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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 23, 2011

Rolling blackouts: The virtue of silence

The rolling blackouts in Tokyo meant interruptions in watching TV, running computers, stereos and electric heaters, not to mention recharging cell phones and electronics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 22, 2011

'Mary and Max'

There's just no other way to describe "Mary and Max," the eccentric clay-animation tour de force by Australian director Adam Elliot, than as "black humor." What else can you a call a film where the best jokes involve a plummeting air conditioner and the head of a street mime, or a goldfish and an electric...
COMMENTARY
Apr 22, 2011

Latest word from Mahathir

Before the prime ministry of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, not that many people had ever heard of Malaysia, outside of adjacent Singapore, which shared a common border as well as an intense mutual antipathy that entertained the rest of Southeast Asia for decades.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Apr 20, 2011

Win 'Stepping Higher'

With the 2011 world championships in Moscow just days away, The Japan Times is offering several readers the chance to win a copy of the recently released Japanese book "Saranaru takami-he" (Stepping Higher) about two-time world champion Mao Asada's life story.
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2011

Carmaker's Miyagi investments stand

Toyota Motor Corp., the automaker most affected by the March 11 disaster, plans to build a new engine plant in devastated Miyagi Prefecture and will transfer a subsidiary's production operations to the region.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / WEEK 3
Apr 17, 2011

All fired up by Japanese wheels

Cycling has enjoyed a renewed boom in popularity in recent years as an eco-friendly means of transportation and for its health benefits. Reflecting this trend, more and more helmet-donning businesspeople are seen cycling to work on their glimmering sports bikes these days, often gliding past cars on...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 16, 2011

Quest to gain, impart knowledge drives expat

The importance of education informs Aileen Kawagoe's life view, although early on she turned down the chance to become an educator like her father.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 15, 2011

Meet a smoking new rock band

Formed in Fukuoka in 2005, The Cigavettes knew it would only be a matter of time before they relocated to Japan's capital. After years of discussing it, the melodic rockers finally packed up their instruments, along with their Beatles- and Rolling Stones-inspired catalogue of catchy, radio-friendly pop-rock,...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 15, 2011

Dance@Live showcases Japan's best street dancers

With all the aftershocks we're feeling these days, the performers at this weekend's Dance@Live street dance competition finals shouldn't have any trouble making the ground shake.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Apr 12, 2011

Tigers ready to make run at title

The following is the second of a two-part preview for the upcoming NPB season. Team-by-team previews of the six Central League clubs are in order of predicted finish.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 10, 2011

Japan's seismic nerve center

The Earthquake Phenomena Observation System, located inside the Japan Meteorological Agency in Tokyo's central Otemachi district, is usually operated by five teams of seven who work in rotating shifts that span every minute of the year. But at 2:46 p.m. on March 11 this year, all that changed. In an...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 10, 2011

Ishihara may just benefit from 'divine retribution'

There are 11 men vying today for the office of Tokyo governor. Four are taken seriously by the media, the eccentric inventor Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu is humored as a perennial also-ran, and the remaining six are dismissed as margin-dwellers who are in the game to draw attention to themselves or advocate...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 8, 2011

Okinawa comic duo show less is more

On Dec. 26, as the curtain came down on the 10th and final M-1 Grand Prix — an annual comedy competition aired live on TV Asahi — there was a distinct feeling that something special had been witnessed, that the performance of one duo in particular heralded the beginning of something new.
Japan Times
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Apr 8, 2011

The U.S. role in advancing amateur sumo

In the second of two interviews with globally respected officials involved in the international sumo game, Sumo Scribblings recently threw a few questions over the Pacific to Andrew Freund, the face of the United States Sumo Federation. In many ways far bigger in the sport than his slim physique would...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 8, 2011

'Mama Bush' puts black women in a powerful light

Based in New York, Mickalene Thomas is known for mixed-media paintings, photographic collages and videos that explore representations of beauty in art history and pop culture through images of African-American women.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Apr 8, 2011

Won't somebody think of the wine?

Many Tokyoites counted themselves lucky when the March 11 quake left their homes largely intact, except, perhaps, for the odd broken glass. But while the damage was of course far more grave in the northeast, this wine writer would like to spare a thought for those in the hospitality business, whose stock...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2011

U.S. teacher stays to return favor to helpful residents of Miyagi town

TAGAJO, Miyagi Pref. — Kyle Maclauchlan, an English-language teacher from the United States, experienced a nightmare when the March 11 monster earthquake and tsunami devastated the small Miyagi Prefecture town he lived in and wiped away most of his belongings.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Apr 3, 2011

NPB unites for common cause on field

Jingu Stadium was alive for the first time in weeks.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 2, 2011

International school typifies Sendai's community spirit

Local merchants crowded in with proud parents and teachers, eyes glued to the screen and banners waving. It could have been anywhere in Japan during Koshien season: a community gathered around the television in the school cafeteria, neighbors coming together to cheer the home team at the annual spring...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 1, 2011

Second Harvest rallies support for Tohoku

By 9 a.m. on Thursday morning, March 24, several delivery trucks have deposited boxes of emergency supplies in front of the Taito Ward, Tokyo warehouse of Second Harvest Japan, a charity-based food bank.
Reader Mail
Mar 31, 2011

Switch to renewable won't suffice

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's March 23 article, "Nuclear power no solution": The ongoing events in Japan have led many, including Chellaney, to question the role of nuclear technology in energy production, and calls are already being made for countries to abandon their nuclear programs altogether. Global...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 29, 2011

From raw emotion to relief: 'Quakebook'

What started as the "Quakebook," now titled "2:46" after the time the earthquake hit, originated in a shower in Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, a week after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the Pacific coast of northern Honshu. A longtime British resident of Japan, who blogs as Our Man in Abiko, trying...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Mar 29, 2011

Arai plays vital role in helping baseball do right thing

Years from now, when fans look back at the 2011 NPB season, it should be noted somewhere that Hanshin Tigers third baseman Takahiro Arai's biggest hit came before the season, when the Central League finally relented and shifted its season openers to April 12.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 27, 2011

Love, war and betrayal in old Siam

THE TALE OF KHUN CHANG AND KHUN PHAEN: Siam's Great Folk Epic of Love and War. Translated and edited by Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit. Silkworm Books, 2010, 970 pp., $60 (hardcover) Those who like their novice monks prim and proper, taming desires, meditating and selflessly engaging in good deeds...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 26, 2011

Handling of captaincy shows Capello's people skills sorely lacking

LONDON — Fabio Capello has achieved what nobody thought possible, he has made supporters lose interest in England.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 24, 2011

Koganecho transformed: from sleaze to teas

On a cherry-blossom blessed curve of Yokohama's Ooka River lies Koganecho — the town of gold. For the past 60 years, however, this alluring name has felt like a bad joke to local residents.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Mar 22, 2011

Where were you when the 3/11 quake hit?

Shizuko Shokoku
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 19, 2011

Poetess achieves duality of words, numbers

Statistically, there's no accounting for Jessica Goodfellow's life in Japan. The daughter of an engineer, on a fast track in her early 20s to a Ph.D. in economics at California Institute of Technology, Goodfellow realized something essential didn't correlate: her incalculable love of poetry.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Mar 18, 2011

Power to the people: TEPCO at economic cross-purposes with blackout strategy

If the current energy crisis is not a more convincing argument for the development of the so-called smart-grid system, we don't know what is.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Mar 18, 2011

Indie scene aims for normalcy in unusual situation

As I write this on Tuesday afternoon, four days after the earthquake that hit northeastern Japan on March 11 and with the continuing drip, drip, drip of nerve-shaking news from the damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima forming background noise to life in Tokyo, I see on the BBC news feed that Canadian...

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