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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 19, 2012

Greeen Linez debut revisits Japan's City Pop summer jams of the past

Nostalgia is nothing new in popular music. A disco revival during the 1990s (think Deee-Lite), led to a renewed fascination with the 1980s during the 2000s (think Chromeo and a synth-pop boom) and that decade even started seeing a '90s revival toward the end of it.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jul 17, 2012

Courts back workers' rock-solid right to strike

"Sensei, Japan is such a safe country because there are no strikes. Right?" A student at the university where I teach blindsided me with this remark the other day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 12, 2012

Public theater takes on a leading role

Once upon a time, Japanese contemporary theater shared the limelight with youth-cultural movements that were rocking the nation. Back then, in the late 1960s and '70s, the avant-garde works of the angura (underground) theater scene had such an affinity with the radical student movement that they often...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 10, 2012

Readers lament the ever-shrinking eikaiwa salary

Some readers' responses to "The curious case of the eroding eikaiwa salary" by Patrick Budmar (Zeit Gist, July 3):
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 8, 2012

Naoshima: art colony risen beautifully from ruination

Packing his trademark black Walther PPK 7.65 mm automatic, a small pistol with a mighty punch, agent 007 set foot on the island of Naoshima just one day after escaping the clutches of a powerful sociopath and his henchman.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 6, 2012

'Kueki Ressha (The Drudgery Train)'

Directors often find themselves boxed in by fan expectations. If a filmmaker who is known and loved for quirky pieces does a serious film or two, fans tend to complain he or she is sliding down a slippery slope toward dreaded respectability.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 5, 2012

Ryuichi Sakamoto gently rallies the troops for No Nukes 2012

The demonstrations against the restarting of the Oi nuclear power plant held recently on Friday nights outside Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's residence are very much directed at the occupant of that abode, but they are attracting attention around the world, too. One of their closest followers is a Japanese...
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2012

Two Peace Prize laureates fail to communicate

"The lead interrogator at the Division Interrogation Facility had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 30, 2012

British artist/chef finds happiness by keeping all of his options open

Cooking can be art and art nourishes, but what really connects the two for chef and artist Johnny Miller is the act of creation itself: "It's the physicality of it — both are directly related to your body and how your body moves. In cooking, you've got to touch things, touch hot and cold things. You've...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 28, 2012

Expressions that lie between functionality and art

"Function Dysfunction" at the Tomio Koyama Gallery, Kyoto, brings together the ceramic works of three Americans: ceramicists Adam Silverman and Ani Kasten, and sculptor Alma Allen. Silverman, who felt that their works shared an aesthetic DNA, brought the three together, explaining that their pieces,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 28, 2012

DJ Kentaro set to scratch a new itch

Only a handful of artists can say they've reached the top of their trade, but Kentaro Okamoto is one of them. As DJ Kentaro, his record-scratching skills got him noticed by beat heads worldwide back in 2002, when he won the DMC World DJ Final in London. But, now this DJ wants an image change.
COMMENTARY
Jun 26, 2012

Demographic threat shadows a world power

For the last two decades, demographics and its effect on Russian society and future development prospects have been at the center of discussions on that country.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 24, 2012

Mutombo using stature to make a difference in world

Dikembe Mutombo commands attention, and it's not because he towers over people at 218 cm, or the fascinating fact that he speaks nine languages (including five African dialects) or blocked 3,289 shots during his 18-season NBA career. Simply put, the big fellow has lived a remarkable life.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 24, 2012

The doomsday cult of 9-to-5 depression

One of the enduring mysteries of the Aum Shinrikyo atrocities of the 1990s is the ease with which the cult attracted members. The arrest this month of the last two fugitives allegedly involved in Aum's fatal 1995 sarin gas assault on the Tokyo subway system recalls the whole ghastly episode, together...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 24, 2012

Giants get back to basics in victory over Swallows

Tatsunori Hara's first game back at home since his scandal broke was uneventful.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 22, 2012

Innovative data delivery firm e-Parcel takes on the big boys

When e-Parcel Corp., an online data delivery service provider, last year sued 13 U.S. Internet-related service firms, including Yahoo Inc., Google Inc., AOL Inc. and Akamai Technologies Inc., for patent infringement, the action meant more than just protecting its intellectual property.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jun 19, 2012

Seaweed salt

Dear Alice,
COMMENTARY
Jun 16, 2012

Greek election decided in Spain

It's probably the first time that events in Spain have decided the outcome of a Greek election. Last weekend the European Union agreed to loan Spain's nearly insolvent banks €100 billion on relatively easy terms. Syriza, the hard-left protest party that came from nowhere to dominate last month's election...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 16, 2012

The midlife crisis hotline — dreams to fulfill before you get too old?

I've recently been reading books about athletes. Lance Armstrong's "It's Not About the Bike," Andre Agassi's "Open," and more recently, Scott Jurek's "Eat and Run." All these books are memoirs, but they have something less obvious in common. They all had ghostwriters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 14, 2012

Rocker Hotei hears London calling

Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee celebrations are never complete without a rock star wielding an axe to inaugurate proceedings. For the Golden Jubilee in 2002 it was Queen's Brian May atop Buckingham Palace. And for The British Embassy in Japan's Diamond Jubilee party this month, the sword fell on the broad...
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 2012

Reaching for the sky

Japanese set three new records last month, all of them sky high. One was a marvel of technology, the other two marvels of human endurance. The achievements offer a renewed sense of hopefulness that Japan is still very much a can-do society.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 10, 2012

Is sci-fi becoming sci-fact in Japan, too?

Where is Japan's equivalent of Elon Musk? Where's the young entrepreneur with a huge bank balance and dreams to match? Where is that someone raised in these isles on sci-fi manga and space movies who wants to make human travel in space a reality?
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2012

Wanted: round-trip freedom for China's dissidents

Western media describe my friend and colleague Chen Guangcheng as a blind activist who made a flight to freedom when China allowed him to journey from Beijing to the United States. What is essential about Chen is neither his blindness nor his family's visit to the U.S., but the fact that he upholds a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 8, 2012

'My House' takes Tsutsumi home

"Auteur" is not the first word that leaps to mind to describe Yukihiko Tsutsumi. In a directing career that began with a segment of the 1988 comedy anthology "Bakayaro! I'm Plenty Mad," the prolific Tsutsumi has made films in a variety of genres — mystery/thriller ("Spec: The Movie"), dystopian fantasy...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2012

Refugee pines to go back to, help Myanmar

When Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi announced her trust in President Thein Sein last August, Tin Win Akbar decided it was time to return home after spending almost 16 years as an exile in Japan.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jun 5, 2012

'It's just because ... foreigners know best': readers' views

Some readers' views on John Spiri's May 1 Zeit Gist column, "It's just because . . . foreigners know best":
Japan Times
OLYMPICS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 31, 2012

Yoshida returns focus to Olympic three-peat after rare defeat

Incredibly long winning streaks come as natural to Saori Yoshida as enjoying ice cream cones on hot summer days for the rest of us.

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