Search - archive

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Aug 23, 2015

Novelist Ishiguro's notes and works head to Texas library

The sweeping archives of award-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro will be heading to a University of Texas research library, including a discarded opening chapter for his best-known book, "The Remains of the Day," the university said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Aug 2, 2015

Claiming the right to be Japanese — and more

If Japan cannot get over the conceit of having to 'look Japanese' to be treated as one, then it cannot make 'new Japanese,' and the country will continue to sink into an insolvent economic abyss.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jul 27, 2015

Tokai broadcaster pushes ninja idol adventure overseas

Tokai Television Broadcasting Ltd. has started to air a new series called "Ninja Boimenkun" ("Ninja Boys and Men") earlier this month.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2015

How Sony sanitized films to please China's censors

In a 2013 script for the movie "Pixels," intergalactic aliens blast a hole in one of China's national treasures — the Great Wall.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 7, 2015

'Motion Science' sways toward kids

There is a bit of a Renaissance feel to "Motion Science" at 21_21 Design Sight. Consciously compounding science, technology, art and design for the greater good of promoting curiosity and discovery in general, the exhibition is targeted at children and students. Automated devices and installations whirl,...
JAPAN / History
Jun 21, 2015

Signing of 1965 normalization treaty sparked sharp contrast in reactions

Fifty years ago, when Japan and South Korea signed a treaty to normalize diplomatic ties on June 22, 1965, their leaders toasted the signing in Tokyo as police in Seoul tear-gassed thousands of protesters and politicians who were opposing the move, according to archived reports by The Japan Times.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 31, 2015

U.S. greenlights Japan's march back to militarism

As I've often written, I'm a big proponent of the historical record — if for no other reason, so we can look back at the past and learn from our mistakes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 23, 2015

The 'Daughters of the Samurai' who changed the face of Meiji Era Japan

Tsuda College, occupying a leafy campus in the western suburbs of Tokyo, is a private college where female students are educated in languages and the liberal arts. In one corner of the site, overshadowed by the stately trees that surround it, lies the final resting place of Umeko Tsuda, an early pioneer...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 16, 2015

Cruising the waves of Japan's culture

As the great ship surges into Tokyo Bay I'm on the prow, hair streaming in the wind, like Kate Winslet in "Titanic." Wooded crags come into view, dotted with buildings and the odd factory chimney. The buildings are modern, not wooden houses, but the crags are still much the same as Commodore Matthew...
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2015

Why Putin treats fantasy as history

In the worldview of Russian President Vladimir Putin, winning matters more than truth.
JAPAN / Politics
May 7, 2015

187 scholars urge Abe to address Japan's wartime history

An international group of scholars of Japanese and East Asian studies have called on Tokyo to accurately address the country's history of colonial rule and wartime actions.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 11, 2015

Victims seek redress for 'unparalleled massacre' of Tokyo air raid

Why has one of the deadliest wartime events in history never been properly memorialized in Japan?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2015

Keeping up with the shifting world

Designers can be an ambitious bunch, hoping to lead us all into a better, color-coordinated, minimalist future. "The Fab Mind" aims to show off attempts "to understand and to resolve social issues through design'," based upon the earth-shattering notions that the world is in the midst of change, and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 6, 2015

Jazz trumpeter Toshinori Kondo issues a challenge to modern-day musicians

On a chilly Friday afternoon in December, trumpet player Toshinori Kondo reclines in the clutter of his Kawasaki recording studio, pours out two cups of shōchū liquor, and starts to explain what prompted him to abandon a lucrative career in Japan and move to Amsterdam in 1993.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 16, 2014

Rock, J-pop and dance: Albums we liked in 2014

The year-end album charts in Japan have a tendency to prop up the same acts year after year: Exile, anything that ends in a "48," and almost every group from the Johnny & Associates stable of boy bands. Writers at The Japan Times, however, spent the year looking past the charts to find a few gems lurking...
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Dec 16, 2014

'Yasukuni' director says 2007 film timelier than ever

With Angelina Jolie's film "Unbroken" about Japan's brutal treatment of prisoners during World War II being released this month, Chinese filmmaker Li Ying figures his 2007 anti-militarist documentary "Yasukuni" has only gained in relevance.
WORLD
Nov 15, 2014

Russia plans to create 'detailed, reliable' alternative version of Wikipedia

Russia plans to create its own version of Wikipedia to ensure its citizens have access to more "detailed and reliable" information about their country, the presidential library said Friday.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 27, 2014

Hyperbole over Asahi affair tarnishes brand Japan

The Asahi Shimbun has been apologetic of late after it confessed to journalistic wrongdoing in several articles.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 17, 2014

Audiences set to star in Ago's language quest

Satoshi Ago has been in the news lately following his appointment as artistic director of the small but pioneering Kyoto theater, Atelier Gekken. Since long before that, however, the playwright, actor and director has been renowned for his thought-provoking "theater of mechanical reproduction."
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 6, 2014

Yoshio Taniguchi: thriving in the shadow of greatness

Architect Yoshio Taniguchi generally doesn't like having his photograph taken for use in the media. In a way, it's a logical extension of his approach to his work, which could be described as architecture by subtraction. Having painstakingly removed everything extraneous from a design, and having overseen...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 15, 2014

How World War I inspired independent India

It's been almost forgotten that more than 1 million subjects of undivided colonial India fought in World War I for the Allies — about 75,000 lost their lives — following a massive recruitment drive by their British masters. The new age of nationalism ushered in by the Great War inspired Indian independence.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 25, 2014

Kids' stuff that adults need to see

Perhaps in the wake of this attack on seriousness, many artists have since taken refuge in childishness, whimsy or playfulness, though these values have been carefully rationed in 'Go-Betweens: The World Seen through Children,' with the emphasis being more on showing childhood as a state of vulnerability and transformation.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 11, 2014

China seeks UNESCO listing for Nanking Massacre, sex slave archives; Japan protests

The government has filed a protest against China's applications to have what it says are historical documents on the 1937 Nanking Massacre and Japan's wartime "comfort women" brothel system registered in the U.N. archive program, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday.

Longform

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