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Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Sep 12, 2014

For toddlers, Anpanman doesn't have a use-by date

He has a big red nose, two rosy cheeks and an edible head that is regularly rebaked in his uncle's oven.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 28, 2014

She came, she stole and she conquered

In my family of many brothers, the "Lupin III" animated TV series was the only program we could agree to watch. Once the electric guitar riffs of the Yuji Ohno-penned theme song began, a blissful peace descended on our living room. The fighting stopped and all eyes were glued to the family's beat-up...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jul 1, 2014

Gunma's 'Brazil Town' offers a carnival of cuisine

This month A Taste of Home is taking a field trip to Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture. Oizumi, an otherwise ordinary town, is home to roughly 4,000 Brazilians — about one-tenth of the local population. Most of them work in nearby factories (Subaru is a big one). But some of them are working to make life a...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 25, 2014

Learning Japanese by singing along

Several years before I was taught to read and sing the traditional song 「さくら、さくら」("Sakura, sakura") in introductory Japanese class, I recall driving my father's 1963 Ford Galaxie and humming along to the melody of Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki Song," broadcast over WFAY AM radio in North...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 2, 2014

Gerrard may end up tragic figure in Liverpool's title bid

One mistake during a 38-game season does not decide who wins the title, but Steven Gerrard will be haunted for the rest of his life if Liverpool does not win the Premier League.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 26, 2014

Flying high, but not quite buzzing

I have vivid childhood memories of two circuses: Ringling Brothers and Shrine. The latter was a delightfully shabby affair held in an old auditorium where audiences sat on concrete bleachers that were occasionally adorned with tacky plastic chairs. There were lots of animals, and the holding areas outside...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jan 10, 2014

Educator with a mission sends out support from Hiroshima

Some people seem to have a knack for turning their hand to anything that comes along and, moreover, making a success of it. This is certainly the case with Hiroshima-based Adam Beck. Over the years, the American has been a children's theater director, an English teacher, a newspaper columnist and the...
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2013

Re-examining Yasujiro Ozu on film

Yasujiro Ozu once had a reputation for making films only other Japanese could understand.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Sep 20, 2013

Richard Dawkins: 'I don't think I am strident or aggressive'

On the top floor of Random House's offices in London, the world's number one thinker — according to Prospect magazine's annual poll — walks in from the roof terrace and shakes my hand. Richard Dawkins is a trim 72-year-old with one of those faces that, no matter the accumulation of lines, will always...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 27, 2013

Sincerity is the new ecstasy in Funkot's 'Summer of Love'

At the end of the 1980s, British DJs imported a potent new style of house music from the Spanish party island Ibiza in what came to be known as the ecstasy-fueled "Second Summer of Love." Inspired by this trade route two decades later, Katsumi Takano, aka Mandokoro or DJ Jet Baron, hopes to launch a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 12, 2013

Preserving a classic Japanese art form: tokusatsu magic

Our monster is scaly, spiky, reptilian — a cross between a dinosaur and an irradiated insect that shrieks like an angry bird. Our hero is lean, faintly muscular in a rubbery skintight suit with inscrutable praying-mantis eyes. They face one another, stomping left to right like sumo wrestlers, posing...
SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Jun 5, 2013

Lack of American heavyweights sad

What if they held a world heavyweight title fight and no one in America showed up?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Apr 7, 2013

Shigeru Ban: 'People's architect' combines permanence and paper

Generally speaking, an architect's style is defined by particular forms or shapes. There's Frank Lloyd Wright's prominent horizontal lines, for instance; Le Corbusier's simple white boxes; or, more recently, the deliberately abstract masses of Frank Gehry — of Guggenheim Bilbao fame.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 14, 2013

Miyabi Matsuoka takes an enlightened approach to teaching the harp

To Miyabi Matsuoka, the harp is a mirror that reveals who you really are. She says she can tell the personality of a harp player by the way he or she manipulates the instrument, which affects the sound they create.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 2, 2012

Michael Woodford: Japan's whistle-blower supreme speaks out

Michael Woodford glances out of the floor-to-ceiling window of his multimillion-pound loft apartment, which looks out across the River Thames toward the City of London, the so-called Square Mile that is among the world's leading financial and commercial centers.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 18, 2012

Minor Soseki work gets first English translation

NOWAKI, by Natsume Soseki, translated and with an afterword by William N. Ridgeway. Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2011, 120 pp., $15 (paperback) As the translator notes in his afterword, and Donald Keene and Angela Yiu suggest in quotations used as blurbs on the back cover,...
CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2012

The third space: the cafe's place in forming modern Japan

COFFEE LIFE IN JAPAN, by Merry White. University of California Press, 2012, 240 pp., $24.95 (paperback) Those of us interested in coffee, life and Japan will open Merry White's "Coffee Life in Japan" with high expectations. For most readers, alas, these expectations will be only partially fulfilled....
CULTURE / Music
Jun 14, 2012

Rocker Hotei hears London calling

Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee celebrations are never complete without a rock star wielding an axe to inaugurate proceedings. For the Golden Jubilee in 2002 it was Queen's Brian May atop Buckingham Palace. And for The British Embassy in Japan's Diamond Jubilee party this month, the sword fell on the broad...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 3, 2012

Bashōfu culture weaves its spell in Kijoka

White-caps beat steadily against the northwestern shore of Okinawa's main island. Winds have stirred up the seas, yet the water looks as cerulean and inviting as ever. I should be paying more attention to this enviable vista but I'm preoccupied, indifferent. The circuitous coastal road requires more...
COMMENTARY
Oct 24, 2011

Olympus case a black mark for Japan

The recent dismissal of the British chief executive of Olympus has once again drawn the attention of European media to peculiarities in corporate governance in Japan. Accounting practices and lack of transparency have aroused particular concern.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 22, 2011

Mop Of Head praises recent past on debut

Mop Of Head founder Takashi "George" Wakamatsu had a pretty standard musical upbringing. He studied piano from the age of 3, and says he listened mostly to classical music and old jazz. Then he heard a track that changed his life ...British dance duo The KLF's "F-ck The Millennium."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 27, 2011

Mask maker keeping Shimane tradition alive

Hanging on the walls of Jake Davies' home are around 20 artifacts that seem at odds with the idyllic village in Sakurae, Shimane Prefecture where his rustic abode is set.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 31, 2011

Literary sludge insults child abduction issue

IN APPROPRIATE: A Novel of Culture, Kidnapping, and Revenge in Modern Japan, by Debito Arudou. Lulu Enterprises, 2011, $10, 149 pp., (paper) That prickly gadfly of gaikokujins, Debito Arudou, has done it again, diminishing a worthy topic — in this case, international child abduction — into dross...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
May 13, 2011

Wine is no game for Capcom boss

Hurricane-kicking its way onto the wine scene in 2009 was a new brand, Kenzo Estate, owned by the CEO of video-game giant Capcom. Clearly playing to win, Kenzo Tsujimoto hired California's brightest wine talents to create a wine for the Japanese market that combines value for money with excellent quality....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 1, 2011

Explore Seoul's hidden heart

Just two weeks after the March 11 triple-catastrophe in Tohoku, and a mere 90 minutes after leaving Haneda Airport in Tokyo, it was almost unreal to be standing in Kimpo International Airport just outside Seoul and listening to excited Japanese tourists chatting about what and when they will eat and...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 6, 2011

Ailing Japan Inc. must combine tradition with a new world view

One of the clearest memories I have of my Los Angeles childhood revolves around a car. By the early 1950s, my parents had managed to eke their way into the middle class; and for Los Angelenos, nothing signified that social status more than the automobile. For my dad, the symbol of this par excellence...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 5, 2010

A relaxed approach makes news understandable for young and old

Two weeks ago, NHK announced that its popular half-hour series, "Shukan Kodomo no News" ("Weekly News for Children"), will be ending on Dec. 19. According to an article in the Sankei Shimbun, an executive at the public broadcaster explained the cancellation by saying that the show, which was launched...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Nov 11, 2010

New inroads for Louboutin, Rag & Bone, Nike-Undercover, K-Swiss

Louboutin digs his signature heels into flagship Ginza space Christian Louboutin, arguably the most famous shoe designer in the world, was in Tokyo early this month to christen the opening of his very first free-standing boutique in Tokyo and Japan. The space is a three-story building that fits snugly...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 28, 2010

Building a world without barriers, borders

One afternoon in the mid-1980s, Hiroko Kimura was taking a rest from sightseeing on a park bench in Adelaide, southern Australia. As she was enjoying the warm sunshine, she spotted the words "Japs go home" carved into the wood. This was the height of the bubble years and Kimura was aware that some people...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 19, 2010

Thinking aloud

Few philosophers are compared to rock stars or TV celebrities, but that's the kind of popularity Michael Sandel enjoys in Japan.

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