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Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Mar 20, 2005

Samba viva samba! Matsudaira style!

With the mercury rising to 17 degrees, March 8 was unusually warm for the time of year in Tokyo. Spring was in the air. At Tokyo Dome that evening, though, it was distinctly subtropical as 20,000 people broke out into a midsummer-style sweat.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 17, 2005

Ancient birds, Stone Age music

All winter long, the cacophony of sound at Sunayu, on the eastern shore of Lake Kussharo in eastern Hokkaido, is almost entirely comprised if the bugling and whooping of swans.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 9, 2005

The melting pot of theatrical Asia served up for Japan

"Hotel Grand Asia," the debut production resulting from an ambitious pan-Asian collaboration called Lohan Journey, opened at the Setagaya Public Theatre (SEPT) in Sangenjaya on March 8 is the fruit of over two years of intensive preparation since the project was launched by SEPT's director Kentaro Matsui....
Japan Times
Features
Mar 6, 2005

Issey Ogata: Comic chameleon

Issey Ogata is nothing if not versatile. Alone on an empty stage, he has audiences in fits as he performs his seriously funny one-man shows portraying characters as diverse as a classic sarariman (office worker) and a folk-song diva -- one after another.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2005

Two more firms to back Fuji TV's bid for NBS

Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co. said Monday they will sell their shares in Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. to Fuji Television Network Inc. to support its tender offer for the radio broadcaster and thwart a takeover attempt by Internet company Livedoor Co.
Rugby
Feb 27, 2005

Rugby legends Johnson, Eales to visit Tokyo

Two giants of rugby union -- both in terms of ability and stature -- are heading to Tokyo in June.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 23, 2005

Whitewash fails to cover the pain

In "Akuma no Uta, (Devil's Song)" the playwright Keiishi Nagatsuka, 29, seems to ask what we Japanese have learned from defeat in World War II. Leaning heavily on comedy, farce, satire and sometimes tragedy, Nagatsuka's answer -- as one of a generation only able to know about that human catastrophe from...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 20, 2005

Sugar frosted, the Thai way

VERY THAI: Everyday Popular Culture, by Philip Cornwel-Smith, photographs by John Goss, preface by Alex Kerr. Bangkok: River Books, 2005, 257 pp., color illustrated, 995 baht (cloth). All countries have something of their own, something the dictionary calls "a kind or sort, especially in regard to appearance...
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2005

Fuji TV kicks Livedoor's Horie off quiz show in latest takeover salvo

Fuji Television Network Inc. said Wednesday it has dropped Livedoor Co. President Takafumi Horie as a regular participant on one of its weekly quiz shows, citing the two firms' battle for control of a radio broadcaster.
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 16, 2005

Tale of the spy who loved Brandt

"Democracy" is an iconic buzzword of our times. What Webster's dictionary defines as "government in which the people hold the ruling power either directly or through elected representatives" is routinely held out, particularly by the current leader of the world's foremost military-industrial complex,...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 4, 2005

Gunners misfiring a year after record-setting season

LONDON -- Manchester United's 4-2 win over Arsenal at Highbury on Tuesday was not just a victory, it was further proof that the Premiership champion needs a significant overhaul.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 2, 2005

Seduction twice over by Cooper

How lucky we are in Tokyo, to be graced with the world premiere of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by one of the leading dancers of our time, the former Royal Ballet principal, Adam Cooper.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Roppongi: from ashes to 'High Touch Town'

The Roppongi district of Tokyo has been through a turbulent time in the 60 years since it was destroyed by firebombing during World War II.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Jobless rate edges to six-year low

Japan's unemployment rate edged down 0.1 percent to a six-year low of 4.4 percent in December.
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2005

CPI declines for the fifth straight year as deflation continues to dog economy

The key gauge of consumer prices in Japan fell 0.1 percent in 2004, marking a fifth straight yearly decline and underscoring that the economy is still beset by deflation, the government said Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2005

Execs face charges in revolving door death

Police on Wednesday handed prosecutors their case against six executives in connection with the death of a 6-year-old boy who was crushed in an automatic revolving door at Tokyo's Roppongi Hills commercial complex in March.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jan 27, 2005

Wonderfully easy on the eyes

Sony launched its new PlayStation Portable in Japan in December. According to Sony, it is slated to launch in the United States by the end of March. Who knows about Europe.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2005

Vodafone cuts off users of crime-linked phones

Vodafone K.K. has begun unilaterally terminating services for prepaid mobile phones that have been used in fraudulent billing and other crimes, company officials said Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 25, 2005

Japan's enemy within

Riding home from school on the crowded Tokyo underground recently one day, 12-year-old Kim says she felt something hit the back of her head. When she checked what it was, her hand came away covered in saliva spat by a middle-aged male passenger. As he was getting off, the man said: "Get back to your...
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2005

Lowered standards eyed for foreign-language tour guides

The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry plans to review the highly competitive certification exams for professional foreign-language guides in a bid to boost the number of certified guides available to tourists, officials said Saturday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 23, 2005

Gothic influence creeps out of the darkness and into the limelight

IN LIGHT OF SHADOWS: More Gothic Tales, by Izumi Kyoka, translated and with essays by Charles Shiro Inouye. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004, 180 pp., $16.00 (paper). The first (1993) edition of Charles Inouye's prior volume of Izumi Kyoka's stories was simply called "Three Tales of Mystery...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 15, 2005

For better or worse: the 400th column

Welcome to the 400th Japan Lite column! If you have been reading this column since 1997, then congratulations on our 400th anniversary. Four hundred weekend dates is longer than most unmarried couples make it. How does it feel to be 400?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jan 7, 2005

Old Asakusa lives on

Asakusa is a magnet for those who love old-time Tokyo. Like a theater full of excitement and festivity in praise of old Edo, Asakusa Kannon Temple and the surrounding business district are vibrant year-round, attracting on average 35 million people a year. This two-part article will take an in-depth...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jan 4, 2005

Why has literacy dropped so dramatically?

Ana Mickle Stay at home mom, 34 There's been an upsurge in new forms of entertainment in recent years. I don't think school hours should be extended. I think students should do better with the time they have -- the kids should have a life. Schools should work on truancy rates.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2004

Zoos grope to captivate visitors

Gone are the days when a new panda or elephant guaranteed a boost in zoo visitors.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 29, 2004

Celebrating ourselves and others on stage in 2004

Many of the best theatrical stagings on these shores this year tackled issues having to do with the current chaotic state of the world. The focus of the best productions in Japan was how to understand, communicate and cope with others from quite different cultural and ethnic backgrounds; or, as part...
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2004

Price of exclusivity too high

"Nippon Chinbotsu" -- Japan Sinks -- was the title of a 1980s best-selling novel that predicted how massive earthquakes would push the Japanese islands below the waters of the Pacific. The drenched survivors would head for Australia.

Longform

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