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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / Japan Pulse
Jun 29, 2010

Designers rock the yukata

Buoyed by a renewed popularity in made-in-Japan traditions, designers are updating the yukata of summer with both retro and modern designs.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 27, 2010

Still shy of reversion after all these years

NEW YORK — Just about the time Yukio Hatoyama resigned as Japan's prime minister, apologizing to the Okinawa people in tears, I was writing about the last day of Yukio Mishima's life — Nov. 25, 1970.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 20, 2010

Pulp fiction raunch with a happy ending

Yoshihiro Tatsumi was, when young, a fan of Mickey Spillane, the poor man's — the very poor man's — Raymond Chandler, and Spillane's fingerprints are all over "Black Blizzard," a page-turner in the best pulp style, published in 1956.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 6, 2010

Art rebel without a cause

Pulse waves from the art world of the early 20th Century may have been felt far and wide, but the movements, practitioners and individual works of art themselves were far from being globally coordinate.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2010

A disappointing departure

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigned Wednesday, nine months after bringing historic change to Japanese politics by ending more than five decades of almost uninterrupted Liberal Democratic Party rule.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 1, 2010

Gunma city does battle with beards

I would like to draw readers' attention to the outstanding work of the municipal government of Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture. After receiving complaints that citizens find bearded men unpleasant, Isesaki — just as all levels of Japanese government often do — took decisive action to address an important...
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2010

Thai 'multiparty' turmoil not lost on China's rulers

BEIJING — Whatever the effects of political turmoil in Thailand, they have not helped the cause of democracy in China. The images of prodemocracy protesters and the subsequent military crackdown in downtown Bangkok have been openly shown in Chinese media without any apparent bias. Indeed, there is...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 22, 2010

The bright career of a literary 'shadow hero'

American author Paul Auster once called translators "the shadow heroes of literature," who have enabled us to understand that we all live in one world. He could also be describing Juliet Winters Carpenter, 61, one of the best-known literary translators from Japanese to English, who has won praise for...
JAPAN
May 15, 2010

Carrying on the art of silent film narration

Midori Sawato knows how to act, from princess to samurai to thief — but only with her voice.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
May 10, 2010

Apartment shares in Japan draw a share of the herd

Rents aren't getting any lower, but if you're willing to share, you might end up with a pretty cool place to live.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 7, 2010

Crime scene investigation: Edo

The original U.S. TV series "CSI (Crime Scene Investigation)," set in Las Vegas, has been so successful that it has almost grown into a franchise, with "CSI: Miami," "CSI: NY," and "CSI: Triology." After visiting the "Ryoma Den" exhibition at the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which looks at the life of the 19th-century...
JAPAN
May 5, 2010

Secondhand market grows

When Chie Matsumoto buys anything — from a DVD player to golf goods to a telephone — she now chooses secondhand goods because brand-new items aren't necessarily what she needs.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 1, 2010

By the pricking of my thumbs, something yummy this way comes

Every time I return to the States I cannot help but feel a bit . . . evil.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 30, 2010

'The Box'/'9'

You'd be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of certifiably cult movies from the past decade, but Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko" (2001) is definitely one of them. This strange hybrid about a troubled teen and his invisible friend (a giant evil-looking rabbit named Frank) could best be described...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 30, 2010

Hikari Mitsushima: from pop idol to screen diva?

Up until last year, 24-year-old Hikari Mitsushima was best known as a former member of the Okinawan idol group Folder 5.
COMMENTARY
Apr 28, 2010

U.K. overdoses on change

British politics has been turned upside down by recent events. The traditional two-party battle between Labour and Conservatives has been thrown into confusion by a big surge in support for a third party, the Liberal Democrats. The likely result could be a "hung parliament," with the Conservatives being...
BUSINESS
Apr 27, 2010

Japan needs green tech investment

The government should focus more on promoting innovations and utilizing energy-efficient technologies of Japanese companies in the nation's efforts to combat global warming, officials of industry groups said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 25, 2010

Slow 'n' easy

This year is the 1,300th anniversary of the founding of Japan's first major capital, named Heijokyo, and its present-day home prefecture of Nara is basking in that ancient spotlight.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 23, 2010

'Bushido Sixteen'

Women warriors have been a feature of Japanese films for decades, from Meiko Kaji's revenge-bent heroine in "Shurayuki Hime" (Lady Snowblood, 1973) — a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" — to Haruka Ayase's sword-wielding shamisen player in "Ichi" (2008).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 9, 2010

The blond ambition of Tamara de Lempicka

I'm not sure what Lady Gaga — who arrives in Japan shortly — has in her art collection, but given time (and the millions produced by her phenomenal success) I think it is highly likely that a lady of her strong aesthetic drives will get round to emulating her model Madonna by acquiring paintings...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Apr 4, 2010

Corey out to make most of second chance in Japan

Chiba Lotte Marines right-hander Bryan Corey is back in Japan for a second chance, following a turbulent half-season in 2004 with the Yomiuri Giants, and he is determined to make the most of this opportunity.
LIFE / WEEK 3
Mar 21, 2010

Moves afoot to make Japanese holidays a pleasure not a pain

It's a seasonal phenomenon in Japan: lines of cars 40-km long and more clogging expressways; super- jammed shinkansen terminals and airports; and hot-spring resorts besieged by visitors crammed cheek to cheek in the steaming baths, imo-arai-style (literally, "washing potatoes in a bucket").
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 14, 2010

Patient's tale casts a sublime lightness on some awful scars of war

"Elephant," by Minoru Betsuyaku, is a postwar classic of Japanese drama.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Mar 11, 2010

Revamps, re-openings, relocations and the return of Fashion Week

MISHA JANETTE Get ready for Fashion Week
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 10, 2010

Wait long enough and daikon legs get fashionable

Bridget Jones said a woman starts to feel her age when the fashion of the times comes full circle and she witnesses the ghostly resurrection of all the stuff she wore in her youth.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2010

Visions of art in an alternative key

In its own quiet way, Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions was one of the standout art events of 2009.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Feb 2, 2010

Non-Japanese suffrage and the racist element

On Jan. 17, Takeo Hiranuma made this statement about fellow Diet member Renho:
CULTURE / Books
Jan 31, 2010

Love in the age of governmental say so

First comes "Eat, Pray, Love," then comes marriage for best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose latest travel memoir describes her fitful and resistant journey back into matrimony.

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