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COMMENTARY
May 3, 2010

Untold ties of friendship exist between Okinawa and the U.S.

The baseball team from Konan High School, Okinawa, emerged from the dramatic final game as the winner of the annual National High School Baseball Championship for spring 2010. There is an untold story behind this victory.
JAPAN
May 1, 2010

Documentary shines spotlight on U.S. Marines

At a time when the fate of a U.S. Marines' Futenma base in Okinawa is dominating headlines, a documentary is shedding light on the troops and the training they undertake before living on foreign soil.
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2010

Hatoyama's plan to move marines to Tokunoshima gets icy reception

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Wednesday revealed his plan to move as many as 1,000 of the 2,500 U.S. Marines based at the Futenma air station in Okinawa to Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture during a meeting with former Lower House member Torao Tokuda, a native of Tokunoshima, Tokuda's son...
COMMENTARY
Apr 29, 2010

Obama conceding lead in space exploration

In the movies, all the spacemen are Americans, but that's just because Hollywood makes the movies. In the real world, the United States is giving up on space, although it is trying hard to conceal its retreat.
COMMENTARY
Apr 29, 2010

Media vultures circle P.M.

In Brazil they tell the story of the small-town TV crime reporter who gained fame and scoops by arranging crimes himself. He could then rush out and interview the victims well before rivals. But eventually his scoops caught up with him and he ended up in jail.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 28, 2010

Learning how to arrange a date in Japanese

Whether it's a romantic engagement or dinner with friends or colleagues, making an appointment (約束, yakusoku) is a vital part of everyday language in Japan as much as anywhere else. The grammar involved isn't too taxing, though the vocabulary extends as far as your interests. Meeting for coffee (コーヒー,...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2010

Hatoyama's fate tied to Futenma

HONG KONG — Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama chose to use his 10 minutes with President Obama at a working dinner during the recent nuclear summit trying in vain to bend the president's ear on the increasingly vexing question of the relocation of U.S. military base facilities in Japan. He did this rather...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 25, 2010

Lights on, but who's home?

The first half of this book is told from the point of view of Kiwako, an office worker who kidnaps the baby of her married lover after being pressured into having an abortion herself. She passes through love hotels, bullet trains and ferries; she encounters crazy people and joins a religious cult; she...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 25, 2010

Gods are on boom

An eighth-century lacquered sculpture of Ashura, the Buddhist deity of war, reached superhero status last year when it was taken from Kofukuji Temple in Nara to be displayed at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno, then later at the Kyushu National Museum in Fukuoka.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 25, 2010

Slow 'n' easy

This year is the 1,300th anniversary of the founding of Japan's first major capital, named Heijokyo, and its present-day home prefecture of Nara is basking in that ancient spotlight.
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2010

Small parties looking for bigger say

With the approach of the summer Upper House election, several new parties are vying for voters disenchanted with the Democratic Party of Japan, which swept to power last year on the promise of change but became mired in money scandals and accusations of poor leadership.
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2010

Hatoyama's grip weakens but DPJ short of alternatives

During a news conference in Tokyo earlier this month, veteran Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Kozo Watanabe touched on the possibility of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama stepping down if his team fails to solve the relocation conundrum involving U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma by the end of May....
EDITORIALS
Apr 24, 2010

Shift gears on base relocation

In his debate in the Diet on Wednesday with Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu Tanigaki and Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama reiterated that there will be no change to his self-imposed May 31 deadline to resolve the issue of relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Air Station...
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2010

Tokunoshima is a risky gambit

TOKUNOSHIMA, Kagoshima Pref. — When Tokunoshima, an island with about 26,000 residents officially governed by Kagoshima Prefecture but counted as part of the Satsunan Islands that lie closer to Okinawa than Kyushu, first emerged as a candidate host for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, local reaction...

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