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Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 6, 2013

How Marvel's film magic made us true believers

Marvel Comics revolutionized the superhero genre in the 1960s with comic book characters such as Spider-Man, Thor, Iron-Man and The Hulk. Colorfully costumed adventurers who fought criminals and alien monsters primarily on the streets of New York City, and who, despite their incredible superpowers, struggled...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 6, 2013

Science's great unknowns: 20 unsolved questions

What is the universe made of? Astronomers face an embarrassing conundrum: they don't know what 95 percent of the universe is made of. Atoms, which form everything we see around us, only account for a measly 5 percent. Over the past 80 years it has become clear that the substantial remainder is comprised...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

Director James Mangold puts soul into Wolverine's demons

"The Wolverine" may look like just another in a long line of superhero movies to hit the screen this year — it's the latest installment in Marvel's "X-Men" franchise — but it's certainly the first one directed by a guy who cites director Yasujiro Ozu of "Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story)" fame as an...
COMMENTARY
Sep 5, 2013

The folly of attacking Assad

It would seem a piece of wisdom picked up on the school playground not to start a fight that you don't know how to finish.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 5, 2013

After Snowden revelations, China worries about cyberdefense

China has been seen as the aggressor in cyberattacks, but many worry its own defenses are woeful.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2013

Can Alexei Navalny salvage Russian democracy?

Come Sept. 8, can Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny and his supporters change Russia's political culture of fear
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2013

'Skilled foreigner' invite too rigid a bar

More than a year after its much-hyped introduction, a government-led initiative to lure "highly skilled" foreign professionals to Japan is making lackluster progress, with the number of those applying for visas under the new system much smaller than initially envisioned.
EDITORIALS
Sep 3, 2013

America's unfinished business

There is no mistaking the progress that has been made in the United States in the half century since Dr. Martin Luther King gave his 'I have a dream' speech. But there remains a long way to go.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 1, 2013

The Syria questions you were too afraid to ask

The United States is preparing for a possibly imminent series of limited military strikes against Syria, the first direct U.S. intervention in the two-year civil war, in retaliation for President Bashar Assad's suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 31, 2013

Hope blooms eternal for the Simien National Park

In 1967, Ethiopia was the last African country south of the Sahara still without any national parks — an embarrassment for a nation then entertaining ambitions to assume leadership of the continent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2013

Fascinating glimpse into world of hacking

It is perhaps a little hard to remember now, but in 2010, there seemed to be a new global superpower. A superpower that acted in unorthodox ways, which was unaccountable and yet of the people, and that was above all nameless, faceless and, as it styled itself, Anonymous.
Reader Mail
Aug 31, 2013

Enough unsolicited information

The more I hear in the news about civil rights for sexual minorities, the more confused I become. Maybe I am intimidated by rapid change in society. Or maybe I'm homophobic.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2013

After Bo Xilai case, China's trial is just beginning

The just-concluded trial of Bo Xilai will be remembered as one of the most critical political milestones in contemporary Chinese Communist history.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 30, 2013

Organizer of annual writers' workshop helps others find artistic way

John Gribble gives a part of every day to creating. Whether it's pinpointing the perfect word for a poem or plucking out a ditty on a guitar, his life and livelihood in some way proves creative. As a poet and teacher, Gribble has spent the last 20 years in Japan organizing others to find their artistic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2013

Snyder ponders Superman's ultimate dilemma

Opening on the heels of that other summer blockbuster "Star Trek Into Darkness," "Man of Steel" is no smaller in scale but feels much more personal. That's probably because director Zack Snyder ("300," "Sucker Punch") is a hands-on kind of filmmaker, who secretly feels that if he can't stamp his personality...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 29, 2013

Tokyo chef who likes a good breakdown

Kamose, a private cooking studio run by fermentation specialist Nobuaki Fushiki, is hidden among the backstreets of Tokyo's Gakugei Daigaku district. Fushiki's special dinner events, which feature an array of fermented ingredients, have a clandestine quality that brings to mind the speakeasies of the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / FOOD MATTERS
Aug 29, 2013

Indie food mags develop a taste for Japan

First sushi, then noodles; next sake and wagyū beef: The world's fascination with Japanese cuisine shows no sign of abating. More and more people are writing about it, too, from travel buffs and visiting cooking experts to untold legions of foodie bloggers.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 29, 2013

Winery features events for kids

Even if you don't have 80 days to circumnavigate the globe, two days will be enough for a trip to Europe, kind of.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Aug 29, 2013

Latin music event includes Cuban ensembles and dancers

Smooth grooves will take the spotlight at a Latin music festival in Tokyo this weekend, which brings three popular Latin American acts to Japan for the Animate! event.
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Aug 28, 2013

Twenty years ago, Cornelius releases the track that defined Shibuya-kei

The song "The Sun is My Enemy," released 20 years ago on Sept. 1, 1993, may have only reached No. 15 on the Japanese singles charts, but its importance lingers.
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2013

Encounters of the foreign kind

Chavez's article left me with mixed feelings. Living in foreign countries, everybody will have certainly felt that he or she is supposed to be discriminated against to some extent, but according to Chavez and the opinions of my foreign friends, they tend to feel this way more often in Japan than in other...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2013

Forum stresses career benefits of study abroad

Japanese students should buck the stay-at-home trend and instead study overseas to gain skills to survive in an ever more globalized and competitive world, experts and former international students said at a recent forum on overseas study in Tokyo.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 27, 2013

Can the ailing Emerald Isle roar back as the Celtic Tiger?

Much of Ireland has been riveted this summer by recordings of phone conversations from 2008 that revealed not only shocking levels of greed and bad breeding among some of the country's top bankers, but a deliberate effort to snooker the government into bailing out the country's banks by concealing the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 24, 2013

It only takes one 'Barefoot' step to cross the line into censorship

If you want people to pay attention to a point you're making, try to bring the subject of children into the debate. Right now, the media is discussing a decision made by the board of education of Matsue, Shimane Prefecture, to limit student access to the manga "Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen)," first published...
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 24, 2013

A look back at when Tokyo was awarded 1964 Olympics

It's been more than 50 years since Tokyo was awarded the 1964 Summer Olympics, and it was done before several landmark events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 23, 2013

Why are so many young men becoming Internet trolls?

Two thousand, three hundred and ninety-three years ago, in 380 B.C., Plato wrote the myth of the Ring of Gyges, in which the shepherd, Gyges, discovers a ring that makes him invisible at will. Gyges promptly uses the protection this offers to infiltrate the royal household, seduce the queen, assassinate...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 22, 2013

Aichi Triennale's best works deal with disaster

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, a lot of art here has dealt with disaster. Not all the pieces in the second installment of the Aichi Triennale are on this theme — but the best ones are.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Aug 22, 2013

The ramen burger that ate New York

It's too early to tell if Aug. 3, 2013, will go down as a landmark date in culinary history, but for the hundreds of people who lined up that morning at a food fair in Brooklyn, New York, the excitement was palpable. The crowds had braved steady rain for a chance to try the ramen burger, an East-meets-West...

Longform

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