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BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 26, 2013

Cuttlefish could be key to revolutionary camouflage technology

Cuttlefish are ugly-cute. With their big eyes, stubby tentacles and bulbous head, they look like creatures from an H.P. Lovecraft horror story. When they move forward, rippling their fins underneath their body, they resemble prehistoric flying saucers. And they hunt at night and are masters of disguise....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2013

Address shows Obama is playing make-believe

There was a make-believe quality to U.S. President Barack Obama's second inaugural address, as if all that's required to solve serious problems are the intelligence to produce proper policies and the political grit to get them approved. Perish the thought that there are deep conflicts among the things...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2013

'Minasan, Sayonara (See You Tomorrow, Everyone)'

Those directors who return to the same theme over and over commonly use the same actor to embody it. Akira Kurosawa cast Toshiro Mifune as the intense hero in film after film about masculine, if not always traditionally macho, heroism. Juzo Itami starred wife Nobuko Miyamoto as the tough cookie taking...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2013

Schools to close but their songs go on

Music has played an important role in easing the pain of many people in the Tohoku region whose lives were affected by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 24, 2013

Grains turned wolves into man's best friend

You know that dog biscuit shaped like a bone but made mostly of wheat? The fact that your dog is satisfied with it instead of going for a piece of your thigh may be one of the big reasons why its ancestors evolved from wolves to house pets.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 23, 2013

U.S. chimps may be retired from research

New U.S. federal rules proposed Tuesday would severely restrict medical and behavioral research on chimpanzees and send nearly all of the government's remaining 450 research chimps into retirement, an unfunded project that could cost $25 million.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 23, 2013

'Coriolanus' comes home — to Kyoto

It's a fair bet that many people at the Globe Theatre in London last May expected the Kyoto-based Chiten (Point) Company to present a stereotypically Japanese, samurai-style "Coriolanus," complete with taiko drums and period armor.
Japan Times
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2013
Jan 23, 2013

Lack of diversity hurts Japan: Saito

William H. Saito, who moved to Tokyo from California eight years ago, has had some splendid achievements in his 41 years of life so far.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2013

Ban talks about Japan in the world in exclusive interview

In a series of seven two-hour sessions that included informal get-togethers with his wife Soon Taek, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the well-regarded former South Korean foreign minister, shares his insights exclusively with American journalist Tom Plate. The following excerpts from Plate's...
WORLD / Politics
Jan 21, 2013

Stress gives presidents more than a few gray hairs

Time roughs up presidents. Photos of Barack Obama on election night in 2008 look like they were taken much longer than four years ago. Now his face has deeper creases and crow's feet, while his hair is salted with white.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 19, 2013

Japan's growing diaspora reflects concern for the country's future

Here's a surprising fact: One Japanese in a hundred lives abroad. It's surprising because so much is made lately of Japan's growing insularity. Young people seem less interested than ever in studying overseas, and voters last month elected a new government whose platform includes strong doses of patriotism...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / WEEK 3
Jan 19, 2013

Nanjing remembers; disputes fester

Young Chinese marking the 75th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre are baptized in battles over war memory that shape bilateral relations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 19, 2013

Meiji Japanese who sought to improve China

ASIA FOR THE ASIANS: China in the Lives of Five Meiji Japanese, by Paula S. Harrell. Merwin Asia, 2012, 407 pp., $35 (paperback)
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 19, 2013

Citizens' woeful social consciousness ensures a bleak outlook for Japan

What is behind the miserable social status of women in Japan?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jan 19, 2013

Kyoto gardens give up all their secrets during intimate guided tours

How do you appreciate a Japanese garden? The typical temple visit — where you ponder a seemingly random assemblage of rocks and raked gravel or push your way through a throng of tourists jostling for camera angles — can leave one confused and underwhelmed.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Jan 19, 2013

Lance Armstrong and the art of public confession

There are no free rides out of paradise. As a disgraced sporting legend, Lance Armstrong, who for the most part came clean to Oprah Winfrey on American television this week, could be forgiven for thinking he has trespassed in the Garden of Eden, or perhaps gone sunbathing on the rock usually occupied...
Events / KANSAI: WHO & WHAT
Jan 19, 2013

Enjoy fireworks display on Mount Wakakusa

A huge field on Mount Wakakusa in Nara Prefecture will be set on fire at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 26 following a 15-minute fireworks display.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 17, 2013

Mary Evans on 'Seishun Zankoku Monogatari (Cruel Story of Youth)'

"Seishun Zankoku Monogatari (Cruel Story of Youth)" is the second film directed by 28-year-old Nagisa Oshima and, while hardly the year's best Japanese film, it is nevertheless of more than usual interest. A young girl (Miyuki Kuwano), restless, wanting excitement and experience, takes to accepting...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2013

Building a better U.S. drone policy

An unmanned U.S. aerial vehicle — or drone — reportedly killed eight people in rural Pakistan last week, bringing the estimated death toll from drone strikes in Pakistan this year to 35.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2013

White paper chronicles rise of ramen worldwide

Ramen's rise to global prominence has taken many forms: Japanese noodle shops debuting to great acclaim overseas, from Sydney to Honolulu to London; the proliferation of English-language ramen blogs; international chefs incorporating elements of the dish into their cuisine.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 16, 2013

Rewriting history is unwise

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has appointed a Cabinet that, according to press reports, contains a number of ministers who want to rewrite the history of the 20th century. They, including the new minister of education, are reported as demanding the rescinding of the statement made in 1995 by former Prime...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jan 14, 2013

Canadian has English-language rakugo dream

Katsura Sunshine wants to spread the world of rakugo (traditional comic storytelling) to people all over the world, including his home country Canada, by delivering English-translated versions.
Reader Mail
Jan 13, 2013

Who will care for the elderly?

Regarding Jun Hongo's Jan. 9 article, "Foreign nurse success story has message for Japan: Open up": Why did Japan bother to invite these poorly paid, overworked and under-appreciated nurses from Indonesia and the Philippines to work here.
Reader Mail
Jan 13, 2013

Twitter's fine, grammar's better

Regarding Ai Shiinoki's Jan. 6 letter, "Using Twitter to learn English": Frankly, I feel disgusted when I hear the argument that English education in Japan is rather useless or that English-language textbooks contain expressions that are too old and so on.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 13, 2013

What Japan needs to do

With its economy spluttering, large parts of its northeastern region still devastated by the effects of the mammoth Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 — and releases of radioactive materials that followed — its population shrinking and aging at unprecedented rates and its citizens despairing of...

Longform

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