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CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 27, 2011

'What are the odds?' variety; 'Stand by Me' adaptation; CM of the week: Uniqlo

The purpose behind the occasional variety special "Kekkyoku! Kakuritsu Nano da" ("At last! What's the Probability"; TV Tokyo, Tues., 7 p.m.) is to figure out the probability of certain occurrences that will supposedly interest viewers but which sound more like they concern people in show biz. Past specials...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 27, 2011

Japanese officials dress the part but fail to address the issues

During the March 19 broadcast of TBS' "Newscaster," comedian Beat Takeshi complained about the work clothes (sagyogi) that Japan's politicians changed into after the earthquake-tsunami of March 11, saying that instead of trying to give the impression that they were working they should go up to the afflicted...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 27, 2011

Local media react to the events of March 11

For Japan's vernacular media, the March 11 disaster and its aftermath is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla that engulfed coverage of most other news. The items that follow give some idea of the scope of reporting over the past two weeks.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 25, 2011

The funny side of hiding in the attic

In 2003, the Tokyo-based theater company Rinkogun received a number of awards for its play "Ura-Yaneura" ("Attic"). Now the play is back in a compelling new form — staged in a mish-mash of languages using the company's actors and others from Indonesia and South Korea.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 25, 2011

Inside a construction site of an artist's mind

Tokyo-based Scottish artist Jack McLean's creepy-cute anthropomorphized planks of wood are weird enough on their own, but crammed together inside The Container, a new art space in Tokyo's Naka-Meguro district, they are even more unnerving. Huddled in corners, leaning against walls and hanging precariously...
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2011

Preparation for nuke crisis woeful

FUKUSHIMA — When the massive earthquake and tsunami rocked the northeast March 11, residents who had been prepared by years of drills knew exactly what to do: They scrambled for cover until the shaking stopped, then ran for higher ground to avoid the giant waves.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 24, 2011

Kitamura shows Japanese women how to be 'Top Girls'

"The play was written nearly 30 years ago, but I feel the situation for women has hardly changed at all. In fact, it hasn't fundamentally changed for 100 years, even though Japanese women got the vote around 65 years ago," said theater producer Akiko Kitamura when asked why she chose to stage the well-known...
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2011

Jittery Tokyo residents trickle back

Tokyo residents who fled the capital for the Kansai region last week over fears of radiation leaking from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were returning home as another week started — but with plenty of headaches.
COMMENTARY
Mar 23, 2011

Nuclear power no solution

NEW DELHI — Just when nuclear energy had come to be seen as part of the solution to energy and global-warming challenges, the serial reactor incidents in Fukushima have dealt a severe blow to the world nuclear-power industry, a powerful cartel of less than a dozen major state-owned or state-guided...
LIFE / Digital
Mar 23, 2011

Volunteers translate quake data into visuals

Over the past week we've seen a stark contrast in how the Fukushima nuclear disaster has been reported. "Panic" read the New York Daily News. "Get out of Tokyo Now" said The Sun. One expects that of tabloids, yet more credible media also described an "exodus" from Tokyo, neglecting to mention that it...
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2011

U.S. gesture would reduce risks posed by weak Kan government

LOS ANGELES — It was a perfect (if quiet) storm in the tense triangular relationship among Beijing, Tokyo and Washington, but with all the noise coming from North Africa and the Middle East, hardly anyone noticed three developments.
EDITORIALS
Mar 21, 2011

Promoting tourism

Can tourism become a force for economic growth? The Japanese government hopes so, making tourism, including medical tourism, one pillar of its new growth strategy adopted last summer.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 20, 2011

This awful tragedy will show Japan's true character to the world

Some people look for moral lessons in disasters, concentrating on a baby pulled out of the rubble of an earthquake days after it struck and calling it a "miracle." But a tsunami of the scale that crashed against the manmade seawalls along the Pacific Coast of the Tohoku region in northeast Japan left...
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2011

Special firetruck hoses down No. 3's fuel rods

Battling to avert an atomic catastrophe, firefighting teams at the Fukushima No. 1 power station sprayed tons of seawater Saturday at its crippled No. 3 reactor in a seven-hour operation aimed at keeping its spent nuclear fuel rods from combusting.
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEK 3
Mar 20, 2011

'Nothing can prepare you to witness this'

It's a relatively minor incident that gets me. I'm at a gymnasium in central Ishinomaki photographing members of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) as they unload dozens of corpses from a truck. Each is wrapped in blankets, some with flowery designs far too cheerful for this occasion.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2011

Trilateral meet agrees on nuclear safety info, disaster response steps

KYOTO — Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and his counterparts from China and South Korea promised Saturday to strengthen cooperation in responding to natural disasters and providing information on nuclear safety issues.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 20, 2011

Solace for some in the nuclear science

The few, seemingly miraculous, stories of survival are passed on from person to person, and some are given as much media coverage as the horrific devastation. The rescue of a 60-year-old man from the roof of his house, washed 15 km out to sea; the survival of a 4-month-old girl who was swept away from...
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2011

Workers battle against time

Separate desperate battles raged Friday to cool down a spent fuel pool and three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to keep highly toxic radiation from being released into the environment.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2011

Other nations continue moving their people out

Embassies continued Friday to evacuate citizens and shut down or relocate diplomatic offices in Tokyo amid grave international concern over the nuclear crisis in Fukushima Prefecture and the lack of timely, credible information on what is happening.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake