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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 30, 2019

How Thomas Cook's 'excursions' lost their way

The 19th century concept of holiday travel is beginning to come apart.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 30, 2019

Frozen pork threatens to put the chill on China National Day festivities

China's supermarkets are topping up their meat counters with frozen pork from state reserves, after prices of the nation's favorite protein source surged to budget-busting levels, threatening to mar this week's National Day festivities.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 29, 2019

A fine tree that's worth getting to know

In postwar Japan, the government's Forestry Agency claimed that the Japanese beech was a useless tree. That's utter nonsense — beech wood is great for interiors and the tree is not only important for wildlife water management, but it also produces edible leaves and fruit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 25, 2019

'Ninkyo Gakuen': Yakuza comedy fails to make the grade

Hisashi Kimura's latest film sees a band of yakuza get involved with a local high school, serving justice and forming bonds along the way
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 22, 2019

Abe to appoint more liberal LDP members to key posts in bid to spur talks on constitutional reform

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to place less conservative members of his ruling party in important posts related to amending the Constitution.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Sep 22, 2019

How virtual streamers like Kizuna Ai became Japan's biggest YouTube attraction

Kizuna Ai, the most popular streamer in Japan, is an anatomically exaggerated, perpetually adolescent girl in frilly thigh-high socks and a pink hair ribbon. She's also an entirely virtual character, given life by the actions and voice of an invisible actress.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Sep 21, 2019

Signs of life: Urban renewal in Nakamachi

The oldest surviving quarter of Toba, Mie Prefecture, pins its hopes on crafts and small businesses to stay afloat.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?
Sep 21, 2019

Natsuyo Nobumoto Lipschutz: Getting the word out in the United States

Public speaking coach Lipschutz has a plenty to say about taking command of language in a foreign country.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 16, 2019

Thomas Piketty takes aim at wealth inequality

The French economist's new book is meant to jolt the global left out of its ideological stupor.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 16, 2019

The clean energy fast track

Those nations beholden to fossil fuels will soon be throwing good money after bad.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 14, 2019

'World Class': What a world class education looks like, and what it doesn't

'World Class,' by Teru Clavel is an examination of what a top-tier education system — and its opposite — looks like.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 14, 2019

U.S. sanctions North Korean hackers for Swift hack, WannaCry and other cyberattacks that fund its weapons programs

The U.S. sanctioned three North Korean state-sponsored groups that it says were responsible for hacking the Swift interbank messaging system and a ransomware attack called WannaCry 2.0 that crippled Britain's National Health Service and Renault SA factories across Europe.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 9, 2019

Water: China's Achilles heel

The most long-term and fundamental of China's vulnerabilities can be summed up in a single word: water.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 5, 2019

What's behind the food self-sufficiency 'crisis'?

Government policies aimed at keeping food prices high are responsible for the nation's declining food self-sufficiency rate.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 4, 2019

Anime, manga, pro-wrestling? Tokyo firm hopes Japan's next big cultural export comes from inside the ring

If one Japanese business has its way, wrestlers will be the next hit entertainment export from the country that introduced the world to Hello Kitty and animation sci-fi films such as "Akira."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Sep 1, 2019

Making sense of the oppressiveness of summer in Japan

Japan has a venerable tradition of quirky and inventive means of escape from the oppression of summer, as well as from rigid social constraints and conventions. Some of them take distinctly weird forms. In Edogawa Ranpo's classic story, "The Stalker in the Attic" (1925), for example, the eccentric protagonist...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 31, 2019

Sendai Dango Ichifuku: Sushi rice gives classic sweets a twist

Sendai Dango Ichifuku, a sushi shop-turned-sweets purveyor, has been making its dango dumplings with Sasanishiki sushi rice since the 1980s, but recently its online presence has been attracting new fans to the small Tohoku shop.
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2019

Japanese and African business leaders hold first investment dialogue at TICAD

A Keidanren official said Japanese firms now have a “keen interest” in the huge potential of the continent's rapidly growing economy.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 28, 2019

Deutsche Bank says records sought in Trump congressional probe include tax returns, without elaborating

Financial records related to U.S. President Donald Trump and three of his children that congressional Democrats have requested from Deutsche Bank AG include tax returns, the bank disclosed in a court filing on Tuesday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / TICAD 7 Special
Aug 27, 2019

Businesses encouraged to invest in key future market

The Japan Times recently interviewed Shigeru Ushio, who heads the African Affairs Department of Japan's Foreign Ministry and is a key senior bureaucrat managing The Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 7) to be held in Yokohama from Aug. 28 through 30.
Japan Times
ESG CONSORTIUM
Aug 25, 2019

Businesses aim for increased sustainability

In response to the increasing problem of plastic waste worldwide, Commons Asset Management Inc., which focuses on long-term investment, organized a seminar themed around recycling plastic on July 26 in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 22, 2019

Japan's Indo-Pacific dream or nightmare?

Unfinished political reform, militarization, technological authoritarianism, the politicization of history and great power rivalry is stressing the Indo-Pacific region and Tokyo's attempts to inculcate a rules-based order into the region.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 20, 2019

Minimalism: Not as straightforward as it seems

It's 100 years since the Bauhaus art and design school first opened in Weimar, Germany, and the new Muji flagship store in Ginza is as good a venue as any to hold an anniversary exhibition celebrating the values of simple, affordable modernist design.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 14, 2019

'Cherry Blossoms and Demons': Swan song remains an ugly duckling

The late Kirin Kiki maintained such an industrious work schedule that moviegoers have had multiple chances to pay their last respects since she passed away last September. "Cherry Blossoms and Demons" is her actual swan song, albeit one that all but the most ardent fan can probably skip.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Aug 8, 2019

Collaboration takes chocolate up a notch

The Belgians and the Swiss have long dominated the world of chocolate but a world-first afternoon tea collaboration running until Oct. 30 between St. Regis Osaka and American chocolatier Maribel Lieberman of Mariebelle New York fame puts that theory to the test.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2019

Shoji Kawamori: 40 years spent designing an anime future

If you've watched any robot anime in the past 40 years, there's a decent chance Shoji Kawamori had a hand in it.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Aug 7, 2019

Seven lessons from a Japanese morality textbook

The textbooks students in Japan use to learn wrong from right are filled with stories of invoices, citizen committees, petitions and other cool stuff kids like.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.