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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 15, 2009

Five bag top toy awards

The Japan Toy Association announced five winners Tuesday of its second annual toy awards, leading up to the nation's biggest toy exhibition, the International Tokyo Toy Show, which kicks off Thursday.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 14, 2009

'Discontinuous minds' and discrimination: some responses

Following are some readers' views on Dan O'Keeffe's June 16 Zeit Gist article " 'Discontinuous minds' block progress on discrimination":
EDITORIALS
Jul 12, 2009

Indictment of JR West chief

The Kobe District Public Prosecutors Office on Wednesday indicted Mr. Masao Yamazaki, president of West Japan Railway Co., on a charge of professional negligence leading to death and injury in connection with the April 2005 train crash that killed 106 passengers plus the driver and injured 562 passengers....
Reader Mail
Jul 12, 2009

Japan's 'greatest' gift to the West

Thank you for Damien Okado-Gough's June 27 article, "Zen Buddhist monk aids peace efforts in native Belfast," which is about Paul Haller, my Zen teacher. In addition to visiting Ireland a couple of times a year to lead sesshin, he keeps in touch with students through interviews and classes on Buddhism...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 11, 2009

Brit muscles way to BayStar success

Young boys, bright-eyed and clutching miniature gloves, gather in ballparks and dream of their own futures as part of a professional team.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 10, 2009

'Kani Kosen'

Why does a novel about exploited workers on a crab cannery boat, published 80 years ago by a young communist writer, later tortured to death by the police, become a hot movie property now?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 10, 2009

Measuring influence in Funky Meters

Funky Meters is a good name for any band. However, the band that actually calls itself Funky Meters contains two original members of the legendary New Orleans R&B quartet The Meters and basically plays the same repertoire. In that regard, affixing "funky" to Meters is like calling snow "cold."
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jul 10, 2009

Gundam goes green

Starting tomorrow, prominent Tokyo landmarks — with their fixed steel columns and beams — will likely be feeling a bit inadequate as a new, mobile player is set to rise up and illuminate the capital's skyline.
Reader Mail
Jul 9, 2009

Sustaining 'Nihonjinron' ideas

In a July 2 letter, " Give the students some slack," a reader replying to my June 25 letter, "Japanese is just a language," assumed that the students to which I made reference "are young" and said that "most adults in the world don't know much about what is and isn't unique to their country, let alone...
EDITORIALS
Jul 9, 2009

Uighur resentment boils over

Ethnic riots that erupted in the capital of China's Xinjiang region reveal the extent of resentment that the mostly Muslim Uighur people harbor against the Chinese government's policy toward them. The riots, believed to be the biggest ethnic unrest acknowledged by Chinese authorities since the establishment...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jul 7, 2009

Calderon case shows need for new mind-set

Dear Japanese lawmakers,
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2009

DPJ-backed candidate wins Shizuoka

SHIZUOKA (Kyodo) Heita Kawakatsu, the candidate backed by the Democratic Party of Japan, was elected governor of Shizuoka in a close race Sunday, dealing yet another blow to the already struggling Prime Minister Taro Aso.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jul 5, 2009

Mud, mud, marvelous mud

About 20 years ago I had a large pond dug in our Afan woods up here in the Nagano Prefecture hills. It was in a place that was always waterlogged when the snow melted, and in spring there were lots of puddles that became home to thousands of tadpoles. But then, as the weather warmed up, the puddles would...
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jul 5, 2009

Takeda pleased OCA backs Tokyo 2016 bid

SINGAPORE — Japanese Olympic Committee president Tsunekazu Takeda left Singapore on Saturday convinced that the whole of the Asian sports movement was behind Tokyo's bid to stage the 2016 Olympic Games.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 5, 2009

The Shanxi trilogy: films that never made it back home

Sometimes called the most significant of the current generation of Chinese film directors, Jia Zhangke (b. 1970) enjoys the distinction of never having had some of his finest work commercially shown in his own country.
Reader Mail
Jul 5, 2009

More sympathetic than Americans

Regarding Eric Hilton's June 25 letter, "Japanese is just a language": Hilton's point is well made and his observations are in line with my experiences at a college in Japan, where I have taught for four years. I think the issue he raises of the importance of respecting a target language is overlooked....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2009

ART iT transforms into digital forum

When Tokyo-based quarterly magazine ART iT announced the discontinuation of its print edition and that all content would move online following the publishing of its June 2009 issue, it seemed like yet another example of how the popularity of the Internet had combined with a global economic recession...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 3, 2009

'Monsters vs. Aliens'

The ultimate tribute to cheesy 1950s science fiction — with its flying saucers, ray-guns and little green men — already exists and it's called "Mars Attacks." Tim Burton's homage to a duff genre was so wonderfully over-the-top, it's pretty hard to imagine anyone topping it, but Dreamworks Animation...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 3, 2009

Jitterin'Jinn

Yes, Jitterin'Jinn are still going.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 3, 2009

Jazz meets literature in concert

Three Japanese artists living in Berlin, together with a French musician, will stage two performances in Yokohama featuring music, dance and readings to mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of the city's port.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 3, 2009

'MW'

Japanese live-action films based on manga take various forms, from the silly to the serious, though few are anything like Hollywood comic-book movies, whose superheroes, with their CG-assisted superpowers, are pure wish fulfillment. It's not that the Japanese films are always less fantastic, but their...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 3, 2009

Enoteca inspiration brings wine and food for Italophiles

Blink and you're likely to miss Enoteca Cricca as you walk past. It's one of those diminutive hole-in-the-wall restaurants that Tokyo does so well. With a low-budget, rustic interior — whitewashed walls, exposed brick and lots of simple, hand-finished woodwork — it's clearly a labor of love and enthusiasm....
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jun 30, 2009

'Reefer madness' hits Japan's shores

To the Japanese government and law enforcement authorities,
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2009

More European hope, less American fear

PARIS — Since the arrival of President Barack Obama in the White House, there has been an undeniable rapprochement between Europe and the United States. But on the deeper and more fundamental level of emotions and values, is it possible that the gap between the two sides of the Atlantic has widened?...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 28, 2009

Luang Prabang, Laos: Mekong musings and much more

Watching sunset over the swirling Mekong River from one of Luang Prabang's riverside cafes while sipping a therapeutic Beer Lao is hard to beat.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jun 27, 2009

Summer romance for couple is for all seasons

It was summer 2000 when Matthew Wortley, on the Japan Exchange and Teaching program and living in Mie Prefecture, met his future wife, Hiromi Fujii, at a festival.

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