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COMMENTARY
Nov 19, 2013

View Typhoon Haiyan as an early warning system

"We've been telling the rest of the world we don't want what's happening to us to happen to everyone else," said Lucille L. Sering, the vice chair of the Philippines' Climate Commission,, as the country struggled to cope with the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. "This is your early warning system ... we...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 18, 2013

Japan Inc. doubles profit on quick cost-cutting moves

Companies that made tough decisions about exiting businesses, closing factories and revamping management led to a doubling of corporate earnings last quarter, now at the highest level since 2007.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 17, 2013

U.S. left gravitates toward 'scourge of Wall Street'

Not many political "rock stars" inspire audience members to knit, but, even by Washington's sedate standards, the darling of America's new left is a quiet revolutionary.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Nov 16, 2013

New rules needed for posting system

Masahiro Tanaka will probably end up in the majors next year, thanks in no small part to the terms NPB players seem to be willing to accept in regards to the posting system.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Nov 15, 2013

TELL vet helps cast net wider to reach kids, stop suicides

The Tokyo English Life Line has been providing support and counseling services to Japan's international community for 40 years. Vickie Skorji, the new director of the Lifeline hot line service, has played a pivotal role in its activities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 14, 2013

'Yurusenai, Aitai (Again)'

Press screenings here are usually cut-and-dry affairs, with the sole sales pitch being a PR staffer reciting the film's opening date and running time before the show begins. The one I attended for "Yurusenai, Aitai (Again)," the feature debut by award-winning shorts director Junichi Kanai, was blazingly...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2013

Cheep shot: Mascot Totto-chan's lewd radio comments may be its last chirps

While the craze over regional mascots continues, recent mishaps involving some characters shows not everything is rosy in the "yuru-kyara" (soft character) industry.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 9, 2013

Perfect match: Miyakon help singles connect

Despite being located almost a stone's throw from the historic town of Nikko in Tochigi Prefecture and establishing itself as the gyōza capital of Japan, Utsunomiya was languishing in the economic doldrums for the much of the early 2000s.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 9, 2013

Learning to revel in the odd with the Ig Nobel

"I noticed there was a suspicious-looking email in my in box with the subject 'Ig Nobel' and 'Congratulations.' At first I thought it was some kind of spam. I was going to disregard it, but then I recalled the famous Ig Nobel awards," relates Dr. Masanori Niimi of Teikyo University in Shukan Shincho...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 8, 2013

Nuclear power: India shouldn't buy what Japan is trying to sell

Despite the Fukushima disaster, Japan remains at the center of the global nuclear-industrial complex, ready to sell demonstrably dangerous technology to wannabe nuclear powers.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2013

Tehran's nuclear quandary

There are many obstacles to an agreement on Iran's nuclear program. Particularly troubling for the U.S. and its allies, though, is how much Iran has mimicked the regime in Pyongyang.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 7, 2013

Franz Ferdinand gets it right on latest album

When I speak to Paul Thomson, drummer with Scottish art-poppers Franz Ferdinand, it is just over 36 hours since James Blake's second album, "Overgrown," was announced as the surprise winner of this year's Mercury Prize, the award for the best record to come out of the U.K. and Ireland in the past year....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2013

Money, censorship and the future of Asian cinema

Flitting around Roppongi Hills during the week of the Tokyo International Film Festival, you get to meet and chat with any number of interesting people, but one of the better conversations I had was sitting down for coffee with Jacob Wong, curator of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, held each...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2013

'Shijukunichi no Recipe (Mourning Recipe)'

In these days of ubiquitous movie prerelease news and hype, it's harder to remain a blank sheet going into the theater — unless you totally block out everything but the title.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 2, 2013

Trust no one: Japan's magazines offer a bleak message

What a bleak picture emerges from the nation's weekly and monthly periodicals: Trust is simple-minded, mistrust paranoid.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2013

A Chinese version of 'responsible protection'

The 'responsibility to protect' principle is a challenge for China, which seems to view humanitarianism as good, interventionism as bad, and 'humanitarian intervention' as marrying good to evil.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 31, 2013

'Venuto al Mondo'

So many films these days seem to be trying their hardest to be the same, their connect-the-dots three-act narratives all carved from the same stone. Then there's "Venuto al Mondo" (released in English as "Twice Born"), which features a story that flows like a river: shallow here, deep there, a gentle...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2013

Japan Times appoints advisers to improve coverage

The Japan Times announced Thursday that it has established The Japan Times Media Advisory Board, appointing four distinguished individuals living in Japan to improve the quality of the newspaper and its reportage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 30, 2013

Voices of Syria's war set to haunt Tokyo stage

The war in Syria has been making headlines for more than two years now, but it's made very little impact on the theater world in Japan. Next month, though, that's set to change with the Tokyo staging of "The Fear of Breathing," a hard-hitting British documentary drama about that ongoing multi-pronged...
BASKETBALL
Oct 29, 2013

bj-league bans JT access

In an unprecedented move, the professional basketball bj-league has issued a ban on media access by The Japan Times for the entire 2013-14 season. The directive has been relayed to teams around the country by the league office, the newspaper has learned.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 28, 2013

Toyota sales top GM's during third quarter

Toyota Motor Corp. outsold General Motors Co. and all other carmakers for the second time in three quarters, in the latest example of how Japan's largest manufacturers are benefiting from "Abenomics."
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 25, 2013

Toyota fined $3 million by U.S. jury

Toyota Motor Corp. must pay $3 million in a lawsuit claiming that a defect in a Camry caused the vehicle to suddenly accelerate, leading to an accident that left one woman dead and another injured, an Oklahoma jury says.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat