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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014

The silver fox of dictatorship and democracy

The reality of the times was that Eduard Shevardnadze was both a democrat and a despot. His death brings closer to the end the Gorbachev generation of reform communists who presented a stark contrast to the dour Brezhnev-era hard-liners, spurring (mostly inadvertently) the collapse of the Soviet empire and the long transition to democracy.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 9, 2014

China's hottest app inspired by devotion to Japanese manga

Erick Guo left Asia's largest Internet company last year to build a team of artists and engineers who could create smartphone applications inspired by Japanese manga.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 5, 2014

Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories

It is noticeable that the tales in "Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa change in tone and style alongside the mental state and interests of the writer. Akutagawa's most famed early works (including the titular story) are intricately woven setups for moral questions, whereas...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2014

Who'll pay for the Iraq sins?

Will the purveyors of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq ever do penance for their sins of warmongering?
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 25, 2014

Is Japan a haven for expats with psychological problems? Readers discuss

Readers clash on the merits of William Bradbury's recent Foreign Agenda article, 'Japan: a haven for the psychologically troubled.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 19, 2014

Paul Haggis: Spinning reality into a web of fiction

"Today, too often, we've gotten used to telling the audience things in bold, in all-caps or underlined, and solving everything for everybody." So says Paul Haggis, the screenwriter and director who won Oscars back-to-back with "Million Dollar Baby" in 2004 and "Crash" in 2005. His new film, "Third Person,"...
Reader Mail
Jun 11, 2014

Outsider's remedy for Yasukuni

Occasionally an outsider might help resolve a contentious issue. As an American citizen with great respect for Japan, I would like to offer some thoughts about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit in December to Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to soldiers who died in service to Japan, and how Japan...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 9, 2014

Be-Japon recycles traditional culture to survive modernity

Perhaps it's a case of, "Be careful what you wish for."
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2014

Top retailers reach crossroads in labor shortage shakeout

Don Quijote and Uniqlo, two of the nation's best-known mass-market retailers, aren't waiting for the government's new growth policies due later this month before implementing their own labor reforms.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 5, 2014

'Sad Tea'

Ensemble dramas about the ups and downs of love, and its various substitutes, are popular now — at least with indie filmmakers. (A contrast to Japan's commercial romantic dramas, which still focus on star-crossed couples, one of whom is usually dead by the closing credits.)
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Jun 2, 2014

Bowker relishing second chance

John Bowker’s second chance presented itself one morning in late April. Bowker was just sitting down for breakfast at his apartment in Campeche, a port city on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, when his telephone rang.
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2014

Is the tea party dead or just misunderstood?

Much of American political journalism last week consisted of people who have not understood the tea party since its birth in 2009 saying that it's now dead.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
May 19, 2014

Sony breakup 'long overdue,' analysts say

One year and about $2 billion in lost market value later, it may be time for Sony Corp. to take Daniel Loeb's advice about breaking up.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
May 16, 2014

China's hunger for sea cucumbers reaches African islands

As evening falls over Sierra Leone's Banana Island archipelago, bats stream from their beachside roosts to circle in their thousands over the jungle village of Dublin.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 11, 2014

Eternal City celebrates legacy of first emperor

Rome, a city that thinks in millenniums, is going through a bout of "Augustus fever" to mark the 2,000th anniversary of the death of its first emperor, who left his mark on Rome and Western civilization like few others.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 9, 2014

Pellegrini most deserving of Manager of Year award

The Manager of the Year award, we have been told, is between Brendan Rodgers and Tony Pulis.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2014

'Momose, Kocchi wo Muite (My Pretend Girlfriend)'

First love, or hatsukoi, is a big topic in Japanese teen films, as well as almost everywhere else in popular culture. It's attractive because of its innocence and purity, as well as the almost inevitable fleetingness of the relationship — if indeed, it is one; someone is often far more besotted than...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
May 7, 2014

Republicans dredge up Benghazi controversy in bid for election-year ammo

Benghazi is back.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE PERSISTENT VEGETARIAN
Apr 22, 2014

In search of the fruits of Okinawa's oceans

Seven years ago, I bit into a delicate variety of seaweed called umi-budō, or "sea grapes." I remember sampling a few dishes at Unjami, an Okinawan-style izakaya off Nakano Broadway in Tokyo (5-55-1 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo; 03-5345-5836), but the umi-budō stood out as something special. These tiny,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 21, 2014

Artists' mission to revitalize an onsen town

It begins with a long, slow hiss. The valves open, and a thick fog is released into the air, pouring from the roof of Dogo Onsen Honkan, the famous three-tiered bathhouse built in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, in 1894. It flows down the side of the building, past bathers in bathrobes on the open balcony...
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Apr 20, 2014

'STAPgate' shows Japan must get back to basics in science

On Jan. 30, as NHK kicked off its evening news program with upbeat music, footage aired of a young woman with immaculately coiffed brown hair wearing pearl earrings and her trademark "kappogi," a Japanese-style white apron.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 16, 2014

Toyota tweaks Camry as Sonata makes gains

Toyota Motor Corp. is making rare styling changes in the Camry sedan just halfway into the car's usual design cycle, a sign the automaker is eager to stem gains made by Hyundai Motor Co.'s Sonata, which also is being reworked for 2015.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2014

Muto: Handmade soba noodles with their own Michelin star

Who would choose to become a teuchi soba specialist? Kneading and rolling the dough, cutting it by hand, then carefully cooking and serving the delicate buckwheat noodles — it's a long, laborious job to prepare a meal that can take mere minutes to consume.
CULTURE / Film
Apr 10, 2014

'The World's End'

"The World's End" seems a lot like director Edgar Wright's attempt to repeat the success of his 2004 cult hit "Shaun of the Dead." Where "Shaun" was basically a comfortably numb stoner dropped into a very British version of "Night of the Living Dead," "The World's End" stars an immature alcoholic dropped...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 9, 2014

'Jacques Callot: Theater of Realism and Fantasy'

Jacques Callot (1592-1635) is perhaps not a name many are familiar with. Overshadowed by the work of Albrecht Durer and Rembrandt van Rijn, he is sometimes overlooked. Yet Callot is one of the most important printmakers and pioneers of etching in western art history, and his work was admired by many...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Apr 8, 2014

Raising the bar; garden delight; Mother's Day special

AnnouncementS
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 5, 2014

Cycling Sayama

A forested area bordering western Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture offers day-trippers a chance to experience the great outdoors on two wheels.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

'Brian Wilson: Songwriter 1962-1969'

The 1960s were full of tormented musical geniuses, but The Beach Boys' singer/songwriter Brian Wilson is hardly the most glorified. I guess quietly going nuts and surviving until a late-life comeback just isn't as cinematic as going out in a young and beautiful blaze of glory like Janis, Jimi, or Jim....
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 29, 2014

Marcus Luttrell: a 21st-century war hero

Shake the hand of Marcus Luttrell, and there's no mistaking the grip of someone who spent many a year holding a weapon. A former U.S. Navy SEAL, Luttrell is your 21st-century war hero, with a book and movie deal relating his near-fatal experiences in Afghanistan. He was in Tokyo recently to promote "Lone...

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