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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 6, 2015

Soichi Terada arrives fashionably late to the global house-music scene

Good things come to those who wait. For 50-year-old producer Soichi Terada it's a wait that has lasted more than 20 years, but now he's one of the most in-demand artists in the house music scene, and has just returned from a tour of Europe that saw him perform in front of capacity crowds in some of the...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 1, 2015

Reviving Japan Inc.'s entertainment division

If Japan had its own cartoon-and-comics-driven Hollywood, it would increase its global cultural clout and give the economy a much needed boost.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Nov 22, 2015

Bring back that Kobe feeling, 'cause it's gone, gone, gone

From the moment I stepped off the shinkansen at Shin-Kobe Station, I could feel a subtle difference between the Yokohama-Tokyo area and this city.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 20, 2015

Motor-mouthed comedian returns; nursing drama; CM of the week: Taisho Pharmaceutical

Last year, TBS cancelled "Karakuri TV," hosted by motor-mouthed comedian Sanma Akashiya. "Karakuri" lasted 22 years and was considered the progenitor of the talk-based variety show. It was also the first Japanese series to popularize funny home videos.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2015

Putin wants victory against IS, not detente

Putin wants to win the war against Islamic State and be acknowledged as the leader who brought about victory.
BUSINESS
Nov 19, 2015

Kuroda's call for firms to do more to fight deflation seen indicating BOJ's out of QQE ammo

Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda J is urging companies to do more to tackle deflation, a tacit admission that his massive money-printing exercise has failed and policymakers are losing faith in the point of delivering more of the same.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 14, 2015

Nishinoshima: Oki's island of sanctuary

Were it not for the well-nourished faces of the passengers suffused with keen expressions of expectation and purpose, the supine bodies, unpacked food, luggage and blankets strewn across the hard flooring of the ferry's modern equivalent of steerage class resembled those of a migrant ship.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 14, 2015

Abe and the media get ahead of themselves on driverless cars

In a new TV commercial for Nissan, American actress Charlotte Kate Fox, who appeared in last year's NHK morning drama series, "Massan," is driving on city streets at night. She pushes a button on the dashboard and slowly takes her hands off the steering wheel. The car continues to move, making turns...
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 12, 2015

Colombia farmers make switch from cocaine to cocoa

It was the murder — execution-style, in broad daylight — of a friend and fellow farmer in the Colombian countryside that prompted German Sanchez to finally heed government calls to get out of the cocaine trade and plant cocoa instead. Six years later, market forces, more than concerns about personal...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 7, 2015

Sewing the seeds of new craft ideas

'I never thought I'd be taking over my father's position. At first, I wasn't even interested in the tradition of the stitching," says Sadaharu Narita, president of crafts company Hirosaki Kogin Kenkyujo. "But now that I'm in that position, I feel grateful that I can seek out and produce new values...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Nov 4, 2015

China's five-year plan shows Xi's influence in promoting 'Chinese dream,' pledging to 'purify' Internet

The details of China's new development blueprint, which was officially handed down Tuesday by the Communist Party's Central Committee, leave little doubt as to President Xi Jinping's role in crafting the document.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Nov 1, 2015

Hard-working Albirex pound Broncos

The Niigata Albirex BB and Saitama Broncos have provided a decade-long case study: different ways of doing business.
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2015

A Trudeau returns to lead Canada

The challenge now for newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to govern as responsibly as his predecessor Stephen Harper.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 20, 2015

Monet's experiments meet his masterpieces

To anyone familiar with art exhibitions in Japan, it is clear that Impressionism is one of the most well-known and most-loved of all the "isms" and movements of Western art. The name of the movement is believed to have come from a 1872 painting by Claude Monet titled "Impression, Sunrise." When it was...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 17, 2015

Councilors get loud on library revamps

As testimony to their characteristically low profile, Japan's public libraries seldom make the news, although two recent exceptions come to mind.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 17, 2015

Japan's public diplomacy of churlish cluelessness

Enough is enough. How dare UNESCO inscribe primary sources and a wartime video about the Nanking mayhem into global memory? I fully support the Japanese government's threats to withdraw funding from UNESCO to protest its recent decision to include a dossier submitted by China, "Documents of Nanjing Massacre,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 7, 2015

Asia's most important film festival reasserts its independence

Celebrating its 20th year, the 2015 edition of the Busan International Film Festival, held in South Korea's southern port city from Oct. 1 to 10, has a lot to brag about, as it has definitely become the most important film festival in Asia in terms of the quality of its programming, the size and reach...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2015

First impressions of the late impressionists

Any great story tends to focus on a limited number of characters, with everybody else either reduced to anonymity or the status of extras. In literary fiction or movies this is never a problem, but when the narrative is a historical one, it can lead to a certain amount of neglect and unfairness.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 3, 2015

Military veteran protecting Oregon classmates was shot seven times

An Iraq War veteran and mixed martial arts fighter whose son turned 6 on Thursday was shot seven times as he blocked the Umpqua gunman from entering a classroom, possibly saving lives during the mass shooting in southern Oregon.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 23, 2015

A mopey, dopey 'Twilight' for hipsters

Part of the reason for the great financial crash of 2007 was bad lending practices. Basically, anything that walked through the door on two legs and not drooling would be given a home mortgage, regardless of the risk. It seems like such irrational behavior has also infected movie producers: Since the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 22, 2015

'Top Hat' musical takes film classic to happy new heights

"There may be trouble ahead / But while there's moonlight and music /
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Sep 21, 2015

Four funerals and a wedding: Xi mends political bridges

Chinese President Xi Jinping's attendance at the funeral earlier this year of a one-time propaganda minister was a surprise; Deng Liqun, who died aged 99, was never a top-ranked official and had been a political enemy of Xi's father.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 15, 2015

Miki Saito steps out of the inky shadows

Some artworks on first look hit you like a ton of bricks — with bold colors and striking realism. Others take time to get to know, offering hidden treasures that are revealed to the viewer over time.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 15, 2015

Corbyn rides socialist wave to leadership of Britain's Labour Party

Uncorking the spirit of British socialism was the masterstroke that handed Jeremy Corbyn the Labour Party's top job, but he now faces a much bigger challenge — convincing voters that an admirer of Karl Marx should be Britain's next prime minister.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 8, 2015

Professor admits leaking bar exam questions to student

In a sign of systemic flaws in the nation's law schools, the Justice Ministry files a criminal complaint against a law professor for leaking bar exam questions to one of his students.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2015

Olympian effort needed to save Tokyo's, Asia's heritage

The Hotel Okura is just the latest victim of Tokyo's penchant for tearing down its storied past to make way for a generic future.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 2, 2015

White people on holiday are threatened by Asian stereotypes in 'No Escape'

In this globalized age, Hollywood studios can no longer afford to trample over local sensibilities. Earlier this year it was revealed that an upcoming thriller about an American family caught in a Southeast Asian revolution would be having its title changed from "The Coup" to the less provocative "No...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 31, 2015

Katana swordplay exercise is a hit with Tokyo women

Samurai may be known as a man's pursuit, but feudal Japan produced a number of legendary female warriors who took to the battlefield with a sword that still holds a high cultural position today.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2015

Composer Shiro Sagisu scores songs to be devoured to on 'Attack on Titan' soundtrack

During one scene in Shinji Higuchi's recent film "Attack on Titan," soldiers leap from building to building battling a carnivorous giant with nothing but swords. The horror is heightened by the music: razor sharp synthesizers accentuate a foreboding orchestral melody. It's hard to imagine the action...

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake