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Japan Times
SOCCER
Dec 16, 2013

Zaccheroni aiming for stars with World Cup ambitions

National team manager Alberto Zaccheroni on Monday refused to put a limit on Japan's ambitions at next summer's World Cup, but stopped short of claiming his team can win the trophy.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Dec 14, 2013

New posting system puts Rakuten in unfavorable position

While the relevant parties have given their blessings to a new posting agreement between Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball, there is still no resolution to Masahiro Tanaka's situation.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 13, 2013

Bike-riding bureaucracy may threaten the classic 'obāchan dismount'

The new regulation decrees that bicycles must be ridden on the left side of the road, in the direction of the flow of traffic. Seems logical, doesn't it? But no one has said how this will prevent accidents or make anything safer; we're just presuming it will.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Dec 11, 2013

The year in labor: the Top 5 pains of 2013

For Japan's workers, the last 12 months have been a mixed bag. The Top 5 Labor Pains of 2013 will focus on what really shook things up in terms of labor relations and employment law.
LIFE / Digital
Dec 10, 2013

Startups now have it easy thanks to 'incubators.'

One of my favourite books is John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Great Crash, 1929," which, with John Maynard Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," is a great example of how an expert can write elegantly about something that is intrinsically complex. Galbraith wrote the (short) book as a diversion...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2013

Re-examining Yasujiro Ozu on film

Yasujiro Ozu once had a reputation for making films only other Japanese could understand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 4, 2013

Bunraku storyteller speaks out

During the early part of the Edo Period, when Japan was ruled by Tokugawa shoguns from 1603-1867, Osaka — the main city in the Kansai region of western Honshu — thrived as the country's cultural and economic center. It was during those heady days around 400 years ago that a kind of puppetry called...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Dec 4, 2013

Kiryu reflects on special year

It feels like track phenom Yoshihide Kiryu has been in the spotlight longer than he has been. But his breakout year was 2013, which is, of course, this year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 3, 2013

Alive wants to give music fans a say in who comes to Japan

You watched the video for their comeback single on YouTube, devoured the reviews and retweeted the hype. When the album came out, you bought it immediately and had it on repeat for weeks afterwards. And then you waited, waited ... but they never came.
MORE SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Dec 3, 2013

Looking at both sides of the Martin-Incognito issue

The sports locker room code goes like this: "What you see, hear and say here, stays here."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Dec 1, 2013

Farrow courts controversy with paternity musings

For a while, Mia Farrow was a genuine housewife. In a life of bright lights and dark, dark shadows, this must surely count as one of the most unusual periods of them all: a moment of apparent stability and respectability in the late 70s and early 80s. During this time, she picked up her twin sons Matthew...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 27, 2013

Kawakami's philosophy as manager never wavered

A famous Tetsuharu Kawakami watchword was wa (harmony).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 25, 2013

Competition: How would you get the most out of the ¥500 coin?

Come up with weird and wonderful ways to use the ¥500 coin for a chance to win meaty treats worth ¥5,000 or a tasty Jamaican Christmas Cake.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2013

Don't blame Dallas for Kennedy assassination

John F. Kennedy was an extraordinary president at an extraordinary moment in history.
BASKETBALL
Nov 22, 2013

Lyons embraces leadership position for Takamatsu

The Japan Times features periodic interviews with players in the bj-league. Dexter Lyons of the Takamatsu Five Arrows is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2013

U.S. sailor's rape victim wins case

A woman raped by an American serviceman near the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in 2002 wins a landmark judgment against her attacker.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2013

'Kaguya-hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya)'

Isao Takahata has long been overshadowed by longtime colleague and Studio Ghibli cofounder Hayao Miyazaki. The younger man (Takahata is 78, Miyazaki 72) has had more and bigger hits, including his latest, the World War II-themed "Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)," while Takahata's last feature animation,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 17, 2013

Engine economics limit biofuels in U.S.

When it comes to ethanol, the United States may have reached its limit — at least for now.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Nov 16, 2013

New rules needed for posting system

Masahiro Tanaka will probably end up in the majors next year, thanks in no small part to the terms NPB players seem to be willing to accept in regards to the posting system.
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Nov 16, 2013

Think caviar but brace for caveat

In one of the most memorable scenes of the late, and sorely missed, Juzo Itami's classic 1985 film "Tampopo" ("Dandelion"), Japanese businessmen enter a French restaurant. Confused by the exotic items on the menu, the elderly members of the party stick to what they know: sole meuniere, consomme soup...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 16, 2013

EPA proposes reducing biofuel mandate

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed lowering requirements for biofuel use in 2014, trimming targets for corn-based ethanol use for the first time.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Nov 15, 2013

TELL vet helps cast net wider to reach kids, stop suicides

The Tokyo English Life Line has been providing support and counseling services to Japan's international community for 40 years. Vickie Skorji, the new director of the Lifeline hot line service, has played a pivotal role in its activities.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Nov 14, 2013

Dig into 400 years of local history with a roast beef dinner

A peculiar culinary milestone took place last month: the 400th anniversary of the first English roast beef dinner served in Japan. You're forgiven for missing the fanfare; there wasn't any, save for a commemorative meal at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 14, 2013

'The Counselor'

Alfred Hitchcock once noted that if you show a gun in the first act, it will have to be fired in the third. Thus when "The Counselor" has Javier Bardem's sleazy, mob-connected nightclub owner explain to his lawyer what a bolito is — a small battery-powered garrotte that locks around a victim's neck...
LIFE / Digital
Nov 5, 2013

Why the Obamacare website was doomed

One of the most dispiriting spectacles of the last month has been the botched launch of HealthCare.gov, the website created to implement President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare reforms. Obamacare had a desperately turbulent passage through Congress and survived various wrecking attempts by the Tea...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Nov 3, 2013

Six years following bankruptcy, Nova boosts the brand

In September, Tokyo-based Jibun Mirai Associe Co. (JMA) announced it would adopt Nova as its official corporate name — 19 months after it acquired the eikaiwa (English conversation) school chain from its previous operators, and almost six years after its well-publicized downfall.

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