Search - features

 
 
Japan Times
Features
Apr 18, 2004

Rebels with cachet revel in paradox

For the young British-Japanese fashion design duo of Patrick Ryan and Mami Yoshida, the words yab and yum -- which, together as Yab-Yum, give their label its name -- are a good fit for this Tokyo-based team when you search out their real meanings.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 17, 2004

Yati Irsan/Nasrin Fowzia

Since its foundation in 1968, the Asia-Pacific Ladies Friendship Society has steadily taken up deserving causes in the Asia-Pacific area. With the aim of bringing together the women of Asia-Pacific countries and Japan, it helps the sick, the poor and orphans in its 24 member countries. It assists with...
BUSINESS
Apr 16, 2004

NTT unit to launch new IP phone service

NTT Communications Corp. said Thursday it will offer a new Internet-based phone service on May 10 that allows broadband subscribers to call each other, irrespective of their Internet service provider.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 16, 2004

'Never say kekko...'

Tired of the daily routine of slogging to a gray building full of even grayer coworkers?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 14, 2004

Interpreter's notes

Lost in Translation Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Sofia Coppola Running time: 102 minutes Language: English, Japanese Opens April 17 at Cinema Rise [See Japan Times movie listings] The dialogue of "Lost in Translation" never sizzles, never gets out of line, doesn't really reveal...
Japan Times
Features
Apr 11, 2004

Zen for all to see

A few years ago, I went to see "Izutsu (The Well Curb)" at the old Kongo Theatre in Kyoto. A key scene in this noh classic comes when the shite (principal character), a beautiful woman played by a man, offers prayers at the little grave mound beside a well in a dilapidated temple. In answer to the waki...
Events
Apr 11, 2004

KANSAI: Who & What

Major exhibit features Miffy the bunny: A big event featuring Miffy the bunny is being held until April 18 at ATC Museum in Suminoe Ward, Osaka.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 11, 2004

The struggle to find a collective identity

JAPAN UNBOUND: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose, by John Nathan. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 271 pp., $25 (cloth). In this engaging book, largely based on extensive interviews, John Nathan probes the pathologies, contradictions and search for identity in contemporary Japan. He ranges...
Japan Times
Features
Apr 11, 2004

Women in noh

Backstage at a noh theater in downtown Tokyo, the play was about to begin.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 8, 2004

Cuttlefish

* Japanese name: Kouika * Scientific name:Sepia esculenta * Description:Cuttlefish are marine animals in the same group as octopus and squid (cephalopods). They are soft-bodied but have a "bone" (actually an internal shell), which supports the mantle (body) and acts as a buoyancy regulator. Lying underneath...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 7, 2004

We love a woman in uniform

View From the Top Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Bruno Barreto Running time: 87 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] "View From the Top" should really be called "Airport! (Just Kidding)" or "Yikes at JFK" but after 9/11, jokes about flying...
BUSINESS
Apr 3, 2004

JR East workers use Suica cards as ID

They look like commuters passing the ticket wickets at train stations, flashing their electronic train-fare cards at a scanner.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 1, 2004

Water demon

* Japanese name: Kappa * Scientific name:Suijin kappensis * Description: Some sources claim that kappa are primates, but in fact they are the only known examples of an order of primitive mammals related to the duck-billed platypus. Remarkably for a mammal, kappas are bipedal. They have a curved duck's...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2004

U.S. treaty revision spells tax cuts

Japan and the United States on Tuesday ratified a revised tax treaty in an exchange of notes, paving the way for summer tax cuts for companies that operate in both nations.
BUSINESS
Mar 30, 2004

Nissan begins leasing fuel-cell vehicles

Nissan Motor Co. began leasing the X-Trail FCV fuel-cell vehicle on Monday, following rivals Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. to promote the commercial use of environmentally friendly cars.
Japan Times
Features
Mar 28, 2004

Barenboim Project to 'strip' Beethoven

The 32 piano sonatas that Beethoven composed between 1799 and 1824, including some of his most recognized works like the "Moonlight" and "Appassionata" sonatas, are often considered among the German composer's finest and most personal musical achievements.
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2004

Tension mounts before MLB hits Tokyo Dome

It was business as usual Friday afternoon at Tokyo Dome -- high school boys checking out baseball memorabilia at a store, mother-toddler pairs munching away at a fast food joint near the stadium gates.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Mar 25, 2004

Bell cricket

* Japanese name: Suzumushi * Scientific name:Homoeogryllus japonicus * Description: The bell cricket is a 2-cm-long insect in a family called Phalangopsidae. It's a small, not particularly attractive cricket, but it is very well known -- and loved -- in Japan for its song. It has a dark body and long,...
Features
Mar 21, 2004

The memory and spirit live on

The memory of John Manjiro lives on in many ways in many places. Symbolizing his life and historical significance, there is a statue of him looking out over the Pacific, octant in hand, at Cape Ashizuri in Tosa Shimizu, Kochi Prefecture, Shikoku, near his Nakanohama birthplace.
Japan Times
Features
Mar 21, 2004

In the words of John Manjiro . . .

Whaling: When they got close to the whale, the harpooner skillfully threw his harpoon at the vital part on the whale's back. However, whales have different temperaments: Some dive straight to the bottom; some rush through the waves. . . . The whale eventually returns to the place where it had been harpooned....
Japan Times
Features
Mar 21, 2004

One of a kind

The year was 1841. Japan was still the closed country it had been for two centuries by order of the feudal Tokugawa Shogunate; for a Japanese to go abroad, or return from abroad, were capital offenses. The arrival of U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry's four black-hulled steamships in Edo Bay -- and the...
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

Injunction upheld against latest issue of Shukan Bunshun

The Tokyo District Court on Friday upheld a temporary injunction banning publication of the latest edition of the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun, judging that one of its stories violates the privacy of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka's daughter.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2004

Tanaka's daughter seeks fines for publisher

The daughter of Diet lawmaker Makiko Tanaka has sought a court order forcing a publisher to pay fines of 30 million yen for every day that a weekly magazine featuring an article about her private life remains on store shelves, it was learned Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 17, 2004

Ghosts in the machines

Japanese science-fiction animation, from Katsuhiro Otomo's seminal "Akira" (1988) on, often points toward a post-apocalyptic, post-human future. For all the blasts 'n' babes, the curvy heroines in Spandex pouring thousands of rounds into clanking foes, the essential vision is dark -- more "Blade Runner"...
Japan Times
Features
Mar 14, 2004

Key clues pointing back through time

Experts say it is possible for a Japanese person to trace his or her ancestors back about 300 years. Of course, it does require a long paper chase, but the government, which likes to keep tabs on its citizens, has done much of the work.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2004

Buddha statue probably work of Unkei: museum

A golden Buddha statue on loan to the Tokyo National Museum is believed to be the work of Unkei, a leading sculptor of the Kamakura Period (1192-1333), museum officials said Saturday.
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2004

Elections are not enough for democracy

MANILA -- In most countries, elections attract enormous public attention. This is not surprising as these political exercises constitute the heart of democratic order. Translated into English, the originally Greek word "democracy" means "rule of the people."

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.