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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 13, 2020

Japan needs fight-style reform

Defense Minister Taro Kono has scrapped a plan to deploy Aegis Ashore, a land-based missile defense system. The decision has triggered a series of debate within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Japan’s future defense posture including the issue of “enemy base strike capability.”
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Dec 12, 2015

From Saint Laurent to Uniqlo

Saint Laurent joins the glamour of Omotesando
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2011

Bringing Western-style painting back to the East

Ryusei Kishida (1891-1929) remains a giant of modern yōga (Western-style Japanese painting), though his idea of "modernism" would mostly have been unrecognizable to his Western counterparts.
BUSINESS
Oct 18, 2005

Murakami, Tokyo Style reach settlement

Outspoken financier Yoshiaki Murakami said Monday his fund has reached a court-mediated settlement with Tokyo Style Co. after the apparel firm's president, Yoshio Takano, agreed to pay 100 million yen in compensation to his own firm for inflicting damages as a result of investments that turned sour....
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
May 27, 2021

Suga's top-down management style under scrutiny after series of rapid policy shifts

The prime minister's approach could backfire and is already undermining the government's traditional chain of command.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Kateigaho International Japan Edition
Feb 8, 2020

Folk fun: Making folk toys accessible in everyday life

Japan's abundant forests meant all kinds of wooden toys were made. Some of them, like kokeshi dolls, have come back into vogue, and there are now multiple museums and shops where it's possible to view and engage with these charming toys.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jul 7, 2019

Shigeru Ban designs an escape from the pressures of urban life

Nature takes precedence in Shigeru Ban's unusual design for Shishi- Iwa House, a resort hotel in Karuizawa designed to encourage human interaction within luxury minimalism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 22, 2019

'The Fourth String: A Memoir of Sensei and Me': Music, life and reflections on the space in between

Janet Pocorobba's 'The Fourth String' reconfigures the typical Japan fish-out-of-water memoir into a meditation on music and mastery, relationships, culture and narrative.
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Nov 23, 2017

B.J. Fox navigates life in Japan as a stay-at-home dad in the sitcom 'Home Sweet Tokyo'

There are many ways to learn about a country's culture, but B.J. Fox thinks comedy is one of the best. After being relocated to Singapore from his home country of England for work, he found that sharing a few laughs with others who were in similar situations helped him connect with his new surroundings....
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 22, 2017

The traditional kimono never goes out of style

The fusion of traditional Japanese culture with contemporary life isn't a new concept, but as trends change the results can vary greatly. On the runway, we are seeing sophisticated ideas that infuse new looks with time-honored tastes in subtle yet effective ways; while on the streets, the stylings of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
May 31, 2017

Puppeteer pulls the strings from the sticks of Toyama, with a point to prove

From Toyama to schools far and wide, Jack Lee Randall lives his lesson — that art can thrive wherever people are.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 24, 2016

Guesthouses are proliferating in Japan's countryside, but at what cost?

To ensure they can continue working into their twilight years, many owners of traditional Japanese inns are keen to change their business model.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 7, 2015

'Flies' festers at core of family life

Central to William Golding's dystopian novel "Lord of the Flies" is the notion of violence as a social construct. "Maybe there is a beast ... maybe it's only us," says the protective Simon before a hostile assembly of other schoolboys marooned on the uninhabited island where the English Nobel laureate...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Dec 30, 2012

The wonderful worlds of 100 waka

The scene: England, Boxing Day 2012. The archetypical Carters are relaxing after a cold turkey lunch (with bread sauce) and are watching the Royal Family's latest sonnets being read on the goggle-box. Time for a game!
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 4, 2012

Original gifts for your unique friends

The design lover
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2010

Don't count Thai Prime Minister Abhisit out

BANGKOK — For a man who has faced seemingly endless efforts to oust him by both parliamentary ballot and by bullet, by the slippery devious machinations that are meat and drink to Thai politicians and by street protesters who took over the commercial heart of Bangkok for more than two months, Prime...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 24, 2010

'A Single Man'

Oh to live in 1962, when people guzzled gin guilt-free and dragged innocently on cigarettes, when they drove huge great cars without worrying about global warming, when women (and men for that matter) had silhouettes instead of mere shadows. This is on the condition that it's a 1962 drawn up by Tom Ford,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jan 12, 2008

Language partners turn life partners

Information-technology engineer Rodion Moiseev was alone when he traveled from Moscow to England at the age of 14 to attend high school, and he believes those early experiences in a new land made him open to foreign cultures. It may well be one of the reasons for his interest in Japanese culture, particularly...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jun 6, 2007

Reflecting on life's amazing twists and turns

I came to Japan in October 1962 to learn martial arts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 9, 2004

Art's ancient moderns

Rimpa is usually defined as an artistic tradition and style begun by Towaraya Sotatsu (years of birth and death unknown) and Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637), who were at work during the Momoyama and early Edo periods from the late 16th century to the early 17th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 10, 2004

To view life in Lomotion, try denying the details

In photography and image processing these days, the general idea is that higher resolution and more faithful color rendition makes for better images. Of course, that is only the general idea. Thankfully, there are some creative types out there who disagree.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 15, 2003

MoT showcases artists who draw deeply from real life

"Art," wrote the French artist Robert Filliou (1926-87), "is what makes life more interesting than art." And this, dear reader, is just about my favorite quote. Profoundly mystifying, it serves as an M.C. Escher-esque comeback when the old "What is art?" line is thrown out less as a question than as...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 16, 2001

Keen to breathe life into 'o-shodo' beyond Kyoto

Anyone who considers calligraphy a quietly restrained form of expression should see Michiko Isoda in action. She sits on a "zabuton" cushion, loads a brush with ink and, with a sure but delicate hand, raises it vertically above the paper on her desk. She stills her body, concentrates her breathing, then...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 15, 2001

Style as something you buy rather than cultivate

I always leaf through Katei Gaho in my dentist's waiting room. In fact, it's the only place I've ever had a chance to peruse it. Printed on the heaviest glossy paper money can buy, the magazine is more notable for its heft than its content, which is beautifully photographed clothing and household goods...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 1, 2001

Yang offers up portrait of 'real' family life

Family dramas are a movie staple, but few have the texture of real family life, in which individual destinies unfold and interact in ways too messy and complex for the usual movie ad copy. What we usually get instead is either melodrama or caricature -- i.e., something that can be easily packaged and...
Kohei Saito, a philosophy professor at the University of Tokyo who appears regularly in Japanese media to discuss his ideas, at home in Tokyo on March 16.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 7, 2023

Can shrinking be good for Japan? A Marxist bestseller makes the case.

Saito has tapped into what he describes as a growing disillusionment in Japan with capitalism’s ability to solve the problems people see around them.
Under President Vladimir Putin rule, reason, logic, and humanity appear to have been systematically eroded from Russian life, similar to the era of Stalin and his gulags. 
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 2, 2023

Russian life imitates dystopian art

The state in Russia has always tended toward absolutism and its coercive and penal arms have rarely wielded as much power as they do now.
As Japan’s borders opened back up and tourists eager to document their long-awaited trips to the country streamed back in, 2023 saw a handful of prominent content creators stir up trouble with local residents to grab attention online.
LIFE / Digital / 2023 in Review
Dec 29, 2023

Social media binged on bad behavior in 2023

Mischief makers like Johnny Somali and "sushi terrorism" instigators gained attention online amid a deluge of Japan-related content this year.
Mitsuko Tottori (right), incoming president of Japan Airlines, and Yuji Akasaka, outgoing president, during a news conference in Tokyo on Jan. 17
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 31, 2024

Japan opens door to more women directors, but managers still rare

Women account for only 13.4% of directors and executive officers at the 1,836 firms listed on the TSE's Prime market, and of these 13% are internal hires.

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