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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 3, 2010

Fukuoka: Designed for living

Inquiring as to the whereabouts of English-language bookstores in Fukuoka, the person at the Rainbow Plaza information center's desk straightaway handed me a printout of English listings, maps and directions. This, I began to realize, is a well organized city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 1, 2010

De De Mouse sets an electronic trap

"I am a musician, not a celebrity," says the shy fop when asked about the bumbled between-song banter in his otherwise triumphant set that finished just moments earlier at a music festival. Facing in toward his backing band, rather than outward to the crowd, the shy fop had buried his head in a bank...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Sep 24, 2010

'Mizuki Shigeru: Illustrations of Yokai'

Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe Closes Oct. 3
LIFE / Digital
Sep 22, 2010

Fans line up for previews

With record figures of 81,469 attendees last Saturday and 77,185 on Sunday, the public days at Tokyo Game Show were swamped with more people than the game companies could handle.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 19, 2010

'Rakugo' star spins his tales in English

More than 100 readers of The Japan Times attended an English-language "rakugo" comic performance Saturday held in celebration of the paper's 40,000th issue.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 19, 2010

Thinking aloud

Few philosophers are compared to rock stars or TV celebrities, but that's the kind of popularity Michael Sandel enjoys in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 19, 2010

Let's samba!

Despite Tokyo's record-breaking summer heat, half a million spectators packed downtown Asakusa on Aug. 28 to watch the 30th Asakusa Samba Carnival, with many having arrived in the morning to be sure of getting a good view.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 17, 2010

Motion sensors, 3-D games grab limelight at Tokyo Game Show

Japan's biggest video game show kicked off Thursday at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, with motion-sensor game systems and three-dimensional display images drawing the most attention.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 17, 2010

'Kimi ga Odoru, Natsu (The Summer You Danced)'

Melodramas have been a staple of Japanese film for decades, proving over and over the observation that Japanese audiences, more than anything else, love a good cry. I've gone to screenings where the women sitting around me take out their handkerchiefs even before the lights go down. The men start blubbing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 17, 2010

'Benda Bilili!'

"Welcome to the desert of the real," says Morpheus as Neo awakens in a postapocalyptic landscape in "The Matrix." But he could just as well be describing the state of music nowadays. The "real" in music has indeed become like a desert, depopulated and featureless as far as the eye can see.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 17, 2010

New exhibition anticipates a design museum for Japan

In March, with the opening of the Design Museum Holon, Israel added its name to a long list of countries that have at least one full-fledged museum dedicated to design. Japan, despite its reputation as a design powerhouse — hard-earned during the 20th century by innovative work such as Sony's Walkman,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 15, 2010

Pair of Lehman Tokyo alumni chasing their dreams in movies

Adam Garrett went into the credit crisis an equity quant trader for Lehman Brothers Holdings in Tokyo. He came out Guy Orlebar, director, film financier and producer of "Future Fighters," a sci-fi action movie starring "Kill Bill's" Gordon Liu.
BUSINESS
Sep 10, 2010

Xbox gets physical to win in Japan

Battling its Japanese gaming rivals on their home turf hasn't been easy for Microsoft Corp. Its Xbox 360 game console runs a distant third in sales here behind Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 console and Nintendo Co.'s Wii.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 10, 2010

Eat, pray, love, kiss and tell

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Javier Bardem sounds almost as happy as he was the night he won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for "No Country for Old Men" in 2008. No wonder. He is recently married, to fellow Spaniard and Oscar-winner Penelope Cruz — his memorable costar in Woody Allen's "Vicky...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 6, 2010

Tower of Power: Record stores aren't dead yet

Another record chain bites the dust, but as Tower Records is proving, that doesn't mean there isn't money to be made in the music retail biz.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Sep 3, 2010

Hill, Apache set to open training camp in Texas

Before a single shot is taken in the season's first game, every team knows the following:
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2010

Failings of Indian infrastructure

NEW DELHI — New Delhi at last has its proud defining modern monument at the very point of entry to India — a massive, sparkling new Terminal 3, which alone is the sixth-largest airport in the world. Remarkably, too, it was built on time, in three years by a public-private partnership, and on a $3...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 3, 2010

Festival marks blip on the radar for chiptune

Taking Nintendo's Game Boy to places it was never meant to go, a lineup of international chiptune artists will be converging on Koenji High this weekend for Japan's first ever Blip Festival. The roster includes acts such as Nullsleep from New York, who takes a blowtorch to sweet "Super Mario" style ditties,...
LIFE / Digital
Aug 25, 2010

Twitter delivers creative way for ad agencies to play

While Twitter itself is still struggling to find a profitable business plan, Japanese ad agencies have quickly embraced the micro-blogging service to create innovative campaigns.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Aug 20, 2010

Time for bj-league to slow down on expansion

In a mad rush to expand, the bj-league is ignoring a number of real concerns, including the pressing need to aggressively market itself in Tokyo, this nation's entertainment, government, financial and media capital.
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2010

Mihara's fight for women's health is personal

The turning point in Junko Mihara's life came two years ago when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had to have her uterus removed.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 15, 2010

Silent but deadly in the RAW ring

There is a saying among pro-wrestlers that your true opponent is not the person facing you in the ring, but everyone outside the ring — in other words, the spectators in the stadium and, for some bouts, the millions watching on television.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2010

'Kinako — Minarai Keisatsuken no Monogatari (Kinako — The Story of an Apprentice Police Dog)'

Animal movies are a thriving genre of Japanese films that foreign critics, scholars and viewers by and large cordially detest. It's similar to the typical gaijin reaction to natto (fermented soy beans) — i.e., disgust at a humble, but beloved, made-in-Japan specialty.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2010

'No One Knows About Persian Cats'

Persian cats may be the next cool thing, but don't be misled: We're not talking about the feline kind.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Aug 1, 2010

Historic 'pink' theater hopes to put ladies on seats, not just screens

The Kabuki-za theater in Ginza is not the only notable Tokyo structure dating back to the 1950s that has shut its doors this year.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 1, 2010

Old Japan lives on at Ikaho Spa

The ways are various in Japan for having one's sense of local pride bolstered by recognition on some official list.

Longform

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