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JAPAN
Apr 18, 2005

Princess marks her last birthday in palace

Princess Nori, the only daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, offered thanks to her parents as she turned 36 on Monday, her last birthday as an Imperial family member before leaving the palace to marry a commoner.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 17, 2005

Former boy idol Hiromi Go stars in Fuji TV's "Bokura no Ongaku" and more

Fuji TV pretty much has the Monday night, 9 p.m. time slot all to itself. Traditionally, the network has saved its hottest "trendy" dramas for this time period, and whenever it has a series starring perennial heartthrob Takuya Kimura, who recently topped a magazine's annual poll for the "celebrity you...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Apr 17, 2005

Make no bones about it, this place is like nowhere on Earth

The view is daunting. Colossal. Inland, thunderheads loom over distant mountains signaling heavy rains in the interior. To our left, considerably nearer, a thick bank of billowing sea fog rises several hundred meters high. The sun is just visible behind it, pale and wan; a ghostly eye peering down on...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 16, 2005

In face of adversity, Benitez steers Liverpool to victory

LONDON -- "Things are only impossible until they're not."
BASKETBALL
Apr 15, 2005

JBA gives green light to break-away teams

The Japan Basketball Association on Wednesday granted the Niigata Albirex and the Saitama Broncos special approval to break away from the amateur Japan Basketball League.
JAPAN
Apr 15, 2005

Mishaps keep JAL on ministry watch

The transport ministry said Thursday it will subject the Japan Airlines Group to special safety inspections through the end of the year, following a spate of safety-related problems involving the nation's largest carrier.
BUSINESS / Q&A
Apr 15, 2005

Row boils down to gas vein and a line in the sea

Tensions over gas fields under the East China Sea are straining relations between Japan and China, arguably the two most interdependent economies in Asia.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2005

Matsuba Chaya: Buddha, soba and the great outdoors

Spring is here, the sap is rising, buds are budding and the Food File's fancy turns to . . . noodles? Out in Chofu, heartland of Tokyo's bed-town suburbia?
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 14, 2005

Azure-winged magpie

* Japanese name: Onaga * Scientific name: Cyanopica cyana * Description: Magpies are in the Corvid family, that is, they are related to crows and jackdaws. But Azure-winged magpies are more elegant, with long, light-blue tails and wings, gray backs, white throats and black caps on the top of their...
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2005

Watanuki draws 100 others in LDP to defy posts reforms

A group of 101 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers met Wednesday to reiterate their opposition to the government's postal privatization plan and ruled out any compromise on the issue.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 12, 2005

Miyake lower schools kick off new year

An elementary school and a junior high school on Miyake Island held opening ceremonies for the new academic year Monday for the first time since all residents were evacuated amid volcanic eruptions in summer 2000.
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 2005

Intellectual property disputes

Japan's efforts to bolster the legal system for protecting intellectual property (IP) rights reached a major milestone with the recent establishment of the Intellectual Property High Court. The new court, which is housed in the same building as the Tokyo High Court, will handle a broad range of disputes...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Prolific director Nomura of 'Castle of Sand' fame dead at 85

Movie director Yoshitaro Nomura, whose 1974 suspense thriller "Castle of Sand" ("Suna no Utsuwa") has been ranked by critics as one of the country's best films ever, died Friday at 85.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2005

Prime minister's new quarters a step up

Built more than 70 years ago, it had only three rooms for private use that get little sunshine and was inhabited by mites and cockroaches. A previous occupant had been assassinated there.
BUSINESS
Apr 6, 2005

Sumitomo sells Tokyo HQ building

Trading house Sumitomo Corp. said Tuesday it has sold its head office building in Tokyo for 86 billion yen in an effort to use assets more efficiently.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 3, 2005

Religious liaisons: A voice from the void

LETTERS OF THE NUN ESHINNI: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan, by James C. Dobbins. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004, 261 pp., with b/w illustrations, $60 (cloth). In 1921 a cache of papers was found in the archives of the Nishi Honganji temple in Kyoto. They were written by a...
Features
Apr 3, 2005

Does language 'difficulty' speak of a sense beyond mere words?

I have often been told by Japanese people that theirs is the most difficult language in the world. Virtually all the Japanese people who have said this to me, I might add, have spoken no other language than their own.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 3, 2005

So much food that we don't know what to do with it

The media didn't quite know what to make of that bizarre story last month about the elderly Sapporo man who allegedly killed his wife following a dinnertime spat. One might expect a husband to become angry over not getting enough food, TV commentators implied, but in this case the situation was the opposite....
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2005

Municipalities disappear with merger rush

April 1 marks the start of another year for government bodies, companies and schools. But hundreds of towns, villages and cities disappeared on paper the same day, and many others are on their way to extinction.
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2005

Tokyo talks of a challenge, not a threat

Tension between China and Taiwan are heating up again, but Japanese government officials seem not as hot and bothered about it as one might expect. Perhaps they have taken a measure of China and decided that Japan will do just fine and is very capable of holding up its own end of Asia.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 2, 2005

Life coaching helps you move on with momentum

"People have personal trainers to keep them fit and healthy," says Wendy Kerr. "It seems perfectly logical to have personal coaches to keep life moving in the right direction."
BUSINESS
Apr 2, 2005

Intellectual property-right court opens

Japan opened a court Friday that specializes in disputes over intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks and copyrights.
EDITORIALS
Mar 27, 2005

Warning to Japan and the world

A um Shinrikyo's terrorism of 10 years ago has traditionally been viewed though a domestic political prism, one that saw the act as the outgrowth of a uniquely Japanese set of circumstances. In fact, Aum was a harbinger of the future: It was less interested in political theater than killing large numbers...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 27, 2005

Yankee's Matsui visits lectures kids in his hometown on NHK's "Kagai Jugyo" and more

A year ago, SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi gave a speech at the United Nations University in Tokyo about children.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 26, 2005

Makiko Tachibana

Each year in January, the first-year students at Bunka Gakuin High School present a weeklong exhibition of their original picture books in English. "My students themselves plan, write and draw the picture books. Their English is simple, but their stories are full of imagination and fantasy. Trying to...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Mar 24, 2005

Japanese wagtail

* Japanese name: Segurosekirei * Scientific name: Motacilla grandis * Description: Wagtails are easily identified by the way their tails wag frenetically when they walk. Even their flight pattern seems to wag -- they fly in an undulating wave. The head, throat and the top of the back and the wings...

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat