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CULTURE / Stage
Apr 2, 2014

Aichi's thriving drama grassroots

This year is set to be a good one for English theater in Japan, from Shakespearean comedy to original works, from intimate black-box stagings to a rock'n'roll musical. It's not Tokyo or even Osaka serving up this feast, though — but Nagoya, which is home to three thriving companies: The Nagoya Players,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Mar 31, 2014

Japan's 30-year building shelf-life is not quite true

In the past decade or so, certain claims about Japan's housing market have come to be accepted as facts. One is that Japanese houses are only meant to last 30 years.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2014

Tokyo tries PR blitz to raise international profile

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government starts distributing PR footage of the capital to TV stations in Asian countries as part of the effort to raise its international profile.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Mar 3, 2014

In Japan, you can leave it all up to the moving company

It's often described as one of the most stressful events of human life — but in Japan moving house is virtually a breeze.
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2014

China uses Ukraine unrest as argument for stability

China's Communist Party-controlled media appear to be using the unrest in Ukraine as a teaching moment to point out the pitfalls of clamoring for more rapid reforms in a large, multi-ethnic society — one like China's.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jan 9, 2014

Anime/manga experts hopeful for year ahead

Aside from Hayao Miyazaki's sudden departure from filmmaking in September, the anime world saw some potentially hopeful developments in 2013.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2014

Preparing for the age of disruption

By 2020, the quantity of stored data could be 50 times greater than it was in 2010. Many pundits regard this massive explosion of data as the new oil, even a new asset class.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2013

Christmas Grinch in China

The extension of Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption and anti-extravagance campaigns is blamed for creating a Grinch responsible for diminishing Chinese holiday cheer this year.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 12, 2013

U.S. health-insurance enrollments rise as website improves

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that the ailing health insurance website was improving thanks to "relentless" efforts to work out the bugs, and she cited an uptick in enrollment as evidence that the program is back on track after a false start.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Dec 10, 2013

Shueisha manga push hard into the global market

One week before Thanksgiving on Nov. 28, readers of The New York Times were greeted by a spiky-haired, wild-eyed manga character named Monkey D. Luffy, his fists clenched and chest bare, charging forward as if the newsprint could barely contain him. Behind him in massive text screamed the words: "Hey...
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 23, 2013

Dealey Plaza: birthplace of a mystery that still reverberates

Dealey Plaza is a depression. It is a shallow basin on the western edge of downtown, framed by concrete structures called pergolas and peristyles that were built in the late 1930s by the Works Progress Administration. Designed as a gateway to the city, the plaza is more of an ode to the automobile because...
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Nov 12, 2013

Has anime lost its cachet in America?

I had been invited to host a Q&A with renowned "Gundam" creator and sci-fi novelist Yoshiyuki Tomino at The New York Anime Festival. But when my handler and I arrived at the designated room, we found it empty and dark. "Over here," a staffer called from across the hall. "Too many people."
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 9, 2013

Pakistan enacts own 'Patriot Act' to deal with growing terrorist threat

After a decade of terrorist attacks, Pakistan is implementing a new legal framework to deal with its growing militant threat — what some are calling a local version of the USA Patriot Act.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 8, 2013

Escaping blame for an 'anus crime' by the seat of my pants

So there my wife sits before the tube — almost every night — with her electronic dictionary on and the Japanese subtitles off, soaking in the colorful language of law and lawbreaking.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 26, 2013

U.S. health care website to be fixed by end of November: White House

The White House announced Friday it was putting a private firm in charge of fixing its faulty health insurance website and set the end of November as a target date for working out all the bugs, the first indication of how long repairs may take.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 13, 2013

Straitjacket Japan could use more brawling billionaires to lead the way

Japan is being treated to a juicy spectacle as two of its richest and most innovative entrepreneurs brawl in public over Internet market share and visions for the future. But what's most important about the fight between Masayoshi Son and Hiroshi Mikitani is the example it's setting.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 23, 2013

Parts of fallen star's legacy may yet survive

Ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai's prospects of an eventual comeback evaporated Sunday after he was sentenced to life in prison and permanently deprived of all political rights, but aspects of his legacy may live on, experts said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 20, 2013

Sony expects price, content to up PS4 sales

Sony Corp. expects the lower price of the PlayStation 4 and wider variety of entertainment services to drive its forecast to sell 5 million units of the game console by the end of March.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Sep 17, 2013

Get lost in Inokashira Park and find yourself in Ghibli

Ah, Kichijoji: my favorite Tokyo neighborhood. Less than 30 minutes from the heart of the city, this hip suburb has everything a downtown dweller would want: good restaurants, good shopping, a thriving music scene and one of the coolest parks in the Kanto region. Indeed, most of my friends who live there...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 13, 2013

Briton relies on samurai spirit as he sets out on 126-km walk for charity

Like many before him, Trevor Skingle became fascinated with samurai ethics while learning a martial art. But for this Briton, the samurai respect for the arts in traditional Japan resonated with his own life choices.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Aug 13, 2013

Otakon celebrates 20 years of anime fandom in the U.S.

The American anime convention, Otakon ("Otaku Convention"), begins with a costume parade before it officially opens. Last week I had a bird's-eye view of the spectacle from my 14th-floor hotel room in Baltimore, Maryland. An endless army of imaginary characters trudged across the elevated concourse and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2013

'Pacific Rim'

Alien monsters vs. giant robots? Geek alert, people. "Pacific Rim" is so nerdy that it actually refers to its behemoths by the proper Japanese monster-movie genre name, kaiju.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 20, 2013

Inaugural Internet campaigning not proving to be game-changer in poll

The Internet won't have a major impact on the House of Councilors poll because a Liberal Democratic Party win seems certain and candidates are opting to campaign in person.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Jul 17, 2013

Resting in peace has never been so easy

The array of after-life choices, especially for families with fewer financial means, is growing.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Jun 14, 2013

Hard-won battles produce great wine grapes

On an overcast morning high in the hills of the Priorat region in northern Spain, I found myself faced with a dilemma: I had to decide which shoots to prune from the gnarled arms of a 60-year-old Garnacha grape vine. It was mid-May, and several young grape clusters — tiny, green beads that fitted neatly...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 11, 2013

New ID system for keeping tax tabs, finding cheats

The Diet passed the "common number" bill May 24, paving the way for every resident, including foreigners, to be assigned a personal identification number.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

U.S. taps servers in vast data-mining program

The National Security Agency and FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet firms, extracting audio and video chats, photos, emails, documents and connection logs. U.S. taps firms' servers, mines Internet data

Longform

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