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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 12, 2007

Carp

* Japanese name: Koi (Nishiki-goi) * Scientific name: Cyprinus carpio * Description: A big, colorful fish, with large scales and barbels (those are the "whiskers" growing down from the upper lips). They can grow to well over a meter in length, and live for more than 15 years. They are related to other...
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 9, 2007

Tokyo revival

Taking on the task of reinvigorating Tokyo's beleaguered attempt at producing a world-class fashion week requires a good deal of gumption. In this regard, Nobuyuki Ota, CEO of leading fashion house Issey Miyake, is relishing the task and achieving a measure of success.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2007

'The Cats of Mirikitani'

"He seemed all alone, and I had never seen such an elderly man out on the streets. There was something about him that compelled me to talk . . ." That was how New York documentary filmmaker Linda Hattendorf describes her meeting with Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, one snowy day in New York in January 2001....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 30, 2007

John, Paul, George, Ringo and all that jazz

Pianist supreme Chick Corea talks about his wide and varied sources of inspiration, his philosophies on life — and the Japanese dynamo who is about to join him on stage.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2007

Shampoo ads ditch blondes for 'beautiful Japanese women'

Shampoo ads here typically feature glamorous blondes praising imports from Procter & Gamble of the U.S. and Europe's Unilever.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2007

Flawed options for Darfur peacemakers

PRAGUE — The long-sought joint peacekeeping force for Darfur, which would combine the existing 7,000-man African Union force with as many as 20,000 additional military personnel and civilian police under U.N. command, has now been approved. But several roadblocks still stand in the way, making it very...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 24, 2007

Showa cartoons rich in humor

While today Japan is at the forefront of the world's multibillion-dollar anime industry, with directors such as Hayao Miyazaki winning Academy Awards, in the pre-computer age of the early 20th century, Japanese animators were devising their own techniques by studying methods used in imported European...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 23, 2007

A rich repository of traditional Zen art

For a subject in which words are considered an impediment to meditative insight, it is daunting just how many words are needed to explain Zen. It uncannily dodges any attempt at definition, and at least some exposure to the practice seems necessary before embarking on any worthwhile discussion of the...
Reader Mail
Aug 22, 2007

Pieces of the lunar/solar calendar

The July 23 Japan Times front page features a wonderful photo of a polar bear chewing on an icy treat at Tennoji Zoo in Osaka, but the tail end of the caption misleadingly says, "The ice was a present ahead of 'Taisho' . . . the hottest day of the year under an old variation of the lunar calendar."...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Aug 22, 2007

Spot-billed duck

* Japanese name: Karugamo * Scientific name: Anas poecilorhyncha * Description: A medium-sized, mainly gray duck that has a pale head and a black bill with a bright yellow tip. At 60 cm long, and with mottled "scaly pattern" plumage, it looks and sounds similar to the more familiar mallard, but the...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Aug 22, 2007

Multitasking watches and solar iPod rechargers

No craze is complete without its own gadgets. This new Sudoku aid looks just like another Japanese obsession — the "keitai" — with players using the number keypad to enter their sudoku answers. It costs ¥1,029, with more information available at item.rakuten.co.jp/wnd-minakuru/4582256_900052/. If...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2007

Putting the fun back into feeling fit

Although you may be a typically busy worker, in Japan there's no shortage of easy exercise options to help keep you in shape — whether "10-minute fitness" clubs where you can have a quick workout without even changing your clothes, varieties of home exercise videos or machines and, of course, any number...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Aug 15, 2007

Air-conditioned neckties, AERO multifunction iPod docks

Cool Biz is not a principle that your average Japanese salaryman is going to embrace without a robust philosophical debate. A key impediment to his embracing of the green logic is the necktie. If he could have it surgically attached, I do believe that he would. Thanko is giving the poor guy an option...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Aug 14, 2007

Marc by Marc Jacobs, Yohji Yamamoto, etc.

Harajuku's new Marc
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 12, 2007

TV host visits South Korea, WWII Tribunal Judge special, WWII A-bomb special tribute

One of the most popular series on NHK is "Tsurube no Kazoku ni Kampai (Tsurube Toasts Families)" (NHK-G, Monday, 7:30 p.m.), in which sandpaper-voiced rakugoka (comic storyteller) Tsurube Shofukutei and a guest visit a town or village and casually strike up conversations with people on the street with...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Aug 8, 2007

Mountain slug

* Japanese name: Yamanamekuji * Scientific name: Incilaria fruhstorferi * Description: Growing up to 20 cm long — bigger than a baby's arm — this is surely no slug, but a monster; a specter from a Hayao Miyazaki movie come to life. If you see one, be prepared to photograph it next to your hand,...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 5, 2007

Superstar fortuneteller, Nuremberg trials special, manga dramatization of WWII

Superstar fortuneteller Kazuko Hosoki usually works her caustic consultations on pliable, willing celebrities, most of whom take her harsh criticisms to heart. It will be interesting to see how her style goes down in Hollywood.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 5, 2007

Nuclear hell revisited

Two years ago, Michel Pomarede, a French journalist working for France Culture, a French national radio station, visited Japan for the first time. He came with the aim of making a mammoth, 17-hour program about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, to accompany the 60th-anniversary...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2007

'Kaidan'

Following his smash success with "Ring" (1998) and "Ring 2" (1999) — films that launched the worldwide J-horror boom — Hideo Nakata went to Hollywood, where he was hyped as the next Asian directing phenomenon — a Japanese version of John Woo and Ang Lee. But instead of churning out blockbusters,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2007

DanDans meets Coco Chanel

Artists' lives are seldom easy, but the reality they face in Japan can be particularly daunting.
Reader Mail
Aug 1, 2007

Child's identity can't be forced

I read Debito Arudou's July 17 Zeit Gist article, "Schools single out foreign roots," with compassion for the teen daughter of immigrants who suffers from the inanities of what appears to be a narrow-minded bullying high school teacher in Shizuoka. There was no mention, though, of her parents' actions...
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2007

Quake shakes nuclear power industry

News reports continue to shed light on the damage inflicted on Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant by the magnitude-6.8 earthquake that struck Niigata and Nagano prefectures July 16. Most worrying is a report that the tremors were more than double the quake-design benchmark...

Longform

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