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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

Director James Mangold puts soul into Wolverine's demons

"The Wolverine" may look like just another in a long line of superhero movies to hit the screen this year — it's the latest installment in Marvel's "X-Men" franchise — but it's certainly the first one directed by a guy who cites director Yasujiro Ozu of "Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story)" fame as an...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 30, 2013

Cory Booker: hope, hype — and heir to Barack Obama?

If Cory Booker were a television character you might think the writers were over-egging things a bit. Tall, athletic, handsome, he is an ambitious politician with a flair for drama. He rescues a woman from a burning building, saves a freezing dog, chases a scissor-wielding mugger, invites hurricane victims...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 22, 2013

Aichi Triennale's best works deal with disaster

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, a lot of art here has dealt with disaster. Not all the pieces in the second installment of the Aichi Triennale are on this theme — but the best ones are.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 10, 2013

Seven years on, and everyone's itching for more

To date, including his all-male production of "The Merchant of Venice" that's set to run next month at Sainokuni Saitama Arts Theater outside Tokyo, Yukio Ninagawa will have staged 29 of the 38 plays attributed to William Shakespeare — and his ambition to direct the entire oeuvre remains undimmed....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013

Entertainingly angry study of Italy's trains

Thirty years ago, Tim Parks moved from London to Italy. As a writer until recently mired in the midlist, he admitted that he didn't want to watch "the rise of the Amises and McEwans" in more detail than strictly necessary. He has written 15 novels, but his breakthrough came with a nonfiction work, "Teach...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jul 10, 2013

Kimo-kawaii: a chronology in 13 steps

If it's hard to look at but harder to look away, it's kimo-kawaii.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 6, 2013

Pity the generation that can't retire before 80

"What if my wife and I die? What if we get dementia? How will our son live?"
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 5, 2013

'Wind farms are not the answer to our problems'

Why do you think scientists and politicians have been slow and reluctant to confront population growth? It might be useful to first distinguish between growth and behavior. The problem is less the current number of us in itself (yet) but more the way the majority of the 7 billion of us live and consume....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 2, 2013

The LDP constitution, article by article: a preview of things to come?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing for constitutional change. Yet he is playing the political huckster by proposing to first only fiddle with the amendment procedure in Article 96, lowering the threshold for the process to move forward from the approval of two-thirds of both houses of the Diet, as...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 30, 2013

Delving into Ethiopia's ancient past and present

I'm edging my way through a long tunnel in pitch darkness, feeling for the roof so I don't hit my head, waving my trusty flashlight around to scan the walls and sandy floor and check for any unwelcome wildlife. I feel like Indiana Jones but a lot less brave.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jun 18, 2013

Finnish diplomat pushes child-rearing for dads

For Finnish diplomat Mikko Koivumaa, being an ikumen (men who take an active role in ikuji, or child rearing) comes naturally.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

How did Germany become the new champion of Europe?

Sitting in his brightly lit office overlooking the green hills of rural Westphalia, surrounded by photographs of aluminium and titanium castings, Phillip Schack has drawn a blue triangle on a piece of paper. Pointing to a small shaded section at its apex, he says: "Look. If that's your market, up at...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 30, 2013

Art born from the disingenuous

The most radical force in art is not, as most people assume, genius, inspiration or sheer talent, it is instead a lack of technical ability. Combined with a strong desire to be an artist, this can prove to be a powerful driver of change and innovation, as revealed by "Odilon Redon: The Origins of the...
MORE SPORTS
May 26, 2013

Sato aiming to return Japan spikers to glory

The Japan Volleyball Association appointed 58-year-old Gary Sato as the men's national team head coach in February. Sato is a fourth-generation Japanese-American and is the first foreign volleyball coach for Japan, men or women.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 19, 2013

Taking it easy on stroll-size Omi-jima

Mr. Hirohisa had made it clear when I called him from the nearest mainland city to the island — Nagato in western Honshu's Yamaguchi Prefecture — that there would be no supper provided that night; nor would he be able to pick me up from the station as expected.
LIFE
May 12, 2013

Trendsetting U.S. craft beers pour into Germany

Almost 65 years after Allied planes flew Western supplies into blockaded Berlin, a new American import is arriving by air: craft beer.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 28, 2013

Daytime in Kin Town's nocturnal city

The three drunken U.S. Marines who stumbled into my motorbike headlamps were clearly combat-trained, as their agility in shifting from advanced inebriation to performing a nimble leap onto the sidewalk suggested seriously attuned reflexes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Apr 27, 2013

Trendsetting restauranteurs succeed in bringing bit of Bohemia to Osaka

You're in a breezy, open space, bathed in light. Frothy indoor plants and burnished wood surrounds vibrant splashes of azure. While sipping a "green fairy," that traditional spirit of artists around the world, someone passes you a shisha, or water pipe, and you inhale sweet, fruit-soaked tobacco. You...
SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Apr 24, 2013

Remembering Jackie and lessons learned

One cool thing about being an old coot like MAS is that when Hollywood cranks out a historic docudrama, you often remember experiencing the event portrayed first-hand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 11, 2013

Idiosyncrasies of the Kano school explored in Kyoto

Kano Masanobu (1434-1530) founded the Chinese-art influenced painting school that bears his family name and flourished in different forms through to the Meiji Era (1868-1912). A familiar tale is that as it became the dominant hierarchical painting academy of political and military patronage, it began...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2013

Setting the odds on the next Fed chairmanship

Ben Bernanke has another 10 months in his term as Federal Reserve chairman, but that hasn't stopped the economic punditocracy from obsessing over who will replace him.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 10, 2013

Filmmaker captures the 3/11 stress of Tohoku's deaf

Nobuko Kikuchi, a 72-year-old resident of Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, couldn't hear the emergency sirens that followed the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2013

Exiting a wounded church

Roman Catholics pray that the Holy Spirit will cut through all the politicking by cardinals and light upon a pope who can rescue a wounded church.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 3, 2013

Maco Yoshioka: Battling the postpartum blues

Maco Yoshioka is the founder of Madre Bonita, a nonprofit group that offers postpartum fitness programs for women using elastic exercise balls. Yoshioka, 40, who studied sports physiology at the University of Tokyo, says she became aware of physical and mental difficulties for new mothers when, in the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 26, 2013

Nothing much compels reader to sympathize with characters

RIVER OF FIRE and Other Stories, by O Chonghui. Translated by Bruce and Ju-chan Fulton. Columbia University Press, 2012, 224 pp., $27.50 (hardcover)
CULTURE / Film
Jan 17, 2013

Donald Richie on 'Koshikei (Death by Hanging)'

This review as originally published on Sunday, Jan. 28, 1968.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 4, 2013

Golden Kings hammer Hannaryz for straight day

Sure, there are others who can call Jim Boeheim a mentor or a source of inspiration.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 4, 2013

Misogura Tamayura: Welcome the new year with a taste of tradition

Tradition rules at this time of year, and few parts of Tokyo are more traditional than the grid of narrow streets to the south of Ueno's Shinobazu Pond. Although many of the buildings in this former geisha district have seen much better days, there are still gems to be found — and Misogura Tamayura...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 2, 2013

'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'

Mr. Antonini, who lived in the house next to ours in Brooklyn, had a rejoinder for all life's ailments. "You think you got problems?" he'd say with a querulous edge to his voice. "Wait till you get to my age, and I'll show you some problems!" At this point Mr. Antonini's son Denny would make his standard...

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