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Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 30, 2013

The Aesthetics of Strangeness: Eccentricity and Madness in Early Modern Japan

Misfits. Oddballs. Bohemians. In Tokugawa Japan? Yes indeed, a veritable plethora of them. The Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867) was hardly the first repressive regime, or the last, to throw nonconformity out the front door only to find it creeping in through the back door, through the window, through cracks...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Nov 30, 2013

Fujitsu import adjusts

Once, or twice at most. That's the number of times that a quarterback usually throws a pass to the side of the field occupied by a great cornerback.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 30, 2013

The secret of keeping official secrets secret

"He that would keep a secret must keep it secret that he hath a secret to keep," says Sir Humphrey Appleby, permanent secretary to the Department of Administrative Affairs, a fictitious branch of the British government. He is one of the main characters in the highly acclaimed 1980s BBC television series...
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Nov 29, 2013

Kawakami's players impressed MLB counterparts

The V-9 Yomiuri Giants were arguably the best team in the history of the game. Giants stars Sadaharu Oh and Shigeo Nagashima had been openly coveted by MLB general managers back in the United States. So had pitcher Tsuneo Horiuchi at his peak.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2013

'The Sessions'

It's become kind of a cliche, famous actors playing the physically or mentally handicapped as a kind of sure-fire Oscar bait. Yet you've got to give it up for John Hawkes in "The Sessions": He plays Mark O'Brien, a man paralyzed from the neck down who's forced to spend most of his time in an iron lung,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 27, 2013

Takarazuka dances to a different tune

What happens when Takarazuka, Japan's longest-running all-female theater troupe, takes on Masayuki Suo's hit movie "Shall We Dance?," which won 14 Japanese Academy Awards in 1996 and aired internationally in 16 countries?
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 27, 2013

Kawakami's philosophy as manager never wavered

A famous Tetsuharu Kawakami watchword was wa (harmony).
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2013

American Robert Levinson, still a hostage in Iran

On Nov. 26, Robert Levinson became the longest-held hostage in U.S. history. He was last seen in Iran.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2013

The unraveling of Barack Obama's presidency

When it comes to Obamacare, U.S. President Barack Obama is like someone who burns down your house. Then shows up with an empty water bucket. Then lectures you about how defective the house was.
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Nov 26, 2013

Kawakami was Japanese baseball's first Zen master

Most foreign fans of baseball in Japan may not know the name Tetsuharu Kawakami, who passed away recently at the age of 93, but perhaps it's time they did.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2013

Don't blame Dallas for Kennedy assassination

John F. Kennedy was an extraordinary president at an extraordinary moment in history.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2013

A helping hand for Philippines

The Philippines was one of the most important contributors to the relief effort after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, and now Japan has the chance to return the favor.
EDITORIALS
Nov 23, 2013

Tohoku's Great Forest Wall Project

A project to plant nearly 300 km of trees along the northeast coast from Iwate to Miyagi to Fukushima will help to protect people and their way of life.
WORLD
Nov 23, 2013

Japan's yakuza woes return to the silver screen

Hollywood has long fetishized Japanese gangsters, with their full-body tattoos, missing pinkies and harems of buxom groupies. Ever since Sydney Pollack's "The Yakuza" in 1974, the colorful mafiosi have provided regular fodder for directors including Ridley Scott and Quentin Tarantino.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EMBASSY AVENUE
Nov 22, 2013

Kazakhstan-Japan antinuclear exhibition

A joint exhibition by Japanese designer Hiromi Inayoshi and artist Karipbek Kuyukov from Kazakhstan was held Nov. 19 at the Nippon Press Center Building in Tokyo.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 22, 2013

Serial 911 caller may land in guardian's care

Martha Rigsby collapsed to the ground for the first time in 1977. The spells continued, and she began calling the emergency number 911 for help.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2013

New Ai Weiwei film details the art of persecution

Timing, as they say, is everything, and for aspiring filmmaker Alison Klayman, that meant being in Beijing filming China's most well-known contemporary artist, Ai Weiwei, at precisely the moment the Chinese government decided to throw him in jail.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2013

'Kaguya-hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya)'

Isao Takahata has long been overshadowed by longtime colleague and Studio Ghibli cofounder Hayao Miyazaki. The younger man (Takahata is 78, Miyazaki 72) has had more and bigger hits, including his latest, the World War II-themed "Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)," while Takahata's last feature animation,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 20, 2013

Director Ogawa sublimely cracks Mamet's code

First impressions can, of course, be deceiving, but mine of 65-year-old David Mamet's play "The Cryptogram," whose world premiere was at the Ambassadors Theatre in London in 1994, was simply how unhelpful and knotty a work it was.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 20, 2013

Tea bowls, simple emblems of power

"Ido Tea Bowls: Treasured Possessions of Muromachi Daimyo," currently showing at the Nezu Museum, presents an array of 72 rare tea bowls that were once owned by renowned warlords, tea masters and Buddhist temples. Produced by country potters in kilns in Korea's South Kyungsang province, these bowls were...
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 19, 2013

Stasi legacy gives Germans different view on NSA spying

German officials have been quick to ascribe the fury of their citizens over U.S. spying to their own history with the excesses of the surveillance state. But victims of the fearsome communist East German secret police say: not so fast.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2013

For first time, NHK seeks Caucasian actress to star in morning drama

Wanted: A female aged 25 to 40 who grew up in the West and boasts a better than average singing voice to star in a NHK drama about Rita Taketsuru.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 16, 2013

Japan pins hopes on Kennedy

With a controversial base relocation in Okinawa and other high-stakes issues testing the resilience of ties with the United States, people in Japan are looking to new U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy for not just her celebrity status, but also her potential to become a new bridge between the two allies....
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 16, 2013

Creationists all thumbs over digits research

It's back to basics this month, with a look at evolution, science and religion.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 14, 2013

Echoes of an old debate on feminism and individualism

A century ago 'individualism' was a byword for Japan's reforming intelligentsia. To the extent that it served the goals of modernizing the Japanese state, it was acceptable.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 14, 2013

Artist Yoshioka channels natural inspirations for 'Crystallize' exhibition

Is art that echoes nature “eco” art? This is one of the many questions that the work of designer/artist Tokujin Yoshioka explores.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 14, 2013

Scottish police corruption has never been so fun

Oftentimes authors whose books are adapted into movies are left to sit at home and simmer as directors make the rounds saying how their "reimagining" of the work was necessary to make it a better cinematic experience, blah, blah, blah, while every fan of the novel knows exactly how it was butchered....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 13, 2013

Brecht's 'Fatzer' underground in Kyoto

The term "metatheater" refers to devices in a play that break the so-called "fourth wall" — the illusion of theatrical reality — in order to involve the audience as critical participants in the production. Metatheatricality is a hallmark of early 20th-century Modernist drama, and is often associated...
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Nov 13, 2013

Real 'labor cops' also deserve to get the star treatment

The show 'Dandarin' says a great deal about Japanese office politics and corporate practices that are long overdue some serious scrutiny.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat