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Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
May 14, 2016

Viz's 30 years pack a punch in the U.S.

This summer, Viz Media, LLC, North America's first-ever distributor of Japanese popular culture, turns 30. Founded in 1986 by the intrepid Seiji Horibuchi, who has since moved on to other projects, the company is now housed in the so-called Twitter building in downtown San Francisco and boasts the largest...
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2016

Andrew Jackson's reckoning with paper money

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew's decision to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill reminds us of a delicious historic irony: He was an ardent critic of paper money.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2016

A chance for engagement with North Korea?

Since nothing else yet has worked, Washington and its allies should greet North Korea's first party congress in 36 years by expressing a willingness to talk to Pyongyang.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 30, 2016

'Tailless comet' found to be a pristine asteroid, offering clues about origins of the solar system

Astronomers have found that a first-of-its-kind "tailless comet" may offer clues into long-standing questions about the solar system's formation and evolution, according to research published Friday in the journal Science Advances.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 24, 2016

How the World Health Organization's cancer agency confuses consumers

Thanks to scientists working under the auspices of the World Health Organization, you can be fairly sure your toothbrush won't give you cancer. Over four decades, a WHO research agency has assessed 989 substances and activities, ranging from arsenic to hair dressing. It found only one that was "probably...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 16, 2016

Donald Richie: The legacy of an entrenched view

The late Donald Richie lived at apartment number 804 in a block directly facing Shinobazu Pond in Tokyo's Ueno Park. The writer would lead visitors through his home's dimly lit entrance area — crammed with bookshelves — and his minuscule living room to the balcony, beneath which a vast lotus pond...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 9, 2016

The unbelievable true story of a Japanese family that went to war with itself

During the endgame of World War II, Harry Fukuhara, a member of a Japanese-American unit of the U.S. military, was tasked with teaching new recruits about the enemy. The servicemen training to invade Kyushu asked how to distinguish the Japanese from Chinese.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2016

'Statistically significant' doesn't mean 'right'

Statistical techniques were invented by people who dreamed that the power of physics and chemistry might extend to a world of previously unpredictable phenomena, including human behavior.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 23, 2016

Iran media outlets add $600,000 to Salman Rushdie fatwa bounty

Iranian state-run media outlets have added $600,000 to a bounty for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie imposed in 1989 over the publishing of his book "The Satanic Verses.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 20, 2016

The Meiji Era and the soul of Japan: part 1

'Japan's first modern novel" was published serially between 1887 and 1889.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2016

U.S. should stop lecturing China about North Korea

China has demonstrated it has yet to be convinced to destroy its own ally and strengthen America's position in Northeast Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2016

The physicist who said no to Albert Einstein

Thanks to the rejection of a scientific paper written by Albert Einstein, his prediction of the existence of gravitational waves — which now has been proving true — was not retracted.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 17, 2016

Viral anonymous blogger rails against Abe failure to alleviate chronic day care shortage

An anonymous blog post penned by an irate mother complaining that she has to quit her job after her child was denied admission to a day care center has gone viral on the Internet, shedding light on what she called the hypocrisy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to promote the "dynamic engagement"...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 15, 2016

The art of the spin in U.S. presidential primaries

Presidential primary 'winners' are usually determined not just by the electorate but by what the political journalist Hendrik Hertzberg dubbed the 'expectorate.'
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2016

Stop ignoring North Korea

The lesson of Pyongyang's latest nuclear test is that talking to North Korea offers a better hope of success than ignoring it.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 30, 2016

New cat in town: Unpublished Beatrix Potter story found

A story by children's author Beatrix Potter, written more than a century ago, is to be published for the first time after its recent rediscovery. The tale featuressome of Potter's best-known characters such as Peter Rabbit.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 29, 2016

Want more sex? Try using contraception, researchers say

A study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has shown that couples who use contraception have as much as three times more sex than couples who do not.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 23, 2016

Insect Literature

The Berlin-based author Yoko Tawada recently remarked that one of the difficulties she faced when translating Kafka's short story "Metamorphosis" into Japanese was that the associations Japanese people had with insects — even presumably giant beetles — were different to those of Europeans. Tawada...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2016

Persuading China to cooperate against the North

The U.S., South Korea and Japan have run out of options to forestall a nuclear North Korea. It's time to make a deal with China.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2016

Why economic growth lags

A new book offers a sobering reminder of technology's limits.
CULTURE / Music / David Bowie in Japan
Jan 15, 2016

Ground control to Major Jack

I first met David Bowie in August 1982 in Auckland, New Zealand, where the crew of Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" had come together for the flight to the film's location in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. From the outset he came across as a man of great personal warmth, devoid of any pretence....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / David Bowie in Japan
Jan 14, 2016

Like some cat from Japan: A tribute to David Bowie

The late David Bowie's appreciation of Japan and its culture was strong. Following his recent death, The Japan Times asked five people who share that connection with the country, and who witnessed the decade-spanning trajectory of this starman, to recall what his sound and vision meant to them.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 14, 2016

Global warming seen upsetting natural cycle, may delay next ice age for 100,000 years

Global warming is likely to disrupt a natural cycle of ice ages and contribute to delaying the onset of the next big freeze until about 100,000 years from now, scientists said on Wednesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Jan 6, 2016

For Japan's English teachers, rays of hope amid the race to the bottom

The major economic engines of Japan Inc. — car manufacturers, appliance giants and the like — have often been caught price-fixing: colluding to keep an even market share, squeeze competitors out and maintain "harmony." Similarly, the commercial English-teaching business could be accused of wage-fixing:...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 2, 2016

Warming to Tsuwano: a wintry visit to the town of fish and foxes

The first official gate to the Taikodani Inari Shrine sits at the turn-off to tiny Tsuwano from the circuitous mountain highway that links Yamaguchi and Shimane prefectures. The shrine's main hall, however, sits on another peak halfway across town, a good five-minute drive away. I let my car idle at...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 29, 2015

New book says Zhou Enlai, China's first premier, was 'probably gay'

A book to be published in Hong Kong in the new year says Zhou Enlai, communist China's much-respected first premier, was probably gay despite his long marriage, and had once been in love with a male schoolmate two years his junior.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 27, 2015

Taking a longer view in defense of clutter

There's a worrying trend in Japan that is spreading throughout the world: that of throwing things out.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 5, 2015

Hanzai Japan

Hackneyed writing and plot devices grow like kabi (mold) in crime fiction, but this anthology of 16 stories by writers in and outside Japan serves up tasty surprises. "Jigoku" by Naomi Hirahara is a heartfelt, surefooted tale by a serial killer confined to a cardboard-box in hell. Carrie Vaughn's "The...

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake