiring pugilists

If you don't get into the ring once or twice, then you're a coward, Geoffrey Ima says as he describes people's attitudes toward boxing in his hometown in Uganda. Ima has been in the ring hundreds of times and came to love boxing so much, he wanted to earn a living from it — a career choice that led...
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 23, 2013

There are billions of reasons why Japan Inc. should reflect

The flood of cash the Bank of Japan has made available to Japan Inc. has not opened executives to new ways of thinking or ushered more women into the workforce.
Reader Mail
May 23, 2013

Not for impressionable men

Regarding the May 16 front-page article "Hashimoto sticks to guns on sex slaves": The cruel and insensitive statements from Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto about encouraging the U.S. military to make use of Japanese prostitutes and his apologism for wartime Japanese soldiers' enjoyment of serial-sex with...
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
May 19, 2013

Hibiya Park illuminations, Japan’s first mosque, ‘Vigorous’ Mount Fuji stymies relocation, minister resigns over war-guilt denial

Tokyo city has withdrawn the illuminations at Hibiya which it made for the benefit of the admirers of the park's azaleas.
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Ranpo's novella of a desecrated grave continues to send shivers

There has long been a taste in Japan for the bizarre and abnormal. The experimental Taisho Era was no exception. A desire for sensory experience existed even in cinema. During a funeral scene, for example, an attendant might light sticks of incense in the theater, drawing the audience into the ritual....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 19, 2013

Taking it easy on stroll-size Omi-jima

Mr. Hirohisa had made it clear when I called him from the nearest mainland city to the island — Nagato in western Honshu's Yamaguchi Prefecture — that there would be no supper provided that night; nor would he be able to pick me up from the station as expected.

Longform

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