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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 20, 2015

Keiichi Hara's new animation honors Hokusai's daughter

Ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai is one of Japan's best-known artists. His print "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," with its giant blue wave curling over a tiny Mount Fuji, is seen on T-shirts and coffee mugs around the world. Given his multifarious talent, vast energy and long life — Hokusai died in...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 18, 2015

Cut-out enthusiast fills niche face first

Are you the type to put your face in a goofy head-in-a-hole board for a photo at a tourist spot, or do you think such antics are child's play and give them a miss?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
May 16, 2015

MacArthur's JapaneseConstitution

The Constitution is one of the more controversial documents of our age. Some want it rewritten, some hold it as an inviolable sacred text. Article 9 — the article renouncing war — has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants it abolished. Yet for all the column inches...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
May 15, 2015

Abe Cabinet OKs bills to relax limits on SDF operations abroad

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet adopted two security bills on Thursday that would, if passed by the Diet, greatly expand the scope of the Self-Defense Forces' joint operations with foreign forces overseas.
JAPAN
May 12, 2015

Academics denounce 'foolish' policy of rewriting uncomfortable facts in school textbooks

Scholars representing three academic associations call on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government to revise its 'foolish' rules dictating changes in school textbooks, which they allege are designed to indoctrinate pupils with certain political views.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 12, 2015

Europe seeks U.N. support on migrant crisis but doesn't plan to bomb boats before they leave Libya

Europe appealed to the United Nations Security Council on Monday to back its plan to stem the deadly flow of migrants across the Mediterranean by dismantling people-smuggling organizations and destroying their vessels, though not by bombing.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
May 11, 2015

Dinner, data part of Obama's courting of Democrats on trade authority, TPP

By the time Air Force One touched down in Oregon on Thursday before a pro-trade pep rally at Nike Inc., Rep. Suzanne Bonamici already had gotten the full Barack Obama treatment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 9, 2015

The 'dwarf' architect of Japan's literary boom

With a chuckle, translator and literary critic Motoyuki Shibata recalls the way author Steven Millhauser once described him.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / NFL NOTEBOOK
May 9, 2015

Brady may be suspended in ball scandal

"Deflategate" has become the biggest NFL scandal since the New Orleans Saints' bounty scandal in 2012. Or it could be even bigger because one of the most popular and respected quarterbacks in NFL history seems to be involved.
EDITORIALS
May 8, 2015

Honor the current Constitution

Amid the current effort to rewrite the Constitution, Japan should remember how well it has served the nation these past seven decades.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 28, 2015

Defense cooperation guidelines with U.S. present new roles, risks for Japan

The new rules have divided security analysts in Japan, with some fearing the country could be dragged into a conflict overseas, presumably involving the U.S. military.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 26, 2015

A bare-knuckle race against time to the Edo Period and back

How in the world did I find myself in the passenger seat as an eager accomplice in a car chase?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Apr 25, 2015

Banana Yoshimoto's magical realist rumination on life and death

Amrita, a Sanskrit word that literally means "immortality," is the name of Banana Yoshimoto's strange 1994 novel. It's an essentially plotless tale, but deeply affecting in its blend of ennui and hope.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 18, 2015

History problems cast a shadow over Abe's Japan

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is dogged by history problems largely because he courts controversy with his revisionist views and efforts to rehabilitate Japan's wartime past. It's not only moderates and leftists who worry about this: Liberal Democratic Party Vice-President Masahiko Komura has also urged...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Apr 18, 2015

'You Gotta Have Wa' is still the best analysis of Japanese culture seen through the lens of sport

Robert Whiting's baseball classic, "You Gotta Have Wa," (updated in 2009) remains the definitive text on Japanese culture seen through the lens of sport. Whiting has an engaging style, his research is exhaustive and his first-hand knowledge has ensured this book is just as entertaining now as it was...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Apr 16, 2015

Takahama nuclear restart injunction polarizing

A provisional injunction handed down Tuesday by the Fukui District Court against the restarting of Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Takahama No. 3 and 4 reactors is a boost to opponents of nuclear power, even as the decision draws criticism from senior politicians, nuclear regulators, Kepco, and pro-nuclear...
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 16, 2015

Seoul orders Asiana pilots to undergo more training after second crash in two years

Asiana Airlines Inc. was ordered to give pilots more training after its second accident in two years raised concerns about the carrier's safety standards.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Apr 4, 2015

Mishima's weakling in a world of military machismo in 'Confessions of a Mask'

'Confessions of a Mask' is Yukio Mishima's second novel, published in 1949.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 4, 2015

Magazines fixate on the roots of poverty

The oft-seen expression ichioku sō-chūryū translates roughly as "the perception of 'the 100 million,' i.e., the entire nation, as belonging to the middle class."
Reader Mail
Apr 4, 2015

Fluency requires direct interaction

At a recent conference on teaching English in Singapore (co-sponsored by Japan's education ministry), I attended some disappointing presentations by teachers from Japan, and wondered how Japanese students could ever hope to communicate in English if these were the researchers selected by Japan's bureaucratic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 31, 2015

Konan W.U. students set to mark 50 years of Shakespeare in English

In 1964, the late Polish theater scholar Jan Kott wrote "Shakespeare, Our Contemporary," an influential book that questioned the processes of producing Shakespeare in the here and now and whether the Bard's texts should serve as clues for an archeological dig to recover something of their original history...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 31, 2015

Translation tech gets Olympic push

Japan may not be the best in the world when it comes to speaking English, but it remains a pioneer in developing cutting-edge translation technology.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 30, 2015

The Battle of Okinawa: America's good war gone bad

Seventy years after the final epic clash of World War II, has the U.S. betrayed the ideals its service members died fighting for?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 28, 2015

'License to Play' compiles research on all things ludic in Japanese culture

The stereotype of a stressed-out salaryman, vacantly sipping on his post-overtime can of beer, does little to confirm that Japanese society is deeply clued into notions of fun and play.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2015

Broadening SDF missions abroad

An outline of a package of security legislation planned by the Abe administration fails to set clear restrictions on the scope of the Self-Defense Forces' overseas missions.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2015

Understanding the truth about medical consent

Obtaining patient consent is a vital but often overlooked skill for doctors.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 24, 2015

Chicago artist marks Armenian genocide with work the size of 'Guernica'

One hundred years after the mass killing of Armenians, a Chicago artist has created a monumental painting to honor the victims and celebrate a culture that nearly vanished.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 21, 2015

Celebrating 50 years of antipathy, recriminations

On March 1, South Korean President Park Geun-hye renewed her call for Japan to come clean on its colonial and wartime atrocities, including the sexual enslavement of women. Her speech was delivered on the anniversary of the anti-Japanese uprising by Koreans in 1919 and in a year when South Koreans will...
CULTURE / Art / Japan Pulse
Mar 20, 2015

Takashi Murakami + Frisk = super-artsy breath

Pop art in your pocket —u00a0it sharpens it you up.

Longform

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