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Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 21, 2007

Personal style gurus for common people

When Japan's star pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka inked a $52 million deal to play for the Boston Red Sox in mid-December, one of the most memorable comments he made in a packed news conference on his return from the United States was that he was frustrated with having to go through an agent in the negotiations....
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 24, 2006

Find out why a fountain pen 'personalizes' your prose

Kumiko Kumazawa of Pilot Corporation placed four fountain pens in front of me.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 19, 2006

Decorum drives 'disingenuous' bid to free streets of discarded butts

Tokyo is home to some of the world's more bizarre museums, including ones devoted to such odd subjects as washing machines, curry, kites and parasites. The latest addition to this outre melange is the Mobile Ashtray Museum.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 29, 2006

A Hero's Journey

A telegram arrived in the evening. Belinda sat on the edge of the faded chintz sofa in her parlour, staring at the envelope on her knees yet keeping her right hand poised above it as if it were a butterfly about to take to the air. She couldn't bring herself to open it, not straight away. She couldn't...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 16, 2006

Hair today, gone tomorrow

"Does that hurt?" asks the doctor. "Err, not really," say I. "Right, turn it up to 40," she tells the technician. Then it does kind of start to hurt. It feels as though somebody is firing a tiny laser beam into my cheek. Indeed, that is exactly what is happening.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

Tokyo's ring of steel

Who would have thought that something that chases its tail all day for a living could be so incredibly important to the workings of a major metropolis?
Japan Times
LIFE
May 28, 2006

Manga by any other name is . . .

With the video-game business now outgrossing Hollywood's box office, and anime being distributed to destinations as diverse as Patagonia and Phuket, the influence of Japan's entertainment industry on young people worldwide has never been as powerful.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 19, 2006

Back in time with a legend reborn

Fifty years ago this week -- when Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama was reopening diplomatic relations with Moscow; bullet trains or expressways had yet to be built; and a bank staffer's monthly pay was about 25,000 yen -- Tokyo publisher Shinchosha launched the weekly Shukan Shincho, priced at 30 yen....
Japan Times
Features
Jan 29, 2006

Cultures combined in the mists of time

Adopt "a correct view of history," China and South Korea demand of Japan. Fair enough. We can all agree on the merits of a "correct view" of anything. The difficulty is to define "correct.''
Japan Times
Features
Sep 18, 2005

Complexities of beauty

The tall, handsome foreigner took a seat next to a Japanese woman. Drinking in her delicate beauty, he leaned over and asked in a gentle voice: "Would you mind if I talk to you?"
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

Cartoon duo leads the way in a version of history that's no joke

The phrase "textbook row" has become a regular sighting in Japanese newspapers of late, as newly authorized history books for schools are accused, both at home and abroad, of "glossing over" the bloodier aspects of this country's warmongering, Imperialist past.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jul 17, 2005

Dining where no solo woman dared

Reiko Yuyama believes that adventures are there to be had in daily life without having to go out into the wilderness. In that sense, she says she might be "more of an adventurer than Christopher Columbus or Naomi Uemura," the late, great Japanese explorer and climber who disappeared on Mount McKinley...
Features
Apr 10, 2005

The God Gap: Japan and the clash of civilizations

There are many differences between Japan and the West, both historical and contemporary, but there is no gap so gaping and, perhaps, unbridgeable as the "God Gap."
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Mar 20, 2005

Can machines can care

Whether selling Scarab beetles for kids or punctuating the path up Mount Fuji, vending machines are one of Japan's most idiosyncratic features. Although some question the "waste" of energy involved in the ubiquitous mechanized retail outlets -- about 2.6 million alone are hawking beverages -- their onward...
Japan Times
Features
Jan 23, 2005

Rapa Nui

Easter Island has been many things in the three centuries it has been known to the West: mooted landing site of UFOs; exotic long-haul holiday destination; and favorite location of the Discovery Channel -- to name just a few.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 23, 2005

Women to the fore in study of statues

At midday on March 29, 1914, a yacht named Mana, flying the British colors, dropped anchor in the tiny inlet of Cook's Bay, Hanga Roa. On board was an anthropologist who would carry out the first systematic survey of the Easter Island statues, and who would also record the last memories of a dying generation...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Dec 19, 2004

Dixieland duo's Wonderful World

Take a stroll down Royal Street in the Adventureland area of Tokyo Disneyland any weekend and you'll likely hear the heart-tugging sounds of Dixieland jazz. What's most surprising, perhaps, is the sheer authenticity of the New Orleanian music re-created by 62-year-old trumpet player Yoshio Toyama and...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 17, 2004

Drawing on love

She is a Japanese manga artist with a piercingly sharp eye for human traits and foibles. He is an American writer and language buff who can chat with equal ease in four languages. Together, they make for a magnetic -- not to say a "mangaetic" -- couple.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 22, 2004

'Stray dogs' dig the dirt

"Bluebottle fly" was what he says he was called by the police. But freelance journalist Shunsuke Yamaoka is now getting a buzz from watching the law deal with wrongdoers he exposed.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 1, 2004

Violin maestro with many strings toher bow

Violinist Midori Goto was only 14 when, in 1986, she played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the late maestro Leonard Bernstein at the annual Summer Festival at Tanglewood in rural Massachusetts. That was remarkable enough, but what made Goto world-famous was not simply that she...
Japan Times
Features
Mar 28, 2004

Irene & Matilde

"SO IT STRUCK YOU AS ODD."
Japan Times
Features
Feb 15, 2004

Shelters from the storm

Japan's small 'snack' bars may be a mystery to most, but to their loyal and mainly male customers they are cozy havens where they can unwind with friends and share life's ups and downs with a mama-san who's always there for them
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2024

The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’

Junichi Yasuda’s film about a time-traveling warrior is a loving tribute to the “jidaigeki” (period drama) genre and its practitioners.
For drinks surrounded by some of Tokyo’s sleekest skyscrapes, Marunouchi House’s rooftop terrace can’t be beat.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Top 5
Aug 27, 2023

Skyline sips: Tokyo’s best rooftop bars

Instead of relegating it to a cherry blossom-related niche, Tokyo is recognizing the allure of drinking outside.
A promotional poster for the film "Barbie" in Tokyo on Aug. 3
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 23, 2023

Why is the ‘Barbie’ movie bombing in Japanese theaters?

The fact that the movie's female empowerment theme won’t have a positive, lasting impact in Japan is a shame.
People stand outside an Apple Store in Shanghai as the new iPhone 15 officially goes on sale across China on Sept. 22.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 8, 2023

Apple postpones next year's iPhone and Mac software to fix bugs

Rather than adding new features, company engineers have now been tasked with fixing flaws and improving software performance, sources have said.
A radar facility set up for coastal surveillance by the Ground Self-Defense Force's Yonaguni base on Yonaguni island in Okinawa Prefecture.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Dec 14, 2023

Acquiring counterstrike capabilities is no simple matter for Japan

Under its defense and security strategies, deterrence by denial and deterrence by punishment are the essence of Japan’s deterrence capabilities.
People try out the new iPhone 15 Pro in Shanghai in September 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 2, 2024

Apple tapping AI to boost iPhone demand ahead of expected sales decline

Wall Street expects a slight decline in iPhone sales, and analysts estimate quarterly revenue to fall by the most since the winter of 2022.
He Xiaopeng, co-founder and chief executive officer of XPeng, speaks at a launch event for the company's Mona M03 electric vehicle in Beijing on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 28, 2024

China’s Xpeng aims to expand with mass-market cars and Europe production

The company also plans to set up a large-scale data center in Europe as efficient software collection becomes paramount for cars’ intelligent driving features.

Longform

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