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Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 1, 2014

Hello Kitty: still fabulous at 40

Who is only five apples high and has no mouth — yet is one of the country's biggest cultural ambassadors?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Sep 14, 2014

All-Japanese families take a chance on international schools

In a notoriously homogeneous society where parents can face criticism for going against the grain, what drives these parents to shun local schools and instead seek out what the education ministry calls 'foreigner schools'?
CULTURE / Music
Nov 29, 2012

2.5D wants to change how you see Japan

A crowd much smaller than solo-guitarist Miyavi is accustomed to has gathered to hear an intimate set at the 2.5D studio in Shibuya's Parco Part 1 building. About a third of the 80 or so people have gathered around the stage so close that they can almost touch the artist. They don't try, of course,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2012

A woman's world

PASSIONATE FRIENDSHIP: The Aesthetics of Girls' Culture in Japan, by Deborah Shamoon. Univ. of Hawai'i Press, 2012, 181 pp., $27.00 (paperback) The subject of this book is one that is baffling to outsiders, but visible on the streets of Tokyo, especially the more fashionable parts, and in fiction, dress...
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 14, 2009

Scholars worldwide react to planned National Center for Media Arts

Proponents of the National Center for Media Arts argue that it will help foreign researchers examining Japan's popular culture. The Japan Times asked prominent scholars from overseas their thoughts on the proposed facility.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 27, 2004

Does comic relief hurt kids?

'Cuteness, eroticism, and violence are the essence of Japanese pop culture," says Ichiya Nakamura, executive director of the Stanford Japan Center and ex-government policy maker.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 9, 2003

Cultured 'man of forest' in peril

Culture, from a biological point of view, is behavior that is passed on through social contact. But what are the origins of culture? And what is it about humans that has allowed us to develop such rich and diverse cultures?
CULTURE / Books
Nov 17, 1999

Window on the fragile world of the Ainu

LAND OF ELMS: The History, Culture and Present-Day Situation of the Ainu People, by Toshimitsu Miyajima, translated by Robert Witmer. Ontario, Canada: United Church Publishing House, 1998; 184 pp., 2,000 yen (paper). Some books are published before the happy ending even happens, which can give readers...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 9, 1999

Building a nation in time and space

REINVENTING JAPAN: Time, Space, Nation, by Tessa Morris-Suzuki. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1998, 236 pp., $19.95. Every country exists in time and in space. This is a simple fact that is often taken for granted.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Aug 4, 2022

What role should Japan play as the Russia-Ukraine war shakes the international order?

Executives of the Asia Pacific Initiative discuss the part Tokyo should play as Russia's invasion of Ukraine approaches six months.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Oct 20, 2019

Linguistic ignorance can be bliss

When it was revealed that Pico Iyer knew only a 'smattering' of Japanese despite living in Japan for 25 years, some were critical. However, could there be artistic benefits to not being fluent?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / Defining the Heisei Era
Oct 27, 2018

Defining the Heisei Era: When anime and manga went global

The Heisei Era commenced after two gods fell in rapid succession. The first, Emperor Hirohito, was no longer officially a god, having repudiated his quasi-divine status under the terms of Japan's surrender in World War II, but he remained god-like in stature. His January death in 1989 at age 87 signaled...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 23, 2018

'My Year in Japan' books offer reassuring words to armchair travelers, but expats need more

The most successful works remain true to both the author's time abroad and to Japan itself.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 5, 2017

Is this the end of the road for vintage cars in Japan?

Few are aware that Japan is a Mecca for classic car enthusiasts worldwide. Boasting a world-class national road network of blacktop roads, bridges and tunnels, the country is the perfect place to cruise around in a 1950s Rolls-Royce limousine or a 1970s Nissan Skyline GT-R, which fans dubbed "Hakosuka"...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 7, 2017

Cultural construction boom aims to offset Hong Kong's business-like image

The theater stage is bathed in a luscious lavender hue, a color that in Chinese tradition signifies nobility and mystery — and portends things to come. A young couple, pure of heart, fall in love only to see their romance thwarted by the machinations of a corrupt bureaucrat. They declare their devotion...
Japan Times
JAPAN / WORLD FORUM ON SPORT AND CULTURE
Oct 19, 2016

Sports seen as engine to encourage, unite people

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EXPO MILANO 2015
May 3, 2015

'Sake on The Table' with Italian food

As a related event to the Expo Milano 2015, "Milano Sake Week" is set to take place in Milan in July. Under the theme, "Arranging Tables Around the World with Japanese Sake," the event will showcase the taste, history and culture of sake and propose new richness to tables of Japan and beyond by adapting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 13, 2014

Forget Cool Japan — cute is this summer's hot global export

Summer is always high season for fans of Japanese pop culture. School's out, weather's amenable and festivals, conventions and expos shift into top gear in Japan and across the globe.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Sep 21, 2008

Low and slow — Nagoya's slice of Southern California

Second of two parts
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 5, 2007

Antiwar activist Steven L. Leeper

In a sense, it is the ultimate irony: The man appointed to oversee the memorial to victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945 by an American B-29 aircraft is . . . an American.
COMMENTARY
Dec 7, 2006

Work harder to promote Japan abroad

LONDON -- In his Sept. 29 policy speech, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed that he wanted to construct "an open economy full of vitality."
CULTURE / Books
Jun 14, 2000

Japan's path from imitator to world-beating innovator

CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN JAPAN, edited by Ian Inkster and Fumihiko Satofuka. London/New York: Tauris, 2000, 169 pp., unpriced. The relationship between culture and technology is complex and multilayered. Technological innovations that had profound effects on culture are easy to find: Think of...
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 3, 2022

As forest threats loom, Amazon guardians organize as 'minigovernments'

The indigenous council CITMA and four other indigenous territories have been granted government recognition, covering about 25,000 people living in three Amazon provinces.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2020

Ogata Paris acts as an embassy for Japanese elegance in Europe

Ogata Paris, the brainchild of designer Shinichiro Ogata, offers the very best of Japanese craftsmanship and tradition in his fashionable European outpost.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Cultural Expo
Mar 13, 2020

Rich history seen in Nationwide Programs

Held across the country in the years before and after the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, Junko Kawamura, president of Japan Arts Council, is confident that the Japan Cultural Expo will offer a great opportunity for people from Japan and abroad to appreciate and learn about the blessing of nature...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 2, 2019

Oh no, another kimono scandal

A more secure, internationalized future for kimono may lie with those innovative designers who are taking it down from its high pedestal and unburdening it from its more restrictive cultural symbolisms.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jun 6, 2019

Japanese, Italian, Korean? I'm all of these

One question I have always found difficult is, "Where are you from?" While most people I meet are able to answer it with a single word — Japan, England, India — for me the answer is a lot more complicated.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Apr 27, 2019

Japan's internet took on a life of its own during the Heisei Era

The story of a recent online phenomenon offers a great snapshot of internet culture in Japan during the Heisei Era (1989-2019). Twitter user @Ninjamaaaaaan posted a blurry photo of a pooch in motion, with its tail swooping in front of its face. It looked vaguely like the canine in the image was throwing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 8, 2017

Ginza's new noh theater seeks to break down cultural barriers

The Kanze Noh Theater reopened in April in Ginza Six, a new upscale shopping complex in central Tokyo that seeks to attract domestic and foreign audiences to a wide range of the country's traditional performing arts.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Apr 16, 2017

Architect builds bridges between the Congo and Kansai

With an otaku's giddiness, Baye McNeil speaks with Nsenda Lukumwena, an authority on Japanese buildings and head of an architectural firm in Kobe.

Longform

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