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Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 7, 2015

Where will 'proactive pacifism' lead us?

Seventy years after World War II ended, should we be thinking about war or about peace?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2015

Parasophia to take Kyoto into the now

What goes through your head when you look at contemporary art? Standing in front of, say, Damien Hirst's shark in formaldehyde ("Is this art or taxidermy?"), Tracey Emin's bed ("Anybody could do that"), Jeff Koon's giant balloon-like poodles ("Kitsch," or "preemptive kitsch," as one critic called them)...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Feb 24, 2015

DPJ's shadow leader stays put

Can new leader Katsuya Okada change the Democratic Party of Japan's losing ways?
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 22, 2015

More tips for filing your U.S. taxes from Japan

With the help of a tax specialist, Lifelines tackles a number of queries in response to the special on U.S. taxation a few weeks back.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 21, 2015

An embattled Japan engages a hostile world

It has been an eventful year for Japan since David Pilling's "Bending Adversity" was published to critical acclaim. For many, including its reviewer in The Japan Times, the book was considered one of the year's — if not the decade's — best books about Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Feb 18, 2015

Time to shut down this modern-day minstrel show

If Fuji TV airs the modern-day minstrel show it has planned for next month, it will shine a national spotlight on Japan's extreme ignorance about issues of race and discrimination.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2015

What U.S. 'upward mobility'? Elites replicate themselves

There cannot be any doubt that America's renowed upward social mobility is a thing of the past. If anything, the U.S. now excels in the self-replication of economic elites — as Europe did in the 19th century.
COMMENTARY / Japan / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 26, 2015

Sex slave wrangling misses human picture

When a dispute arises between the South Korea and Japan, such as the 'comfort women' controversy, the South Koreans who most fiercely criticize Japan are 'liberals' while the Japanese who criticize South Korea are 'conservative rightists.'
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2015

Former Asahi reporter files libel suit over 'comfort women' issue

The former Asahi Shimbun reporter threatened by nationalists and revisionists for covering the “comfort women” issue sues a publisher and a Korea scholar over claims he fabricated his stories.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2015

Inside Obama's secret effort to salvage U.S.-Russian ties

The Obama administration has been working behind the scenes for months to forge a new working relationship with Russia, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's showing little interest in repairing relations or halting his aggression in Ukraine.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2014

Putin isn't worried, but the West should be

A mere two weeks after delivering a weak, stumbling state-of-the-nation address, Russian President Vladimir Putin makes combative comments on Russian history and the economy that indicate he is still living in a 19th century of his own making.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 18, 2014

The man who turned his modernist home into an art museum

It's not all roses being the director of an independent art museum, but for Toshio Hara, the human interaction of the art world is still a more attractive prospect than that of being a businessman. In 1979 he turned the family seat — a small cluster of white modernist buildings in a quiet residential...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 5, 2014

Japan's 'zombienomics'

The hard reality is that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's vaunted economic reforms will not work unless he shows more guts, much more imagination and a lot more humility in dealing with a modern economy that cannot be commanded by fiat.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2014

Atom Egoyan raises demons in 'Devil's Knot'

When three children were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993, the case quickly developed into a massive media spectacle.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 3, 2014

Jerusalem passport case poses foreign policy headache for Washington

The United States is facing an unconventional challenge as it seeks to project credibility as a neutral peacemaker between the Israelis and Palestinians: a case before the Supreme Court involving a 12-year-old boy.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Oct 30, 2014

Assad's warnings start to ring true as Syrian strife arrives at Turkey's doorstep

When Sunni rebels rose up against Syria's Bashar Assad in 2011, Turkey reclassified its protege as a pariah, expecting him to lose power within months and join the autocrats of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen on the scrap heap of the Arab Spring.
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2014

Freedom of the press in South Korea

Criminal action taken by Seoul prosecutors against a Japanese journalist for questioning the whereabouts of President Park Geun-hye on the day in August when a South Korean passenger ferry sank raises serious questions about South Korea's commitment to freedom of the press.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / IMPERIAL ANNALS
Oct 11, 2014

Selective history: Hirohito's chronicles

Between July 30 and Aug. 2, 1945, when most of Japan's cities, including Tokyo, lay in smoldering ruins from U.S. aerial bombing and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were days away from being incinerated by American nuclear weapons, Emperor Hirohito sent an envoy to several Shinto shrines to pray for the "crushing...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Sep 19, 2014

Blood types

Dear Alice,
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 25, 2014

The unsung heroes of Fukushima

What really went on among the workers inside the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami should be held up as an epic story with the theme of 'Man Saved in Japan.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 9, 2014

Ah, vaginas! In defense of taboos

Two words have been let loose on society by an artist who, for better or worse, may find the rest of her life and career inextricably bound up with them, "vagina" being one and "taboo" the other. The artist herself needs no introduction. She is (or briefly was) the most famous woman in Japan, thanks...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2014

In this Gaza war, the truth lies underground

One of the more astonishing facts of this Gaza war is that the tunnels that Hamas has dug under the border with Israel are not designed for commerce, but for kidnapping. The tunnels reportedly contain tranquilizers and handcuffs, seemingly meant to gain physical control over Israelis who have been seized.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Jul 28, 2014

The here and there of who's who and what's what

There are some Japanese words that act like little arrows. They are pointing devices that can be used to indicate a specific part of the wider context of what is being said. Some examples in English are "here" and "there," "this" and "that," "me" and "you." But Japanese does this in a more systematic...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 19, 2014

The murky call on a hardball interview with Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga

The tabloid press plays fast and loose with the truth, so anyone who gobbled up last week's NHK story in the weekly Friday should have added a dash of salt. An unnamed employee told Friday that the prime minister's office demanded the public broadcaster apologize for questions asked in its interview...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Jul 16, 2014

Unpacking koto: retain, discard and repeat as necessary

Unpacking koto — the intangible baggage — in Japan has proven to be the challenge of a lifetime, replete with enough drama and trauma to keep me knee deep in 'think pieces' till I keel over.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN WEB WATCH
Jul 12, 2014

The pros and cons of kids owning smartphones

Smartphones are everywhere now, and their diffusion has spread from adults to students in high school, then junior high and now even elementary school. The trend has led to the question: When and how should kids use smartphones?
EDITORIALS
Jul 8, 2014

Safety in off-label use of drugs

The revelation that a university hospital in Tokyo habitually has administered the powerful sedative propofol to children placed on ventilators raises safety questions about doctors' discretionary off-label use of drugs on patients.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Jun 18, 2014

Still dreaming of a Japan with juries — and without U.S. bases

At 84, Chihiro Isa hopes to see two things in his lifetime: the jury system reinstated in Japan and U.S. forces gone from Okinawa.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jun 4, 2014

World Cup 2014 views from Tokyo: South Korea, France, the Netherlands and Spain

A South Korean sales rep, two Dutch Embassy workers, a French consultant and a Spanish ventriloquist discuss their teams' chances in the World Cup.

Longform

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