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After falling behind despite helping pioneer the technology, Japan has the foundation to lead in artificial intelligence — if it seizes the moment.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 25, 2025

Japan urgently needs an AI vibe shift

Citizens’ embrace of AI also remains surprisingly low. Just 9% of consumers say they have used generative AI.
“The Wakey Show” is NHK’s first new daily children’s program in three years, and it carries on the station’s storied past in youth-centric educational entertainment.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 27, 2025

Rise and shine with ‘The Wakey Show’

Broadcaster NHK's first new daily children’s show in years puts puppets and positivity up front.
BYD's Neta S is presented at the 2025 Bangkok International Motor Show on Monday. China, led by BYD, has become the global EV leader, while other countries, including Japan, struggle to keep up with the shift toward electric vehicles.
EDITORIALS
Mar 28, 2025

In the EV race, China's BYD is leading the pack

BYD’s strong performance reflects its dominance in China’s domestic auto market, the world’s largest and most competitive for electric vehicles.
Lindsey Vonn of the United States celebrates on the podium after her second place finish in the Super G alpine skiing race in the 2025 FIS Ski World Cup at Sun Valley on March 23.
OLYMPICS / Alpine skiing
Apr 1, 2025

Vonn and Shiffrin fuel U.S. 2026 Winter Olympics hopes

Shiffrin wrapped up her injury-marred season by winning the slalom on Thursday for a record-extending 101st career World Cup victory.
Takashi Shiraishi (center), honorable emeritus professor at the Prefectural University of Kumamoto and chair of the International Group of Eminent Persons for a World without Nuclear Weapons, speaks at a news conference after the group's meeting on Monday at the United Nations University in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2025

Global experts seek urgent action to prevent nuclear war

The experts warn that the risk of conventional warfare leading to the use of nuclear weapons is becoming serious.
Lt. Col. Suguru Ejiri, the head of Air Self-Defense Force's Blue Impulse aerobatics team, at the ASDF base in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, in March. Ejiri has revealed little about the upcoming Osaka Expo performance apart from it being based on the event's theme.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2025

ASDF's Blue Impulse set for Osaka Expo performance

The aerobatics team flew for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka Prefecture as well, during which the team drew "EXPO 70" in the sky.
America’s economic exceptionalism has traditionally been driven by its deep capital markets, culture of risk-taking, history of innovation and the dollar’s status as the world’s primary reserve currency.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2025

Is this really how American exceptionalism ends?

Uncertainty around trade and the future strength of the dollar has led some big European investors to retreat from American stocks.
A drone view shows a coffee plantation in Guaxupe, Brazil, on Feb. 17.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 1, 2025

Brazil's coffee farmers turn to costly irrigation to quench global demand for the brew

Most farms in the western part of Bahia — a new frontier for coffee growing in Brazil — are now irrigated.
A woman takes a picture of the poster for the new Hayao Miyazaki film, “The Boy and the Heron.”
PODCAST / deep dive
Aug 2, 2023

Hayao Miyazaki’s confusing new masterpiece

Our critics Thu-Huong Ha and Matt Schley discuss what they thought of the new Hayao Miyazaki film, “The Boy and the Heron.”
Gold medalist Noah Lyles of the U.S. celebrates after the men's 200m final at the World Athletics Championship in Budapest on Aug. 25.
MORE SPORTS / Athletics
Dec 12, 2023

Lyles and Kipyegon named track athletes of the year

Lyles was recognized for the three gold medals he won at the world championships in Budapest.
U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Woodside, California, in November. After another year marked by great-power rivalries and rising security risks, the role of hegemonic, middling and rising powers has become more fluid than at any time since the end of the Cold War.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2024

The shape of power in 2024

Thinkers ponder whether the coming year will confirm that the world is quickly moving toward greater multipolarity or “nonalignment.”
China's Olympic gold-medal winning 4 x 200 meter freestyle relay team celebrates on the podium at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on July 29, 2021.  Zhang Yufei (third from left) is among 23 top Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance in the lead up to the Games.
OLYMPICS
Apr 20, 2024

Top Chinese swimmers tested positive for banned drug, then won Olympic gold

The episode sharply divided the anti-doping world, where China’s record has long been a flashpoint.
Toshihiro Kinjo (center), a research support technician at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, inspects an audio recording device in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, on April 3 as Masako Ogasawara, a research support specialist at OIST, looks on.
PODCAST / deep dive
May 23, 2024

What does climate change sound like in Okinawa?

This week, Japan Times climate editor Chris Russell joins us to discuss what researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology are listening to.
The U.S. will no longer view itself through the lens of exceptionalism, regardless of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins the next election.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2024

American exceptionalism is dead no matter who wins the election

The U.S. will no longer view itself through the lens of exceptionalism regardless of the presidential election's outcome, focusing instead on its narrow self-interests.
Rim Nakamura, who is attempting to win Japan's first Olympic gold medal in cycling, will be one of the top Japanese athletes to watch at the Paris Games.
OLYMPICS
Jul 26, 2024

The Japanese Olympians looking to shine in Paris

Team Japan is looking to build on the momentum from three years ago in Tokyo, where the nation earned a record medal haul.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 5, 2025

'Guernica' is always with us

How do we account for the past year, almost nine decades after "Guernica," when all the boundaries of horror have been pulverized?
A woman who was displaced by a flood shells cowpeas as she sits outside her shelter in Banki, in Maiduguri, Nigeria, in October.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 6, 2025

The uphill battle against poverty

After the pandemic years, when tens of millions of people were pushed into poverty, the need for a renewed effort is obvious.
Those who lived in Japan’s Nara Period, which lasted from the year 710 to 794, by and large knew themselves to be blessed. It wasn’t just those in power who felt it, either. From nobles to commoners, the poets seemed to have democratized joy itself.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Jan 17, 2025

From Genji to 'hikikomori,' how we make peace with disappearing

Japan’s reverence for impermanence reveals a profound connection between beauty and loss, from poetic musings to spiritual retreats, echoing in modern expressions of solitude.

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