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Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Dec 29, 2016

Japan's students face uncertain future under cloud of debt

Kengo Kyogoku borrows about ¥122,000 ($1,035) per month in addition to a scholarship and a part-time job, because his mother can't afford to pay his college fees at the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo.
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Dec 22, 2016

Private rooms for intimate gatherings

The Hotel Century Southern Tower in Shibuya Ward welcomes the new year with a party plan. The offer makes it possible for guests to welcome the new year in a private room on the 21st floor, while taking in a magnificent view of Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Dec 17, 2016

Professional Santa Jeremy Rigby: 'Think about what makes a gift special'

Visiting Saint Nick on working off Christmas snacks and washing his beard with toothpaste.
Japan Times
JAPAN / AT A GLANCE
Dec 7, 2016

A taste of Russia in Tokyo

With Russian President Vladimir Putin set to visit Japan next week, expectations are growing as to whether progress will be made on a territorial row that has been a thorn in bilateral ties.
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2016

Three-star restaurants extend streak in new edition of Tokyo Michelin guide

The selection of restaurants and hotels to be listed in Michelin Guide Tokyo 2017 was announced online Tuesday, including four restaurants that have received a three-star rating for 10 years running.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 26, 2016

Graves and gods of Otsuka

It's a bright fall morning when I return to Gokokuji Temple, an Important Cultural Property in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward. Exiting Gokokuji Station, it only takes me a few minutes to find the two monks who promised to help me when I visited here earlier: 33-year-old Shinsei Miura and 23-year-old Kenkai Yamada....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NEIGHBORHOOD HOP SPORTS
Nov 25, 2016

A journey to the center of Tokyo's crowded craft beer scene

It may be located in the center of Tokyo but people always seem to be passing through Kanda on their way to someplace else: north to Akihabara, east to Asakusa, south to Tokyo Station or west to the Imperial Palace. This liminal neighborhood can feel like a no man's land of offices, banal apartments...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 31, 2016

Led by Shabani, gorillas challenge koalas for popularity title at Nagoya zoo

Expectations are running high that Shabani, a male gorilla famed for his "good looks," may win the prize for most popular animal at Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Nagoya.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 29, 2016

Living on prayer and paper in Otsuka

Hoping to catch the earliest blush of autumnal colors, I seek out the Important Cultural Property of Gokokuji, a prominent temple located in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward. A satellite map shows it embraced by a forest of trees. I suspect a cemetery might lurk below the leaf canopy, but in late October who would...
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Oct 20, 2016

Christmas cakes set the season's tone; sushi prepared in the home or office; closing out the year in holiday style

Christmas cakes set the season's tone
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2016

Getting site-specific installations down to a fine art

Kenpoku Art 2016! is one of the latest projects to appear in an area for which art has been a relatively niche concern. Despite the fact that Okakura Tenshin, one of the central figures of Japanese art history, set up shop in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1906, and Art Tower Mito consistently provides top-class...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 28, 2016

'Harmonium': Dangerously good family drama

The films of Koji Fukada have long wrapped ambitious themes in deceptively unassuming genre packages. His 2011 international breakout "Hospitalite" ("Kantai") begins as a quirky comedy but becomes a sharp-edged drama of deceptions and secrets. Last year's "Sayonara" starts as an offbeat essay in apocalyptic...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 16, 2016

Canadian imprisoned in China on 'spying' charges back home after two years behind bars

A Canadian man held since 2014 in China on charges of espionage and stealing state secrets has been freed and has returned to Canada, his family said Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 10, 2016

Asakusa: in the glow of Nippon kitsch

Every once in a while, the Japanese have to remind themselves that they're Japanese. We feel the need to reconfirm that we are part of a long and enduring traditional culture — one which includes kimono, samurai, ninja, eels on rice, and other weird items. Many like to pretend that these particular...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Sep 10, 2016

Anrealage gets real in Tokyo's Omotesando

Anrealage gets real in Omotesando
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 14, 2016

Rio volunteer setting the pace for keirin cyclists

He rides with champions but his name is not on any team list or competition schedule.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Aug 2, 2016

Paul Smith has earned his stripes

Colorful and cluttered, the office bursts with paraphernalia, from stacked bicycles and piles of books on designer chairs to an apple-green iMac, a futuristic record player and a red Snoopy phone on the rosewood desk.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 31, 2016

Difficult questions for Japan's animal-loving city dwellers

This week's column deals with two queries that highlight cultural differences in attitudes to animal welfare.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 22, 2016

Tokyo serves up some frozen delights

Ice cream and gelato has been the go-to for cooling refreshments for centuries, evolving from the Romans eating fruit-juice flavored snow to the vanilla, chocolate chip and other popular dairy-rich products we see today. But who says we have to stick to the regular flavors? This summer, several limited-edition...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 22, 2016

'Lockheed Incident Document 40th Year Shocking Scoop'; 'Yassan'; Xflag

Thanks mainly to a first-person "biography" written by former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, there is renewed interest in disgraced former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. NHK is presenting a series of special programs, some of which are dramatizations, about the scandal that brought Tanaka down: the Lockheed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2016

'Ken and Kazu': The yakuza isn't all guns and glamour

Most films about the yakuza depict its members as fully formed and distinctly different from the general run of humanity, somewhat like action figures just out of the box. The reality, as Hiroshi Shoji's "Ken and Kazu" shows us with a gritty directness and power, is more quotidian. For Shoji's title...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / NEW IN TOWN
Jul 15, 2016

Call: Mina Perhonen's new store has it all

Mina Perhonen’s new Call store is a one-stop shop in Omotesando for anyone who loves Nordic-inspired fashion and interiors. Filled with simple, soft-hued ceramics, rolls of irregular geometrically patterned textiles, racks of floaty cotton garments and displays of elegant hand-crafted goods, Call takes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 14, 2016

Teppei Koike and Haruma Miura strut proudly onto the stage in 'Kinky Boots'

For fans of musicals in Japan, the buzz surrounding Teppei Koike and Haruma Miura is reaching a peak thanks to the pair's newest production: the first-ever Japanese version of the award-winning hit "Kinky Boots."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 2, 2016

Emotions run high over Tsukiji fish market's move

In 1590, more than 2½ and a half centuries before Edo was to become Tokyo, the city's first central fish market, named Uogashi, was established on the bank of Nihonbashi River.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 25, 2016

Route 58: a drive through Okinawa's peculiar past

The telegraph poles that once lined Okinawa's Route 58 have long gone, but the great coastal avenue still reminds me a little of the Dire Straits song "Telegraph Road." Like the lyrics of Mark Knopfler's extended anthem, Route 58 is a journey through time, a digest of history.

Longform

Visitors to Kyoto walk along a street near Kiyomizu Temple in April. A popular tourist spot, Kyoto has seen what locals feel to be an overwhelming amount of tourists in 2024.
Is Japan ready for 60 million tourists?