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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 26, 2006

Rock 'n' grot in the crypt

Welcome to Furanken-no-Hanayome, a freaky, style-y, junk-filled lair for insomniac rockers and creep show freaks. I thought I knew all the weird rock 'n' grot bars in Tokyo, but this one somehow managed to slip under my radar undetected -- and has managed to do so for the past 10 years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 25, 2006

Incidentally Capturing the city

Berlin is not beautiful like Paris, rich like London, or charming like Amsterdam. Prewar buildings in the German capital are pockmarked by bullet holes, while postwar architecture testifies to the city's division due to the Cold War -- American, British and French sectors were restored or rebuilt, the...
BUSINESS
May 25, 2006

ChuoAoyama faces uncertain future as clients defect to rivals

More and more clients of major auditing firm ChuoAoyama PricewaterhouseCoopers are switching to rival outfits after the Financial Services Agency ordered ChuoAoyama to suspend its business for two months starting in July.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 19, 2006

Clean living under very difficult circumstances

To the legions of impeccably attired ravers who will attend the Mods Mayday '06 Weekender taking place this weekend in Tokyo, "mod" is about a whole lot more than renting a DVD of the 1979 mods and rockers classic "Quadrophenia" or throwing a beaten-up Kinks LP from their dad's record collection on the...
BUSINESS
May 17, 2006

Aiful reports 13% fall in profit for '05

Troubled Aiful Corp. reported Tuesday that its net profit for fiscal 2005 dropped 13.1 percent to 65.827 billion yen on a consolidated basis due to a rise in customer demands that excess interest on loans be returned.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 14, 2006

Letting history speak for itself

TRADITIONAL JAPANESE ARTS AND CULTURE: An Illustrated Sourcebook, edited by Stephen Addiss, Gerald Groemer and J. Thomas Rimer. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 254 pp., 64 color plates, $29 (paper). For nearly half a century, an important text for learning about Japanese culture in general...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 11, 2006

Japan grads go apolitical

With its current exhibition, "Index #2 -- Life Styles," Tokyo Wonder Site in Ochanomizu has mounted a worthwhile survey of recent Japanese art-school graduates. Prolific critic Kentaro Ichihara, in association with Kyoto University of Art and Design, selected five Kanto- and five Kansai-region artists...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Apr 28, 2006

A rockin' party out of bounds

Jiyugaoka is still one of the preferred residential and shopping areas for the well-heeled spawn of Tokyo's old-school money. By day, fancy patisseries with French names and sleek fashion boutiques cater to young ladies from well-to-do families out browsing for tea and cakes or designer clothes. By night,...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 23, 2006

Ronald Searle's sketchbook of prisoner-of-war horrors

TO THE KWAI -- AND BACK: War Drawings 1939-1945, by Ronald Searle. Souvenir Press, 2006, 208 pp., £25 (cloth). Ronald Searle, one of the ablest and most famous British cartoonists, and the creator of the girls of "St. Trinians" strip, was a prisoner of war of the Japanese from February 1942 to August...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 23, 2006

Imelda Marcos: Still angry after all these years

The beautiful half of one of the 20th century's most notorious dictatorships, Imelda Marcos has spent two decades fighting attempts to jail her and trace a reputed fortune of billions. On the 20th anniversary of the revolution that ousted her and Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines, she talks...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 23, 2006

Detective fiction written for the love of Tokyo

THE SNAKE THAT BOWED, by Edward Seidensticker, based on works by Okamoto Kido. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2006, 144 pp., 1500 yen (paper). Edward Seidensticker, the most eminent translator from Japanese to English, is a man of many parts. Not only has he given us "The Tale of Genji," "The Makioka Sisters,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 21, 2006

Keeping rock simple

Jad Fair is the most unlikely of rock heroes. In his 40s, yet with the tall and gangly body of an adolescent and the naive blue eyes of a child, he looks like a preternaturally wide-eyed manga character.
EDITORIALS
Apr 20, 2006

Bill warrants thorough debate

Only two weeks after it was sent to the chamber's floor and with little debate, the Lower House has passed a bill that will allow the fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners as they enter Japan. The legislation is now in the Upper House. The Justice Ministry says that the bill to revise the Immigration...
BUSINESS
Apr 20, 2006

Banks halt loan ties with strong-arm Aiful

Several banks have suspended their lending tieups with Aiful Corp. since the Financial Services Agency punished the company last week for illegal lending and strong-arm collection practices.
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2006

Get rid of interest rate 'gray zone': FSA panel

A Financial Services Agency panel reached a broad agreement Tuesday to recommend that the "gray zone" that allows for a higher ceiling on consumer loan interest rates be removed to help reduce the rising number of personal bankruptcies, FSA officials said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 14, 2006

Sigur Ros warm to a wider world

When Sigur Ros proclaimed from their remote, treeless, volcanic island in 2000 that they would "change music forever, and the way people think about music," there was something mythical about their otherworldly sound and the made-up language of their lyrics that had some listeners actually believing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 13, 2006

Lennon's love and peace legacy on display

To commemorate the wedding of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and their peace activities during the late 1960s, the John Lennon Museum in Japan is hosting a special exhibition until July 31 titled "John and Yoko's Love & Peace Activities 1968-1970."
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2006

Challenges, opportunities for the Japan-U.S. alliance

HONOLULU -- As its 55th birthday approaches, the Japan-U.S. alliance faces new challenges and new opportunities. Ironically, new security threats -- and new demands for cooperation -- provide the best opportunities to revitalize the alliance. The bilateral security relationship is in better shape than...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 31, 2006

Here's one castle to crow about

They may be unloved and unwanted, but even their detractors would have to admit that Japan's crows are tough, resilient critters. It is, then, entirely appropriate that the oldest castle in Japan should be named after these intimidating birds. The Japanese of yore had quite a fondness for naming their...
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2006

Bill in works to officially allow military use of space

In a shift away from a nearly 40-year-old commitment to an exclusively nonmilitary space program, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced plans Tuesday to draft a bill that would authorize Japan's military to use space for self-defense.
Japan Times
Features / JAPAN FASHION WEEK FALL/WINTER 06-07
Mar 26, 2006

Half a century of fine memories made from an impeccable 'fusion'

A stroll around Hanae Mori's retrospective, being held until April 11 at the New National Theater in Shinjuku, is for me like wandering back down memory lane: I remember admiring the floral dresses -- peonies or wisteria -- when, in a flash of brilliant color, they burst onto the catwalk for the first...
Japan Times
Features / JAPAN FASHION WEEK FALL/WINTER 06-07
Mar 26, 2006

Virtual retailers forge fortunes with fashion

There's a revolution going on in the Japanese fashion world -- but it is nowhere near the catwalks. The revolution is happening on the web.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 24, 2006

Chic 'n' sweet and right on the bull's eye

For many commuters, Yoyogi-Uehara is simply the name of a station at which they change for an express train home. It is also the kind of upmarket address which, if you live there, means you have arrived.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 23, 2006

Tokyo Museum of Photography puts the private out in public

Conceived during the optimism of the bubble era, but built in the mid 1990s, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography's development was stunted by budget cuts, less-than-impressive attendance and an unfocused raison d'etre.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 17, 2006

Neko Case "Fox Confessor Brings The Flood"

"Everything's so easy for Pauline," croons Neko Case on the opener of her new album, and the same could be easily said about Case. Since her 1990s debut with Canadian pop-punks Maow, the talented American chanteuse has had little trouble garnering praise for her work with The Corn Sisters, The New Pornographers,...
JAPAN
Mar 16, 2006

New traffic plan aims to cut deaths to 5,500 per year

The government said Tuesday it has drawn up a five-year plan for bringing traffic deaths under 5,500 a year by calendar 2010.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 12, 2006

Business in India the focus of TV Tokyo's "Dawn of Gaia" and more

NHK has done an excellent job of providing in-depth coverage of China's economic situation for the past 20 years, but, for some reason, that other potential Asian powerhouse, India, has been overlooked by the Japanese media.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Mar 10, 2006

Bisty boys invade Omotesando Hills

Nothing makes my heart skip a beat like the discovery of a great new wine. Yet the prospect of paying for a full bottle of something new, only to discover on first sip that it's definitely a not- for-me style, can prove daunting for even the most adventuresome. Fortunately for wine lovers in the Tokyo...

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.