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COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2013

Real scandal is the power IRS wields

American Republicans on Capitol Hill are abuzz with the possibility that the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service will lead to tax reform.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Jun 4, 2013

From paperclip holders and cityscape planters to corner lights and sustainable cameras

Even though we are moving — forcibly — toward the paperless office, the reality is that we still at some point find ourselves with piles of physical documents to deal with, which usually means a desktop covered in paper clips.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Oblivion'

I have seen the future and it looks like about half a dozen other sci-fi films poured into a cauldron and left to smelt. Influences are one thing, but "Oblivion" is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, its plot composed almost entirely of bits hacked off from other well-known films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 26, 2013

Women's writings provide window on Tokugawa life

The Edo Period in Japan seems pretty much a feminist's nightmare. Samurai rule and strict societal boundaries confined women within the neo-Confucianistic bonds of a deeply patriarchal society.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 23, 2013

Guitarist Dustin Wong brings singer Takako Minekawa out on a 'Toropical' journey

Guitarist Dustin Wong hesitates for a split second. It's a pause that would go unnoticed during most other sets, but Wong has spent the last 40 minutes seemingly in a trance while playing guitar and looping the notes via an array of pedals in front of him. The flurry of interlocking sounds he's produced...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 23, 2013

'Dreams as Seen in Modern Western Paintings'

Yasuo Kono, a businessman with an interest in art and music, had an eye for acquiring Western-style art. His collection is renowned throughout Japan and has been praised by many for its impressive number of musically inspired modern works. This exhibition showcases 200 paintings from Kono's collection....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 2, 2013

An art expedition to Southeast Asia

Confronting the ongoing state of transformation that characterizes their native Singapore, two artists exhibiting at a new exhibition, "Welcome to the Jungle," adopt quite different approaches and media. Francis Ng in "Constructing Construction #1" turns his camera on an unfinished section of an ugly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2013

i-fls "Diary of Spectre" (self-release)

The first song I ever made — and I'm willing to wager many who graduated high school in the mid 2000s share this experience — was using Apple's GarageBand, a software application that lets people make music on their computers. "I made a killer techno track last night, dude," I overheard one classmate...
BASEBALL
Apr 7, 2013

High honor for Nagashima, Matsui

Shigeo Nagashima and Hideki Matsui both had legendary careers with the Yomiuri Giants, the latter also excelling in the major leagues after leaving the Giants. Now their accomplishments are being officially recognized with the People's Honor Award.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 1, 2013

Historian seeks to have Jefferson speak for himself

Thomas Jefferson died 186 years ago. But J. Jefferson Looney still wants the nation's third president to speak for himself.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 31, 2013

Fashion Week Tokyo: The menswear question — to be showy or simplify?

The February bankruptcy of Takeshi Osumi's seminal brand Phenomenon, and its departure from Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo (FWT) before this season's March 17-23 shows, left a chasm apparent to all. And indeed, it's a mystery who may be able to fill the rather large shoes of the man who added such...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 31, 2013

Thousands flock to the Fashion Week Tokyo party

It is four seasons since Mercedes Benz became Fashion Week Tokyo's main sponsor, and in that time it has given the industry segment that relies on these twice-yearly events a real confidence boost.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2013

Long-ago wiretap inspires a battle with the CIA for more information

Paul Scott, the late syndicated columnist, was so paranoid about the CIA wiretapping his home in the 1960s that he'd make important calls from his neighbor's house. His teenage son Jim Scott figured his dad was either a shrewd reporter or totally nuts.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Mar 8, 2013

Fashion good enough to eat

The idea of edible clothing is nothing new in the sensational world of avant-garde fashion. Most famously, iconoclastic pop singer Lady Gaga grabbed headlines in 2010 when she showed up at the MTV Video Music Awards wearing a "meat dress" made of raw beef, which was of course met with a flurry of criticism...
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 2, 2013

Remembering the day Napster set music free

In the first weeks of 2000 the founders of Napster were in their office above a bank in San Mateo, California, considering dizzying numbers. Figures scrawled on a whiteboard told how many people around the world had installed their file-sharing application and were using it to download music from each...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 24, 2013

A compelling entry point for discovering Japanese poets from the postwar era

101 MODERN JAPANESE POEMS, compiled by Makoto Ooka, translated by Paul McCarthy, edited by Janine Beichman. Thames River Press, 2012, 144 pp., $45.00 (hardcover)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 7, 2013

'Great French Paintings from the Clark'

Located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute is known in the United States for its wide range of European masterpieces dating from the Renaissance to the late 19th century. Besides its famous collection of French Impressionist paintings, it houses all genres of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2013

Hidden truths laid bare in the details of realism

With a population of around 35 million, Greater Tokyo is the ultimate "modernist" conurbation; a vast megacity, where something as old-fashioned as realist art might seem out-of-date and out-of-place. Maybe so, but on the metropolis' western and eastern extremities stand two museums that, each in their...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jan 27, 2013

You read about them here first

Ever since 1897 The Japan Times has reported daily in English on people, places and goings-on in and beyond this country. During those 116 years, our articles have often included information that never made it into the Japanese-language press — as in 1934, when the Society Page carried an interview...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Jan 8, 2013

Here comes Fred

This year will see the arrival of a formidable new force in the Japanese fashion market. Perhaps best known for being a go-to for Hollywood stars, Fred Segal is a trend-setting California clothing and lifestyle goods retailer, which in its 50-year history had never planned to expand beyond Los Angeles....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2013

Can a woman's death spur a nation to end its violence against a gender?

Never have I felt so ashamed to be from India nor so despairing of its future.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 30, 2012

Japanese story anthology shows fiction truly a transnational affair

SPECULATIVE JAPAN 3: "Silver Bullet" and Other Tales of Japanese Science Fiction and Fantasy. Kurodahan Press, 2012, 292 pp., $16 (paperback) One pleasing quality of the third volume of Kurodahan Press's "Speculative Japan" series of anthologies is that it exists at all.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Dec 25, 2012

Stuck on a Good Design Award winner

The Good Design Award winners were announced last month and there are plenty of great ideas to take in — make sure to check out the GDA website to browse through all of the new ideas.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 11, 2012

Privacy debate surrounds U.S. electronic spying law

A measure granting the government expansive power to intercept electronic communications in the United States without a warrant is set to expire this month, setting up a sharp debate in the Senate over how to balance privacy against national security.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 4, 2012

Original gifts for your unique friends

The design lover
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Nov 27, 2012

Double-A seating power

The AA Stool is the lovely result of a collaboration between Torafu Architects and the Ishinomaki Laboratory, a platform that brings together creators in one of the hardest-hit areas during last year's earthquake and tsunami, Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 16, 2012

Airport event boasts a runway by the runway

The art of Japanese textile will mix with the beauty of fashion from other Asian countries at the Sakura Collection this weekend. As an event meant to bring cultures together, it's fitting that it will be held at Kansai International Airport.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Nov 13, 2012

Designer Cynthia Rowley hits the double digits

New York-based designer Cynthia Rowley celebrated her brand's 10th year in Japan with a special talk show and cocktail dinner for VIP guests during Tokyo Fashion Week. The Barrington, Illinois, native's name has long been on the lips of American sportswear fans with her bright and feminine takes on casual-to-cocktail-style...

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it