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EDITORIALS
May 30, 2012

Questionable high court decision

The Nagoya High Court on May 25 rejected a retrial request by Masaru Okunishi, an 86-year-old man who has been on death row for the fatal poisoning of five women in 1961. It was his seventh petition for a retrial.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 29, 2012

Kan tells nuke probe: 3/11 overwhelmed us

Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan admitted Monday that the triple whammy that doomed the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011 — the megaquake, tsunami and the meltdowns they unleashed — was beyond the scope of the national crisis-management system.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 29, 2012

New feed-in tariff system a rush to get renewables in play

On July 1, a new law takes effect requiring utilities to purchase electricity generated from five renewable energy sources at a fixed price for a set length of time, under what is known as a feed-in tariff system.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 29, 2012

Japan's house of the rising sun

What will our lifestyles be like in the future? An international group of students at Chiba University plan to explore the possibilities with their proposal for a next-generation solar house, a futuristic mix of new technology and traditional ways of life in Japan.
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2012

Leveling the field for renewables

The government has drawn up a design for Japan's feed-in tariff system to promote the generation of electricity through renewable energy sources. In a nutshell, it has decided the prices at which the nation's major power companies buy such electricity and the duration of contracts. In principle they...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 27, 2012

Anniversary of Okinawa's reversion highlights opposing press views

In February, Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba assured the mayor of Iwakuni City and the governor of Yamaguchi Prefecture that Japan would not ask the people they serve to take on "any additional burden" from U.S. forces. Iwakuni already has a Marine Corps air station, and it is thought that the United...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 27, 2012

Japan through the monster's eye

THE MONSTER MOVIE FAN'S GUIDE TO JAPAN, by Armand Vaquer. ComiXpress.com, 2010, 48 pp., $15.00 (softcover)
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 26, 2012

See Japan by car? Well, it does sort of make sense

As I started to plan our trip to Mount Fuji from Okayama, I was met with obstacles at every turn. The local trains would take too long, the shinkansen would be too expensive and not direct enough, and to take the express bus, we'd have to go to Osaka first, wait a few hours for the next overnight and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 26, 2012

Head monk of Kyoto temple takes Buddhism into the community

Climb the stone walkway, stippled with fallen red camellia blossoms, that leads to Kyoto's Honen-in Temple, past a mossy thatched gate and raised platforms of sand combed in tight patterns of waves and chrysanthemums, and you enter a hushed and otherworldly space at the foot of Mount Daimonji.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 25, 2012

Skytree waiting list too long? Some hotel packages include tickets

The masses unable to visit the newly opened Tokyo Skytree without a reservation due to the extreme demand to check out the capital's latest landmark may have caught a break.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 25, 2012

'Mada, Ningen (Still Human Beings)'

Young indie filmmakers have it tough everywhere, but in Japan the hurdles they face are only getting higher. The so-called mini theaters (art houses) that once screened domestic indie films have been closing their doors or changing their programming to more populist fare. Meanwhile, a growing number...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 24, 2012

Banks get tax cut and finally decide to pay up

After six years of profits, banks decide they can afford to pay taxes.
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2012

Sierra Leone: finding forgiveness in unlikely places

Last month a court in The Hague found former Liberian president Charles Taylor guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in fueling a 10-year, bloody conflict in Sierra Leone. The verdict capped a trial that itself had dragged on for years and had been punctuated by moments...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
May 22, 2012

Newton, Golden Kings know what it takes to excel

Seven seasons are in the record books now, and the only numbers that truly resonate are championships.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 22, 2012

Canteens put employees' health on the menu

Until just a few years ago, shashoku — short for shain shokudō (company canteens) — were sources of convenience food, where meals was gulped down, not chewed and savored, and where the offerings were cheap but bland.
EDITORIALS
May 22, 2012

Back to Earth for Mr. Dimon

JPMorgan Chase recently posted $2 billion in trading losses. Mr. Jaimie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chief executive and a man considered one of the savviest bankers in the world, has dismissed the losses as "a tempest in a teapot." Given the scale of his bank's business, he is correct — at least when crunching...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 22, 2012

Rare eclipse delivers spectacle despite cloudy weather

Monday's rare annular eclipse wowed millions nationwide as they looked up in the morning sky to witness the astronomical event.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 20, 2012

Time-travelling reporters; celebrity genes; CM of the week: Schick

As if there wasn't enough news to cover now, NHK has started sending reporters back in time on the variety show "Time Scoop Hunter" (NHK-G, Tues., 10:55 p.m.). Journalists use "warp technology" to travel to different eras to collect information about how people really lived in the past.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 20, 2012

'Alien' actress at home with a robot

Even today in the performing arts in Japan, gaijin (lit. "aliens"), as foreigners are called, are still often presented like something to be gawped at in a Victorian freak show.
CULTURE / Books
May 20, 2012

Exploring the pathologies of Japan's youth

A Sociology of Japanese Youth: From Returnees to NEETs, edited by Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto and Tuukka Toivonen. Routledge: Abingdon, U.K., 2012, 191 pp., $51.95 (paperback)
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 20, 2012

The sky's the limit

After the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 last year, the performance of the spectacularly tall Tokyo Sky Tree going up in the capital's downtown Sumida Ward became a subject of heightened interest to experts, residents and the general public alike.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 19, 2012

Grateful architect has grand designs in store for disaster-prone Japan

The first thought that tumbled through architect Albert Abut's head as he sat in his car watching an intersection in Shibuya undulate last year during the Great East Japan Earthquake was "Is my family safe?" A quick call to his wife confirmed she and their 6-year-old daughter were fine.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 18, 2012

Dancer to honor late artist who balked at death

Shusaku Arakawa (1936-2010) was an enigmatic man. The late Japan-born, New York-based artist and his partner, Madeline Gins, once jointly declared they had decided "not to die," and even added that it was "immoral" for people to have to die. Based on their philosophy, the two created a series of houses...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2012

'Dark Shadows'

Dear reader, heed my warning: verily, the undead live. Not rotten-fleshed zombies or nocturnal ghouls, but old TV series from the 1960s and '70s, resurrected from the moldering vaults where they lay and given new life by devious Hollywood necromancers. In this deal with the Devil, they breathe new life...
Japan Times
JAPAN / 40 YEARS AFTER REVERSION
May 17, 2012

Old deals sowed seeds of unresolved problems

Third in a series Forty years after the U.S. returned Okinawa to Japan after a 27-year occupation, the public agreement ensuring American bases would remain after reversion and the secret agreement allowing the U.S. to reintroduce nuclear weapons continue to create anger in Okinawa and problems for the...

Longform

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Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat