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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 26, 2009

Super Mario endures as games come and go

NEW YORK — You might call him the Mickey Mouse of video games. He's reminiscent of a doughnut, round and sweet and comforting. He's also a vessel, devoid of a real personality so you can live vicariously through him.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 20, 2009

Rediscovering Rebecca Horn

If you've been paying attention to recent contemporary art, both in Japan and abroad, you might be struck by the question "Why now?" during a visit to German artist Rebecca Horn's survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT), Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Nov 11, 2009

Sony-Ericsson phone ups its appeal; Bluedot treats the ladies

Going mobile: Sony, in the guise of its partnership with Swedish maker Ericsson, is combining the much-touted Android phone platform from Google with its traditional feature-rich offerings in the form of the Xperia X10. Sporting a larger than normal 4-inch, TFT-capacitive touch screen, the candybar-style...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Nov 4, 2009

Dynario helps gadget-users on the move; Kyocera makes phone for kids

Charging ahead: The promise of fuel-cell technology has conjured visions of cars powered by hydrogen. This promise also offers the ability to "recharge" batteries in your gadgets without a power point. Toshiba is bringing this part of the dream to life with its new Dynario, a methanol fuel-cell recharger...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 23, 2009

Tokyo theater scene gets kiss of life

The Edinburgh theater and street-performance festival in Scotland annually sends a buzz round the arts world; France's Avignon invariably features a cordon bleu international menu; and Adelaide and Singapore vie for the Asia-Pacific spotlight.
BUSINESS
Oct 18, 2009

Twitter launches mobile version for Japan market

The popular microblogging service Twitter on Thursday launched a Japan-based mobile version, hoping to penetrate a country where other U.S. social networking sites including Facebook and MySpace have failed to capture much ground.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Oct 14, 2009

Panasonic rethinks iPod dock presentation

Clunky look, original concept: Panasonic ditches the traditional concept of an iPod dock in the form of its new MW-10.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 23, 2009

Annals of cheap: QB House

It's very chop-chop at QB House, a chain of successful barber shops where you get a cut, no chit-chat, no shampoo, all in 10 minutes.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 16, 2009

Apple polishes up its gadget arsenal

Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" music-technology event last week was closely watched by Apple fans in Japan, where many consumers have anointed the iPod and iPhone as their music players of choice over the past few years, even over homegrown competitors such as Sony.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 21, 2009

Ivan Ramen: Artisan ramen with NY accent

"Eat ramen here." It's the kind of illuminated sign you might expect to see outside a restaurant in central London or New York. To find it over the door of a one-counter noodle joint on an old-fashioned shopping arcade in the western suburbs of Tokyo is, however, little short of bizarre.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Aug 13, 2009

Variations on Dynamite Cabarets, Tiger, togas, Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons

Aki and Kuzu get smart Cabaret Aki and Jackal Kuzu are known as the designers of scandalously flagrant men's brand Gut's Dynamite Cabarets, but with the launch of their impressive new line, JhonAG, their alter-egos may soon fade as the two are set to be reverently known as just Aki and Kuzu.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 7, 2009

Art triennial helps revitalize rural Niigata

Visiting Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2009 is a strange and wonderful journey. A satoyama (mountain homeland) adventure replete with rice paddies brimming with bright green shoots, refurbished abandoned houses and closed-down elementary schools, it features 370 contemporary artworks by little-known and...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 10, 2009

Finding death in logos

Brass knuckles dangle near her waist, while a tiny feather decorates her miniature top hat. But her face is obscured and imprisoned by a giant, striped bow. Who is this? She is the subject of "Cadavre Exquis 4," one of the illustrations by well- respected Paris-based illustrator Jules Julien currently...
COMMENTARY
Jul 7, 2009

Battles with racism in India's own backyard

CHENNAI, India — It has long been known that India has its own brand of racism, manifested in a number of ways. Largely out of sight from the rest of the world, the malaise needed the gutsy chief minister of India's northeastern state of Mizoram, Pu Lalthanhawla, to get dramatic exposure.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 5, 2009

Flashing the cash while the majority suffer

There haven't been many silver linings to the dark cloud of the recession that descended more than a year ago. One is the media's general loss of interest in ostentatious displays of stuff that most of us could never afford anyway. Nowadays, it's easier to boost TV ratings with features about places...
JAPAN / Media
May 31, 2009

Pigs, pimps, prostitutes and other things — Japan's New Age

Fifty years is a long time, especially in film history. The iconoclastic Japanese New Wave, born with the release in 1959 of Nagisa Oshima's debut feature, "A Town of Love and Hope," is now an established part of Japan's cinematic canon. And in contrast to the French Nouvelle Vague, several of whose...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2009

Well-armed to protect Buddha

Like a visitor from some remote part of the universe, the deity Ashura of Kofukuji Temple in Nara appears with six spindly arms frozen in motion and three faces on a single head that is crowned with a perfectly groomed hairdo. The body is slender and graceful and little imagination is needed to see the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 29, 2009

From dust-gathering tapes to the digital age

Walkman brand still standing: Sony's latest additions to the once-venerable Walkman brand, the NW-X1050 and NW-X1060 (released last week), base their appeal on a wide range of features for watching video and playing music. Each of the pair sports a 3-inch OLED touch-screen display, which has a 432×240-pixel...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2009

Interest in history, literature spawns tomb tours

Cemeteries are generally considered spooky and gloomy, which may explain why Japanese visit the graves of loved ones on few occasions yearly, such as on the anniversary of their deaths and during the spring and fall equinox.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 15, 2009

Moving forward with speed and quality

Driving forward: The line that divided solid-state drives (SSDs) from hard disks has always been that the former have speed and toughness, while the traditional disks boast much greater capacity. This distinction is beginning to disappear, and PhotoFast erases more of the barrier with its G-Monster eSATA....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 11, 2009

Good students eat their English lessons

With many Japanese parents pulling their children out of private English language schools to save money these days, I recommend that they try home schooling. There is no reason why parents can't give their kids English lessons at home by leaving the teaching to food.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 10, 2009

Bach leads Tokyo classical festival

"I told myself to combine the study of commerce and my passion for music," says French producer Rene Martin, who has built on those foundations to pursue his vision of democratizing classical music through the annual spectacular he's named La Folle Journee (Days of Enthusiasm).
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Apr 5, 2009

Porn actresses pick up prizes

You've come a long way, baby, and in such a short time.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 29, 2009

Bodies beautiful

At 2 a.m. on a spring morning in 2002, photographer Mitsuhiro Mouri received a phone call from the most famous actress in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 10, 2009

Big winners in 'jury' system may be judges, bureaucrats

With notices having already gone out to the randomly selected citizens who may have to serve as lay judges (saibanin) in serious criminal trials starting later this year, authorities are concerned that yakuza gangsters may end up being chosen. Oh well, at least they made sure to exclude law professors....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 28, 2009

'Hafu' focuses on whole individual

"I always found it really strange," says Natalie Maya Willer, 30, a photographer based in London, "how I thought I could spot half-Japanese people in the street. . . . Then at the same time, with me not really looking Japanese, I also wondered if there really isn't a half-Japanese look after all!"
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 25, 2009

Turn on, power up and relieve the pressure

On the big screen: Samsung has unveiled its latest response to the current challenge facing laptop-computer designers — how to get the smallest, lightest machines with the biggest, brightest screens possible. The truth is, getting both is not going to happen. Designers are overcoming this problem by...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan