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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2011

An audience with Kyoko Kagawa

Kyoko Kagawa is among the fast dwindling number of living witnesses to Japanese cinema's Golden Age of the 1950s and '60s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 10, 2011

Casiokids won't waste a second while in Japan

With saucepans, a bowl, a wine-glass high-hat and some chopsticks to playfully clink them with, a cover version was born. Thinking it "too tricky to work out the chords to a Shiina Ringo song," it was with a cover of Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki" that Norwegian synth-pop four-piece Casiokids introduced themselves...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 6, 2011

Words for all seasons

THE UNDYING DAY: Poems by Hans Brinckmann. Trafford Publishing, 2011, 131pp., $14.50 (paperback) In person, Hans Brinckmann is a dapper European gent with the patrician manner of the well-practised host or master of ceremonies. Reading this book of time-seasoned verse, one suspects that he would be equally...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Nov 1, 2011

More ways to try before you buy

Not sure if you're ready to Roomba? Trial offers let you take just about anything for a spin.
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...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 25, 2011

Feeling your way around the Tokyo National Museum

Next time you have a chance to visit the Tokyo National Museum (TNM) in Tokyo's Ueno district, before walking around that home to a vast and impressive collection of traditional Japanese paintings, sculptures and crafts, remember to make a quick stop in the room on the left of the foyer.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Oct 25, 2011

The natural tide of the times

Back to basics Ki no Kami paper — the result of a collaboration between the Shiodome Innovation Studio (a creative unit that teams Japan's leading advertising agency, Dentsu, and Keio University's Shonan Fujisawa Campus with various creators) and the PaPaCo Yoshino wooden-toy maker — is designed...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 23, 2011

Documenting disaster

THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE and Tsunami, the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor, and How the World's Media Reported Them, by Eric Johnston. The Japan Times, 2011, 96 pp., ¥1,260 (paperback) Seven months after Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters, the jury remains out on media reporting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 22, 2011

Briton aims to restore poets' peak to former glory

Nineteen university students and civic-minded Kyoto residents squat on a mountain pass on a cloudless afternoon in early October as a tall British poet, Stephen Gill, 58, reads from a collection of haiku.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 21, 2011

"Goya: Lights and Shadows. Masterpieces of the Museo del Prado"

One of the most important 19th-century artists of Spain, the Romanticist painter and printmaker Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) is considered one of the last Old Masters as well as a pioneer of modern art. He helped develop Romanticism and produced works that became a major influence and inspiration behind...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Oct 15, 2011

Golden Kings, Evessa class of the West again

Almost nothing remains the same in the Eastern Conference, as all 10 head coaches this season are in spots that they didn't occupy at this time a year ago.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 14, 2011

Where have all the gyaru gone?

When model Nozomi Sasaki stepped out onto the catwalk at last month's Tokyo Girls Collection (TGC) fashion event, a wave of sighs rippled through the 30,000 mostly young girls in attendance. Sasaki is one of the most popular models in Japan right now, and her presence was essential at this year's fest,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 14, 2011

"Toulouse-Lautrec: The Maurice Joyant Collection"

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) suffered a number of congenital health problems that led to the inability of his legs to heal properly after he fractured his thigh bones in his teens. Often mocked for his appearance, he chose to focus on his art and found comfort in the nightlife of Paris — his...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 14, 2011

"Indian Popular Art: Encounter with Colonial Modernity"

Popular art in India — which includes advertising posters, postcards, religious painting prints, painted photographs and more — gives us some insight into the cultural and artistic influences of imagery of India.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2011

Honeydew "Don't Know Where"

"Don't Know Where" lacks prerelease hype, sub-subgenre classification or needless gimmicks (unless consistant lyrical allusions to driving cars qualifies — autocore, anyone?). Honeydew's debut album is a simple collection of feedback-assisted indie pop reminiscent of U.S. group Yo La Tengo's catchier...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2011

Tenniscoats make tunes out of tiffs

It's a late night on Hannana Dori in Tokyo's Meguro Ward. From a window above the P-Koen atelier and shop comes the sound of a couple arguing. But listen carefully and you'll realize that it's not a domestic row; rather, the pair are in heated debate over what their "sound" might be. It dawns on you...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2011

Millionaires don't have it made

President Barack Obama has been trying to sell his new "millionaires' tax" to the Rust Belt. "What's great about this country is our belief that anyone can make it," he said in Cincinnati on Sept. 22, praising "the idea that any one of us can open a business or have an idea that could make us millionaires."...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 9, 2011

Hymns for human potential

March and After, by Jon Mitchell. Printed Matter Press, 2011, 34pp., ¥1,000 (paperback) "March and After" brims with pithy song, but it is not merely a collection of poetry. The slim volume cuts with journalistic economy and biographical precision.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 7, 2011

Bonsai showcase a must for green thumbs

The Angyo Autumn Grand Bonsai Exhibition & Greenery Festival is reaching out to non-Japanese speakers for its 72nd event.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 6, 2011

Seiji

Dance-music maker Paul Dolby, aka Seiji, has played with many electronic genres since he began DJing in the 1990s. The Seiji coming to Japan this weekend releases club-centric tracks for free on his website while also putting his personal spin on artists such as Erykah Badu and Gorillaz.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Sep 29, 2011

Metabolism: When the future was still ahead

The word "fukkō" ("reconstruction") — is once again in the air. Ubiquitous during the postwar period, it enjoyed an earlier vogue a generation before as Tokyo was rebuilt after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. But while the word may be the same, its meaning and spirit changes from era to era. A...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIGHT GIST
Sep 27, 2011

No-nos for Noda: Japan's top 10 most useless PMs

On Sept. 2, Yoshihiko Noda was appointed the 95th prime minister of Japan, the sixth man (and they have all been men) to hold the job in five years. To mark this occasion and offer lessons to the new Democratic Party of Japan chief on how not to lead the country, the Community Page asked 10 writers to...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 25, 2011

The helping hand of travel

Travel Guide To Aid Japan. WAttention, 2011, 159 pp. ¥1,000 (paper) Tourism is the world's foremost industry, one that Japan, until very recently, has been rather slow to take advantage of. Sophisticated travel writing has never been a significant component of Japanese literature, the country failing...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2011

Keynes was not a big 'Keynesian'

What does it mean to be Keynesian? It was the British economist John Maynard Keynes who declared that when, like today, economic growth grinds to a standstill and businesses fail to provide enough jobs, governments have the ability, and the duty, to fill the gap.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 18, 2011

Castles and Crafts on the Yomitan Peninsula

Most people come to the Yomitan Peninsula on Okinawa's main island for the sand and the scuba opportunities. I, however, am one of those island residents on whom paradise is wasted — I like neither a sweltering day at the beach nor an afternoon spent exploring the intimidating world beneath the waves....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 16, 2011

"Still Life from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Tradition and Innovation"

During the 14th century in northern Europe, the optical realism of still-life painting became popular and it was often used to depict objects of allegorical or symbolic meaning. It was not until much later that artists gradually began to pay more attention to shape, color and motifs, which led to less...
COMMENTARY
Sep 16, 2011

New prime minister must restore confidence in politics

Yoshihiko Noda, taking over from Naoto Kan as president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, was elected the 95th prime minister on Aug. 30. He is the 18th prime minister in 25 years and the third since the DPJ came to power two years ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Sep 15, 2011

Building future cities from grains of sand

As the last of the debris is cleared from the Great East Japan Earthquake and plans are drawn up to reconstruct the devastated towns and communities, architects and planners are pondering not just to how replace what was lost, but how to improve upon it. With fortuitous timing, Tokyo this September is...
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Sep 15, 2011

Don't miss those fleeting moments

The closest English photographer, and former night porter, Chris Shaw ever came to Japan was listening to stories at home in Merseyside from his Irish ex-merchant navy father. Sailor Shaw told his wide-eyed son of an extraordinary stopover in Osaka before the war in 1939, when he was granted shore leave....

Longform

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