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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 1, 2007

Kotaro Sawaki: Writer on the road of life

Kotaro Sawaki is one of the most popular nonfiction writers in Japan. He made his name with "Shinya Tokkyu (Midnight Express)," a reportage of a yearlong overland trip through Asia and Europe he took when he was in his mid-20s. Those stories — whose title refers to a euphemism for "prison break" used...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 28, 2007

Londoners in a Japanese 'Trance'

Two years ago, playwright Shoji Kokami, founder of The Third Stage company in Tokyo, started working with the cutting-edge Bush Theatre in West London on his 1993 play "Trance." One of the prime movers in the 1980s small-scale youth theater movement in Japan, the 48-year-old Kokami decided to approach...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 28, 2007

Russia as it wanted to be

Sir Winston Churchill, one of history's most quotable characters, once described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." The Anglo-Polish novelist Joseph Conrad summed it up as "an Asiatic monster with a European veneer," while the English writer Rudyard Kipling had a slightly more...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2007

When Rain drops in, expect a downpour

REQUIEM FOR AN ASSASSIN by Barry Eisler. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2007, 356 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Freelance assassin John Rain, featured in five previous works by Barry Eisler, is running out of enemies in Japan. And friends as well. Several books back, his computer geek buddy Harry was set up by...
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2007

Sato pleads innocent to bribery

and his brother, Yuji (center back), enter the Tokyo District Court for the Thursday start of their bribery trial. KYODO PHOTO
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2007

'Le prix du desir'

It's a familiar story: The man seems to have everything; a bulging bank balance, a successful career, a house in the country, and a beautiful wife — but he's still bored.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 14, 2007

In step with nature, if not with celebrity

Renowned butoh dancer, award-winning actor, choreographer and agriculturist Min Tanaka has tried hard to escape international stardom.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 10, 2007

Bunroku Shishi: Finding humor in a recovering postwar Japan

SCHOOL OF FREEDOM, by Bunroku Shishi, translated and with an afterword by Lynne E. Riggs. Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan: Ann Arbor, 2006, 256 pp., $29.95 (cloth). Bunroku Shishi (1893-1969), who was born as Toyoo Iwata, had two occupations, just as he had two names. He was...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 8, 2007

Mejiro gets a Baroque makeover

Forget its curious title and head to Tokyo's Mejiro district to catch a host of concerts featuring Baroque music running through June 24. The Mejiro Ba-Rock Music Festival 2007 is expected to attract around 10,000 people to its 12 concert venues dotted among this largely residential area.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 7, 2007

The cross-cultural theater connection

John Caird doesn't see his staging of three plays in Japan this summer as making a big splash that leaves ever-decreasing ripples that then fade away.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 5, 2007

Japanese system stifles foreign scientific talent

Left unchecked, Japan's aging population and decreasing birthrate will reduce domestic economic productivity and, ultimately, affect the quality of life of all those who inhabit these islands.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2007

Let Japanese film out of the forest

Naomi Kawase's Grand Prix at the 60th Cannes Film festival last week for "Mogari no Mori" put the Japanese film industry once again on the front page. Kawase's honor is another in a series of reminders about how rich and rewarding Japanese films can be. But at the same time, it is a reminder of how little...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 3, 2007

Thinking beyond the brain

Kenichiro Mogi would be the ideal person to find sitting next to you at a dinner party, or one bleary post-sake morning over breakfast in a Japanese mountain inn.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 26, 2007

Treatment of Liverpool fans result of actions back home

LONDON — The police baton-charged "blameless" fans who could not gain entry to the stadium despite having valid tickets, while many inside the ground were allowed in with forgeries.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
May 8, 2007

Naoki Sakai

Naoki Sakai, 60, is a designer whose revolutionary ideas have made him an industry powerhouse. After designing Nissan's Be-1, the vehicle that in the late 1980s started the round-and-cute car boom, Sakai came up with concepts for three more popular cars from Nissan — the PAO, Figaro and Rasheen —...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 6, 2007

Karel Van Wolferen: Insights into the new world disorder

When Karel Van Wolferen released his seminal book "The Enigma of Japanese Power" in the dying months of the bubble economy, the normally staid monthly magazine Chuo Koron described its impact as akin to being struck by a bolt of lightning. For once, the hype was merited. Little before had matched the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 4, 2007

'The Reaping'

"Sometimes people just need to believe in miracles," goes a line in "The Reaping," but by the time you hear it, you've pretty much ditched that effort at least as far as this film is concerned. Starring two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, "The Reaping" pretty much wastes her talents and those...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 3, 2007

Breakthrough women

In 18th- and 19th-century Japan, the presence of female artists in painting circles slowly increased until in the 20th century, social reforms allowed them access to secondary education and vocational schools as well as art training, patronage and chances to compete in national exhibitions.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
May 2, 2007

Life can be sweet down in the forest

Mr. Matsuki, our forester, is six years older than me, so he was born in 1934. When World War II ended, life in the countryside of Japan was tough, so sugary sweets, chocolates and suchlike were scarce. He recalls that, as a boy, he learned that the twigs or branches of a certain native Japanese tree,...
CULTURE / Art
Apr 19, 2007

"Fiona Tan: News from the Near Future"

Wako Works of Art Closes in 23 days
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 12, 2007

Best when grotesque

One good point about public museums in Japan having "funding issues" is that rather than pulling in the art that the public really wants to see and turning themselves into virtual Musee d'Orsays or ersatz Guggenheims, they instead focus on more academically valuable and locally relevant work.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 8, 2007

Seeing yourself through the literary ways of others

With the 2007 academic year now about to begin in Japan, it's a good time to take a look at English-language teaching in the nation's universities. Yes, the tides are indeed running there. The emphasis is shifting determindly toward the utilitarian: English as a tool for Internet communication; English...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 29, 2007

Magnum's 60 years of Tokyo

Known for its independent stance on photography, the agency Magnum Photos has been home to some of the world's most prominent photojournalists, starting with its legendary founders, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier Bresson, David Seymour and George Rodger.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 27, 2007

Masahiro Murata

Masahiro Murata, 35, is a hair and makeup artist whose salon, MaQueen, just behind the Kabuki-za theater in Ginza, is a sanctuary for both his loyal clients and staff. Murata loves people, and especially beauty in them, which he believes manifests itself in the way one treats others. As one of Japan's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 22, 2007

We make great pets

Imagine if you will a female Japanese artist who dresses as a hamster and scurries round amid wood chips and scraps of torn paper, wide-eyed, nibbling on croissant-size, cookie-dough "sunflower seeds." Yes, in this city with its insatiable sweet tooth for art, it does sound like yet another serving of...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Mar 20, 2007

Where can I get an original Japan gift?

Another creperie In reply to Sophie's recent plea for an authentic creperie in Tokyo, Yolande writes: "I am French and always enjoy the exquisite and authentic crepes served with delicious Brittany beer at 'Le Bretagne' in Kagurazaka. They also have a restaurant in Omotesando."
Japan Times
JAPAN / INNOCENT VICTIMS
Mar 20, 2007

Kids' group home a safe respite

Despite the understaffing and overcrowding, the atmosphere at the Kibo no Ie (House of Hope) residential home for children lives up to its name: It is a place of optimism, a place of warmth.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2007

Abe should be looking forward, not back

HONOLULU -- What was he thinking? That is the question most Japan-watchers grappled with following Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's fumbled questions about the imperial Japanese government's role in recruiting "comfort women" during World War II. His responses came close to undoing the progress he...

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