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Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 16, 2009

Akihabara set to celebrate its denizens

Akihabara, Tokyo's main electronics hub, is preparing for a flood of manga and animation enthusiasts ahead of this year's Akihabara Enta-Matsuri.
Reader Mail
Oct 15, 2009

Lousy advice for critical thinkers

With reference to the Oct. 11 letter "Same access as Japanese citizens": I have no comment about the national health insurance issue, since my insurance is basically equivalent as long as it covers a comparable risk. What I find very annoying, however, is the tone used by the anonymous writer and a typical...
LIFE
Oct 11, 2009

Fake names were to the fore in many a rise from humblest to highest

Here's a beguiling irony: Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98), architect of Tokugawa Japan's rigid class structure and the author, in 1587, of a firm ban (not firmly enforced) on surnames for commoners, was himself born without a surname.
LIFE / Language
Oct 11, 2009

What's in a (Japanese) name?

"How do you do, my name is Saito Ichiro Sama-no-kami Minamoto-no-Ason Tadayoshi."
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 11, 2009

In cross-cultural situations, remember those emoticons

"My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced to make notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he exhibited."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 11, 2009

Japan's No. 1 playboy hardly a lady- killer

Talk-show host David Letterman obviously did the right thing when during a recent monologue he confessed to having had sex with some of his female staff. He made the admission to pre-empt news that he had been blackmailed for his indiscretions, but whatever the revelation said about Letterman's lack...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 11, 2009

The long road to identity

A striking fact regarding modern Japanese surnames is their sheer number. There's no precise count, but the consensus is that there are more than 100,000.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Q&A
Oct 10, 2009

Custody laws force parents to extremes

The high-profile case of Christopher Savoie, a Tennessee man who was arrested in Fukuoka Prefecture for snatching his two children from his Japanese former wife and now faces kidnapping charges, illustrates the extremes a partner in a broken international marriage will resort to for child custody.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 10, 2009

A seaside picture of contentment

Sayonara Kawagoe Kinema. Hello Cinema Amigo.
COMMUNITY
Oct 10, 2009

A seaside picture of contentment

Sayonara Kawagoe Kinema. Hello Cinema Amigo.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Oct 9, 2009

Coach Rowsom faces tough task in rebuilding HeatDevils

From humble beginnings growing up in a town of 900 people in North Carolina, Brian Rowsom defied the odds by making it to the NBA.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Oct 9, 2009

Education chief takes liberal path

New education minister Tatsuo Kawabata says he will give more control of schools to local governments and increase practical learning, indicating a turn away from the conservative policies of previous administrations.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 9, 2009

Kobe to hold Scottish games, international-themed charity event

This year's Kobe Global Charity Festival promises a day of fun and international cultural exchange.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 9, 2009

All aboard for Drive to 2010

It's Aug. 28, 1979, and the audience dutifully files into the old Shinjuku Loft livehouse to take their places, seated on the floor in preparation for another night of quiet musical appreciation. This time, however, something strange starts to happen. People keep coming in, the audience have to shuffle...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 4, 2009

Positive take on Japan's supposed dark age

THE EDO INHERITANCE, by Tokugawa Tsunenari. I-House Press, 2009, 200 pp., ¥2,500 (hardcover) The Edo Period (1603-1868) is frequently regarded as a dark, repressive age, when Japan was held in an iron grip by a military government that had closed its borders to the outside world. "The Edo Inheritance"...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 4, 2009

Japan's gender equality may be 'insufficent,' but it's surely coming

As the vast majority of societies worldwide are male dominated, one of the most contentious issues they face as they evolve centers on the status of women.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 4, 2009

Japan's gender equality may be 'insufficent,' but it's surely coming

As the vast majority of societies worldwide are male dominated, one of the most contentious issues they face as they evolve centers on the status of women.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Oct 3, 2009

Ain't no mountain in the Andes high enough

Hirohito Ota, 39, a freelance writer, is an adventurer by nature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 2, 2009

Little Boots serves pop a remedy

"I don't know what it is about my music that appeals to the Japanese," says Victoria Hesketh, the British pop sensation better known as Little Boots. "A lot of people in England miss the point, and they're like, 'Oh, it's just pop music.' And the whole point is that I was trying to do something simple...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2009

The dogu have something to tell us

LONDON — They are, according to their kanji, part earth and part spirit, somewhere between animal and human. They are dogu, the most remarkable products of Japan's Jomon Period, a Neolithic era before the advent of rice cultivation, when the Japanese archipelago supported higher population densities...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 2, 2009

Hawaiian sounds wash ashore

George Kahumoku Jr., apart from being a master slack-key guitar player, has a talent for storytelling.
BUSINESS
Sep 30, 2009

New fund bets on 'anime' character

Music Securities Inc., a music production and fund management firm, will start a fund investing in products from the animated series "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro" featuring a one-eyed demon boy who lives in a graveyard.
EDITORIALS
Sep 28, 2009

Local accounting irregularities

The Chiba prefectural government has detected accounting irregularities totaling ¥29.79 billion from fiscal 2003 through fiscal 2007. The irregularities were found at 383 — about 96 percent — of the prefectural government's sections, including the prefectural police.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 27, 2009

Hot stuff in Tsukishima

Dating from 1892, Tsukishima is Tokyo's oldest island of reclaimed land — and also its monjayaki Mecca. Once a cheap after-school treat cooked on griddles in working-class neighborhoods of postwar Tokyo, monjayaki has morphed into a dinner entre — and Tsukishima is the place to try it.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 27, 2009

Inner life of a giant revealed

REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS DOOR: Memory and Melancholy in the Personal Writings of Natsume Soseki, by Marvin Marcus. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 2009, 268 pp., $49 (hardcover) Author of a well-received study of the biographical writings of Mori Ogai ("Paragons of the Ordinary," 1993), Marvin Marcus...
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 27, 2009

Hot stuff in Tsukishima

Dating from 1892, Tsukishima is Tokyo's oldest island of reclaimed land — and also its monjayaki Mecca. Once a cheap after-school treat cooked on griddles in working-class neighborhoods of postwar Tokyo, monjayaki has morphed into a dinner entre — and Tsukishima is the place to try it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 25, 2009

There's a new maestro in town

The New York Philharmonic led by conductor Alan Gilbert, who debuted as its new music director at the opening gala concert on Sept. 16, heads off for an Asian tour in October, with Tokyo as the first stop.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat