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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 20, 2009

Photographer Sugimoto strikes a Stone Age deal with U2

Just two minutes into an interview with artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, it became clear why the famously discreet 61-year-old had agreed to talk about rock band U2's use of one of his photographs on the cover of their latest album, "No Line on the Horizon."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Mar 6, 2009

Temp pioneer still going strong

Yoshiko Shinohara, president of staffing firm Tempholdings Co., has received numerous awards both in Japan and abroad.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Mar 4, 2009

AltJapan

Author and translator Matt Alt runs AltJapan, an entertaining and informative blog launched in 2006. Calling it a "digital scratchpad," the Maryland native writes about a wide variety of Japan-related subjects, ranging from the role of Lolita girls in military simulations to the majesty of Japan's toy...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 1, 2009

Japan loves wasting food

The Fair Trade Commission's current investigation into whether or not Seven-Eleven Japan Co. bullies its franchise members has been barely covered by commercial TV news, which isn't surprising.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA / STYLE WISE
Feb 12, 2009

Fashion inspired by imaginary destinations, the 1950s and naughty Polaroids

Your visa to Fugahum "Fugahum is our imaginary country. Yes, it's also our brand, but I always wanted to create a nation and write its history," says Akiyoshi Mishima, the philosophical half of the fashion unit Fugahum that the designer has formed with partner Asuka Yamamoto. "Isn't that what a fashion...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 10, 2009

Recession won't sour Valentine's

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and stores are geared up to cater to that special time when women give their romantic others a sweet treat and, in the Japanese workplace, offer colleagues tasty tidbits out of gratitude.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 3, 2009

What would the locals do?

In Japan, paper advertisements hang from the ceilings of train cars. In how many other countries would that be a viable advertising option? Certainly not in my hometown of Melbourne. Back in Australia, the majority of those ads would not survive any given Saturday night.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 3, 2009

Bank transfer fraudsters have that grift of gab

Subway posters, newspaper ads, TV commercials and automatic teller machines nationwide bear warnings against "furikome sagi" — remittance fraud — a scourge that bilks the vulnerable out of billions of yen every year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Feb 3, 2009

Finding the silver lining

The difficulties encountered as a foreigner can be sources of ideas for business opportunities. This belief is demonstrated by Park Tae Moon's 18 years in Japan — and his successful transition from a newspaper delivery worker to the owner of a 20-staff magazine publishing/consulting business.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2009

Collagen — skin-deep in myth?

The craze over skin-smoothing collagen has spread to "nabe" hotchpotch, with restaurants serving up the protein-rich fare — usually in the form of pig's knuckles — getting prominent play on TV and in magazines.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 4, 2009

Rounding up 2008's media

Media Figure of the Year: Tomohiro Kato
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 4, 2009

A nation adrift cries out for new visions fired by anger and sorrow

Every era in the life of a country begs for creators to define it and give it momentum for its society to progress. Politicians, economists and bureaucrats seem to believe that culture rides on the wave of the economy — but the opposite is true. It is on progressive waves of culture that economic achievement...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CLOSE-UP
Jan 4, 2009

Japan's 'Mr. Television'

Picture the world's busiest television presenter, and imagine yourself squinting through the glare of high-wattage celebrity, struggling to breathe in air perfumed with pampered showbiz egos.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2009

Cars no longer coveted by young

To get around the city, Yutaka Makino hops on his skateboard or takes the trains. Does he dream of the day when he owns his own car? Not a chance.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 4, 2009

Monta Mino: Japan's 'Mr. Television'

Picture the world's busiest television presenter, and imagine yourself squinting through the glare of high-wattage celebrity, struggling to breathe in air perfumed with pampered showbiz egos.
Reader Mail
Dec 21, 2008

Give cannabis room to grow

Regarding the Nov. 28 article "Cops target online weed seed ads": The cannabis plant is the single most usable plant known to mankind. The fiber of the cannabis plant makes an extraordinarily tough fabric, as for sailcloth, or it can be made into all sorts of garments, some surprisingly soft and others...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2008

Making quality the key to Web searches

NEW YORK — In the not-so-distant future, students will be able to graduate from high school without ever touching a book. Twenty years ago, they could graduate from high school without ever using a computer. In only a few decades, computer technology and the Internet have transformed the core principles...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2008

'WALL-E'

They say the best creators of science fiction are those able to extrapolate just a bit into the future. Think of William Gibson's descriptions of a wired, digitally interconnected world dominated by multinational corporations in 1984's "Neuromancer," or Terry Gilliam's imagining of a perpetual war on...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2008

New tourism agency ambushed by high yen

When the Japan Tourism Agency opened for business on Oct. 1 to attract more Asian travelers, the timing could hardly have been worse.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 14, 2008

Beyonce "I am . . . Sasha Fierce"

A two-disc concept album charting the sense of detachment Beyonce Knowles feels between her stage presence and the "real her"? The record industry must really be in turmoil for Sony to have let her get away with releasing this — everyone knows double albums tank, particularly when pushed by performers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2008

Tokyo's Rokku laughs it up again at film festival

The objectives of the First Old Town Taito International Comedy Film Festival, which runs Nov. 21 to 24 in the Tokyo districts of Asakusa and Ueno, sound ambitious. Noting on the festival's English-language Web site that "there are innumerable film festivals held throughout the world," the executive...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 9, 2008

Mighty yen scares off the tourists

California's tourism office didn't waste any time when the dollar sunk to new lows against the yen. For the past couple of weeks, commercial TV stations have aired ads for the Golden State featuring shots of its natural and man-made delights, capped with a personal message from the Governator himself....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2008

Pregnant Afghan women face deadly odds

KABUL — In Badakhshan, Afghanistan, for every 100,000 births, 6,500 young mothers die. This is a record unrivaled anywhere in the world. In other parts of Afghanistan, too, the rates of maternal mortality continue to be among the highest in the world.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2008

Obama, McCain all but ignore poverty issue

PRINCETON — Barack Obama worked for three years as a community organizer on Chicago's blighted South Side, so he knows all about the real poverty that exists in America. He knows that in one of the world's richest nations, 37 million people live in poverty, a far higher proportion than in Europe's...
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2008

'Anime' biz taps new inspiration

Astro Boy, created by animation pioneer Osamu Tezuka, is a superhero robot with a soft, adorable face, a feature that partly explains his global fame.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 28, 2008

When is an 'election' not an election?

The personality contest foisted on the public as a campaign for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party insulted the intelligence of anyone with a nervous system, and not just because Taro Aso was known to be a shoo-in from the beginning. By presenting five candidates who were supposedly vying...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 28, 2008

A step-by-step guide to owning a home in Japan

So you are ready to be king of your own castle in Japan. Adios to the days when you, a mere rent-paying tenant of a grotty apartment, worried about landlords taking you to the cleaners for spilling tea on the carpet or making minuscule holes in the walls to pin up framed pics.
Japan Times
JAPAN / LETTERS FROM KOBE
Sep 5, 2008

Letter trove details Occupation life

More than 1,000 pages of handwritten letters from 1947 to 1948 by an American woman who witnessed and described in detail the Allied Occupation of Japan have been discovered in Nebraska and recently obtained by The Japan Times.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 2, 2008

Urawaza — quirky, everyday Japanese tips — head West

Two years ago, a mysterious 20-second video clip triggered some unexpected buzz on the Web site YouTube. In the segment, an ordinary-looking housewife draws an invisible line across the chest of a shirt with her finger. Then she pinches the shirt under the armpit and at the shoulder, does a quick flipping...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.