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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 11, 2007

Critic awaits callers in Imperial Hotel suite

The Imperial Hotel in central Tokyo's Hibiya district is a surprising place. Yes, of course the rich and famous stay there. But how many realize that this famed institution also rents out private office suites. On the fifth floor, for example, is where TV commentator and author Kenichi Takemura hangs...
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Aug 11, 2007

Albirex stand tall for Niigata

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.''
COMMENTARY
Aug 9, 2007

Product safety issue a blessing in disguise?

HONG KONG — China's preliminary agreement with the United States on measures to deal with food and drug safety worked out last week is an encouraging development that may well avert a confrontation that could poison the relationship, which is already beset by trade and other economic disputes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2007

'Ring' director's spooky tales

Almost a decade ago, long before "torture porn" was a successful horror subgenre, director Hideo Nakata unleashed "Ring." Not unlike the fatal images in the movie itself, "Ring" spread its brand of almost bloodless, atmospheric terror across the globe; Nakata himself tackled tinsel town to direct Naomi...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 28, 2007

All-women NPO acknowledges the small kindness

Bustling with resilience and enthusiasm, Yukiko Yamahashi sets the tone for one of the few Japanese NPOs (nonprofit organizations) that still retains any degree of independence from government control. This means, of course, that it is regarded as troublesome, and a price has been paid.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 26, 2007

And the beat goes on

Weatherbeaten and remote, the fishing port of Ogi hardly seems like a cultural magnet. Yet the unassuming little community on the southern peninsula of Niigata Prefecture's Sado Island has achieved worldwide renown as the site of Earth Celebration, a music festival with a twist.
BASKETBALL
Jul 24, 2007

Aono yearns to make big impact for Japan

He sank his body in a tiny chair — tiny for him — bending his back a bit, and gently talked with the reporters, looking at the eyes of each person.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jul 22, 2007

CL routs PL in All-Star clash

SENDAI — Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles slugger Takeshi Yamasaki had an All-Star Game to remember on his home field in Game 2 of the Gulliver All-Star Series. His teammates, however, would probably like to forget what happened as soon as possible.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

'Mala Noche'

Gus Van Sant's first movie feels like an unrequited first love; jagged around the edges, tingling with expectation and inevitably, gorgeously, unsatisfying. Titled "Mala Noche (Bad Night)" and based on the autobiographical novel by Oregon's cult novelist Walt Curtis, the film is so unabashedly poignant...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2007

'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'

A lot of times these days, I'll find myself in some summer-event movie — say, "Pirates Of The Caribbean" — and think, "Gee, I really would have loved this when I was 12." Tastes obviously change as you grow older, for better and for worse, but to try and hang onto your 12-year-old tastes forever...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 15, 2007

Art's a beach!

The studio of potter Shigeaki Higuchi faces the Pacific on the coast at Shirahama in Minami Boso City. Between the shore and his modest atelier there's only a local road and a line of bushes where deep-blue morning glories were already in full bloom when I visited last month. The sky was clear and the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 13, 2007

Nervous Branagh and his operatic dream

As one of Britain's most iconic actor/directors, Kenneth Branagh has a special relationship with theater. Throughout his career he has often worked to merge the stage with celluloid, delivering such memorable films as "Much Ado About Nothing," which he directed, wrote and starred in.
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Diplomat rues Tokyo's 'lack of humanity' to asylum-seekers

Sadako Ogata was the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991-2001, and has been President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since 2003. Here, she talks frankly to The Japan Times about Japan's attitudes to those who flee their homelands and seek sanctuary on these shores.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Jul 6, 2007

A very red-light district

You won't find many red lights larger than the enormous paper lantern at Taito Ward's Sensoji, or Asakusa Kannon Temple.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 6, 2007

'Confession of Pain'

There are some things at which the Asian male excels and that includes looking exceptionally fatigued. Not attractively or glamorously so but plain, I-just-got-off-a-16-hour-shift fatigue enhanced by the discomfort of public transportation and too much nicotine.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 5, 2007

Angelina Jolie true to her 'heart'

The Japan Times gets close and personal with Hollywood's hottie-cum-humanitarian on making films with a message, being hounded by the media — and life with Brad Pitt.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 5, 2007

Drama and deconstruction

What goes around comes around, they say, and in the early 1980s, Japan's contemporary drama scene was transformed by a slew of small companies that were the artistic heirs of the previous generation's radical student politics. That brave new world of the so-called shogekijo (small-scale theater movement)...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 1, 2007

Yoshibumi Wakamiya on Japan's shift to the right

BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTION AND KIMIGAYO (Migite ni Kimigayo, Hidarite ni Kenpo) by Yoshibumi Wakamiya, Asahi Shimbun-sha Shuppankyoku, 2007, 156+184 pp., 1,890 yen (cloth) For anyone living in Japan and fascinated by Japanese politics, it is a good thing to step back occasionally from the surprises and...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 30, 2007

The trouble with foreigners — wayward ways amid the regiment

Renting rooms to foreigners can be a sensitive subject for many minshuku owners in Japan. It's not that the owners can't speak English, nor that they don't like foreigners. Through the years, I've gotten to know some minshuku owners and have learned that foreigners can indeed be a bit mendokusai (troublesome)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 29, 2007

'Live Free or Die Hard'

Dear John:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 29, 2007

'The Bridge'

On a trip to San Francisco last month, I drove out to Marin County with a friend. We parked our car in the Vista Point parking lot, got out, and there, towering over a rise in the ground, was the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge's two, 230-meter-high towers loomed majestically, wrapped in a shroud of drifting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 26, 2007

Minoru Inaba

Minoru Inaba, 63, is the director of the Meijijingu Shiseikan Dojo, a martial arts facility located in Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. He is a master of budo, an ancient Japanese fighting style that taught samurai to be versatile and supposedly invincible. Learning budo requires training in a myriad of martial...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 25, 2007

Social responsibility: the buzz word nobody gets

Spas are for healing, nursing homes are for caring, language schools are for communicating, amusement parks are for amusing and pensions are for carefree retirement. This is how things ought to be. It is not how things are in modern-day Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2007

Windsor Hotel prepares for second wind

The Windsor Hotel Toya in western Hokkaido has a lot of things going for it.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2007

Four Stories rises in Osaka's 'cultural desert'

OSAKA — For the Kansai region's foreign residents, a night out in Osaka has not usually meant a literary experience. Unlike neighboring Kyoto, with its reputation as a mecca for foreign artists, writers and poets, one did not usually walk into an Osaka bar or restaurant expecting to hear quality short...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Jun 21, 2007

Urawa gets back on right track after trip abroad

With his team in second place in the J. League and at the quarterfinal stage of the AFC Champions League, it would appear things are looking rosy for Holger Osieck and Urawa Reds.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2007

Adventurer forges bond with nature, poet Basho

Adventurer Mitsuro Oba discovered a different kind of unexplored terrain last summer, a decade after he trekked across Antarctica and became the first person in history to walk unaccompanied to both the North and South poles.

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