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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 9, 2008

Surely it's time for Japanese to stop being so parochial

Second of two parts
Reader Mail
Mar 9, 2008

First Japanese in North America

With respect to the March 4 article "John Manjiro's U.S. home to become museum" and the claim that Manjiro (Manjiro Nakahama) may have been the first Japanese to visit North America, I would offer that he was perhaps more than 200 years late. The first encounters by Japanese with what would become U.S....
Japan Times
LIFE / COSPLAY CULTURE
Mar 9, 2008

School offers costume-play way to 'cool' English

Learning a foreign language is never easy, and for many it can even be a painful process.
Japan Times
LIFE / COSPLAY CULTURE
Mar 9, 2008

Fashion fantasies come to life in cosplay

Silver wig, blue contact lenses, a mock sword and a (kind of) knight's costume.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Mar 7, 2008

Spain Iberico Bar Mon-Naka: Iberico comes to Monzen-Nakacho

It took a puzzlingly long time for Japan to catch on to the pleasures of the taperia. It should be a perfect fit since, after all, the exquisite Iberian custom of slowly whiling away the evening with tapas and drinks, one dish and one glass at a time, is so close in spirit to the izakaya tradition.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 5, 2008

In praise of the 'mountain whale'

Not long after I arrived in Tokyo for the first time in October 1962, Klaus Naumann — a childhood friend from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in the rural southwest of England, who had come to Japan ahead of me (and is still here) — took me on a magical trip to the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2008

Robots in all walks of life? Matter of time

At the Meiji University lab in a Tokyo suburb, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgust.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Mar 1, 2008

Warren's play has Five Arrows primed for title run

"An accomplishment sticks to a person," someone once said.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 29, 2008

Salmon Sound back at Shinjuku Wire

There will be fishy goings on at Salmon Sound, which returns to club Wire in Shinjuku on March 1. The concept for the event is simple: a night of Norwegian music spun by Norwegian DJs.
JAPAN
Feb 29, 2008

Smoking ban elusive despite WHO warning

The World Health Organization issued a report in February on the global tobacco epidemic, urging countries to enforce effective smoking bans in public places.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2008

Why's Japan grown so ugly?

YUNOMINE, Wakayama Pref. — My brother wanted to create a new room in the loft of his house in an English provincial city, actually Kingston upon Hull (population 250,000), a place of passing interest to Japanese because two centuries ago it was one of the world's biggest whaling ports. Today, the whales...
Reader Mail
Feb 28, 2008

Getting an abusive hubby arrested

Regarding the Feb. 24 article "Miura held again over '81 hit on wife in L.A.": How many Japanese readers will be happy to see that Kazuyoshi Miura (now 60) has been charged with murder by U.S. authorities? Japan, a land of overwhelming beauty, a rich culture, and people whom I find are generally quite...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 27, 2008

Even oceans can only take so much

N ow that the wider world has finally recognized the extent to which human activities are altering the Earth's climate, maybe we can also begin to grasp the fact that our oceans, too, are in dire straits.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA / STYLE WISE
Feb 26, 2008

Harajuku's "Style Deficit Disorder," model Irina Lazareanu gets wicked and more

Cure for disorder The popular fashion hub Harajuku is the subject of a fascinating new book by Tokyo-based editor and creative consultant Tiffany Godoy. Rich in detail and accompanied by some remarkable images, her book, "Style Deficit Disorder" (Chronicle Books), documents the history of the area from...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2008

Pakistan set to lift its ban on Bollywood

MADRAS, India — Cinema is a powerful weapon, though it is often called soft power. Men like Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Germany's Adolf Hitler understood the awesome might of movies.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 24, 2008

Persistence helps Lawrence extend career, connect with heritage

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which is in its third season. Aaron Sakai Lawrence of the Saitama Broncos is the subject of this week's profile.
Japan Times
LIFE / THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Feb 24, 2008

Polar pioneer sets her sights high

For her doctoral thesis, Kazuyo Sakanoi studied the mechanisms of flickering auroras — those luminous phenomena in the atmosphere that appear like curtains of light.
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2008

Romantic fantasies about training

The Feb. 14 editorial "Violence in sumo training" pointed out "a culture characterized by tolerance of corporal punishment," but this "tradition" goes far beyond the sumo ring.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 24, 2008

Asian art for art's sake

WHAT'S THE USE OF ART? — Asian Visual and Material Culture in Context, edited by Jan Mrazek and Morgan Pitelka. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008, 314 pp., with illustrations, $58 (cloth) The question is rhetorical, that is, uttered for effect, to make a statement rather than to obtain an...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2008

Offbeat exploits attract foreign visitors

Dressed entirely in black with his head wrapped in cloth, Michael Studte throws darts, turns somersaults and twirls lassos in a ninja class for foreign tourists in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2008

Of manju, fish burgers and pachinko in the town of Obama

The more I live in Japan (quite a few years now) the more I realize the only difference between the Italians and the Japanese is the way we eat raw fish.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 22, 2008

Get cultured in 'Little Edo'

Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture invites you to its unique cultural events on Feb. 28 in conjunction with the famous monthly antique market held at Naritasan Betsuin temple in the city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2008

Takagi taps the color of sound

Is Masakatsu Takagi a musician that makes video art or a video artist that makes music?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2008

English-language papers offer unique take on Asia

English-language newspapers in East Asia provide unique perspectives on political, economic and cultural news in the region to a global community where English is the dominant tongue, speakers at a Tokyo symposium said Saturday.
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2008

What curfew for Okinawa's youth?

What's amazing is that more than 30 investigators jumped on this case. Does it really take that many? If it was a Japanese man that was suspected of this type of crime, would there be the same amount of involvement and publicity?
CULTURE / Books
Feb 17, 2008

Max Hastings' analysis in a bombshell

NEMESIS: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, by Max Hastings. HarperPress, 2007, £25, 699 pp., (cloth). (U.S. release is titled RETRIBUTION: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. Knopf, 2008, $35) At Frankfurt airport, the insecurity police screening hand baggage discovered something in my bag that alarmed them....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 14, 2008

France's own proto-Andy Warhol

There are interesting parallels between Andy Warhol and the French fin-de-siecle artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Each was an instantly recognizable figure who moved in a Bohemian crowd, was obsessed with celebrity, and produced print works that embodied the relationship between art and commerce.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?