Search - entertainment

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 4, 2011

Exploring Yanagawa's watery world

The boatman sings a low-pitched, wistful air as he poles our craft down the watery freeway. Some of my fellow passengers obviously know the melancholic song, and join in on what passes for a chorus as we're propelled otherwise noiselessly down the wide canal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 2, 2011

Tintin gets a little closer to Japan in 3-D movie

"Everyone knows Tintin!" says a street hawker in the film "The Adventures of Tintin" — but 30 years ago director Steven Spielberg had no idea who or what he was.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Nov 25, 2011

Take in the view at a sky-high buffet

The Hotel New Otani Tokyo is offering an accommodation package featuring a buffet dinner at the hotel's international cuisine restaurant, The Sky, through Dec. 16.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 21, 2011

You think you're funny, but really you're not

In this age of shūshoku hyōgaki (就職氷河期, the employment ice age) the one industry that's filling young people with hope and plans for the future is this: the world of owarai (お笑い, comedy).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Nov 15, 2011

Musical couple's commitment helps husband beat addiction

American Mike Rogers and his wife, Yuka, of Kanagawa Prefecture, met at an HMV store in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, in 1992.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 4, 2011

'Suteki na Kanashibari (Once In a Blue Moon/A Ghost of a Chance)'

Koki Mitani is Japan's most successful comedy writer and director, with a long string of hit plays, TV dramas and films to his credit, most recently "The Uchoten Hoteru (Suite Dreams)" and "The Magic Hour."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 30, 2011

Yea! As I walk through the valley of Todoroki . . .

Todoroki Valley Park, a protected green swath along Tokyo's only ravine, strikes me as an interesting and possibly quite sheltered destination on a brisk and breezy fall day.
BUSINESS
Oct 29, 2011

Nintendo predicts first annual loss on yen woes, 3DS disappointment

Nintendo Co., the world's largest maker of video game machines, forecast its first annual loss on record amid the yen's surge to a new postwar high and weaker than expected sales of the new 3DS console.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 28, 2011

'Fair Game'

The Japan release of "Fair Game" comes nearly 12 months after the U.S. opening and a week after the death of Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi. For a story all about U.S. involvement in Iraq and that other infamous depot, Saddam Hussein, the timing could be right on the money. Still, a sense of discomfort...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Oct 27, 2011

Artists who'll go bump in the night

If you catch sight of The Invisible Salaryman, or rather his bandages, dark glasses and business suit, as he loops Tokyo by rail on the Yamanote Line this coming Sunday, you may want to follow him to the "abandoned" hospital hosting the latest ArtGig Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIGHT GIST
Oct 25, 2011

The ridiculously frightening world of Japanese spooks

Halloween is that time of the year when the occult, macabre and humorous come together to create a festival of fear and fun for all the family. A celebration of death and demons with its roots in pre-Christian Europe, the summer's-end spook-fest has morphed over the centuries into a highly commercialized...
COMMUNITY / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 25, 2011

Top Tokyo haunts: five scary spots

1) Sunshine 60 Build a massive shopping and entertainment complex in Ikebukuro (at one time the tallest building in Asia) on the very site where seven Japanese war criminals were executed and you are bound to piss off some ghosts. In fact, its construction was plagued by many incidents (injured workers,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 21, 2011

Suzunari: Who says kaiseki ryōri has to be stuffy?

Kaiseki ryōri, Japan's traditional multicourse "haute cuisine," is known for its rarefied elegance, its depth and subtlety of flavor, an exquisite focus on the seasons and, too often, for being as much fun as a funeral. But there is also another kind of kaiseki, one that's simpler, less formalized and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2011

Overcoming disaster via cinematic therapy

Back in May, the rumor among cinephiles in the Japanese media was that the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) wouldn't happen this year. The mood was that it was too soon after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 to hold anything festive, especially in the visual-arts scene. All over Japan,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2011

Now's your chance to catch up on Japanese cinema

Non-Japanese residents in Tokyo who want to see new and classic Japanese films but are frustrated by the small number of subtitled screenings can catch up — and move ahead — at the Tokyo International Film Festival (Oct. 22-30).
COMMENTARY
Oct 19, 2011

NBA labor dispute illustrates an economic truth

Kevin Garnett, 35, the Boston Celtics forward who has had a stellar career, was with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2004 when a teammate, Latrell Sprewell, augmented the national stock of unfortunate pronouncements. Dissatisfied with a three-year $21 million contract extension offer, Sprewell said: "I've...
COMMENTARY
Oct 14, 2011

Why the sudden backlash against the wealthy?

The context for Occupy Wall Street and proposals to tax the rich — "rich" being constantly redefined — is the broader issue of economic inequality. For years, liberal politicians, academics and pundits have complained about growing inequality, but their protests barely resonated with the public....
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Oct 12, 2011

New toys for retro gamers and wannabe rockers

Nostalgic gaming fans old enough to remember "Space Invaders" no doubt look back on it as one of the most memorable video games of years gone by. Japan's Taito Corporation created the arcade game back in 1978, and it has been a classic ever since.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Oct 5, 2011

Big Bulls ready to charge into debut bj-league season

The Iwate Big Bulls are about to begin experiencing something every professional sports team must encounter: an inaugural season.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 23, 2011

Fireworks contest reaches peak

In Nagasaki, the fireworks season is not quite over. This Saturday night, autumn will be kept at bay a little longer with the finale to a series of spectacular displays that constituted a summer-long contest.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 22, 2011

Women grow into a driving force for online gaming

Like many young women, Takako Suzuki says the first thing she does most days is think about who her next boyfriend should be. Her choices: a cute millionaire, a butler or a samurai.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2011

U.N. General Assembly opens on shifting sands

Amid the arrival of presidents, prime ministers and kings, the 66th annual session of the U.N. General Assembly debate opens in New York on Wednesday, but the session hardly starts in a celebratory mood as a series of geopolitical, financial and natural jolts have shaken the world body to the core, including...
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2011

End the grad student quotas

Starting in the 1991 academic year (April 1991 through March 1992), a number of leading national universities in Japan underwent major structural changes, led by the Law School at the University of Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 15, 2011

Francois Girard and a woman of many letters

"This wonderful project started when my friend, the Lebanese writer Wajdi Mouawad, gave me a book and said I should make a movie out it," Francois Girard explains. "But after I read it I got back to him and said, 'Sorry, I disagree with you. This is really not right for a movie — but it's perfect for...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2011

More than a little help from Gadhafi's Western friends

With Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime in ruins and Gadhafi himself on the run, it is time to ponder just how he survived in power for so long. Greed for markets and money, it seems, often trumped the West's supposed concern for basic human rights.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 9, 2011

Festival/Tokyo rewrites its script after quake

Chiaki Soma, the program director at Festival/Tokyo (F/T), needed to figure out how to proceed with the country's biggest theater festival following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. She closed her office for 10 days and asked the staff to carefully consider the meaning of the festival in...
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2011

Warner gives $1 million to Tohoku

Warner Entertainment Japan Inc. donated $1 million to the Japanese Red Cross Society on Wednesday to support reconstruction efforts in the devastated Tohoku region.

Longform

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