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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 7, 2005

'Palookaville' gets gallery treatment

I was chatting with old friends in Toronto last week, and our conversation came round to the subject of Japanese manga. I made clear my reservations regarding the popularity of pulp manga in Japan, and bemoaned the fact that many manga artists have even had gallery shows here.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2005

Koizumi's bare-knuckle power play may soon haunt him

Sunday's election for the Lower House stands out as abnormal, but not because of its abruptness. Many surprise elections have been held before. On March 14, 1953, for instance, then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who was president of the Liberal Party, dissolved the Lower House following the passage...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 6, 2005

The Japan-China-U.S. club

Since the beginning of the year, relations between the United States and China have become sharply strained while those between Japan and China have markedly deteriorated -- as if East Asia were headed for a new Cold War. In these circumstances it seems fitting to discuss how to build security mechanisms...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 6, 2005

The empire strikes back

Venerated by militarists and marinated in over a century of militarism and war, Yasukuni Shrine may well be Japan's least friendly venue for a demonstration by pacifists.
EDITORIALS
Sep 4, 2005

Asia's ever expanding arms market

A sia's economic growth has many effects, not least of which is providing more money for governments to buy arms. So it should come as no surprise that the most authoritative assessment of the world's conventional arms market puts Asian nations at the top of the list of arms purchasers.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 3, 2005

Will Carter

LONDON -- "Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2005

Election to bring diplomacy headaches

Kasumigaseki, Tokyo's bureaucratic hub, has been in a political vacuum since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi dissolved the House of Representatives on Aug. 8 -- and diplomacy is no exception.
LIFE / Language
Sep 1, 2005

Peace scholarship looks to resourceful students

The Rotary Foundation, a century-old, worldwide benevolent group of over one million business and professional leaders, has a new scholarship on offer. Rotarians have long provided a variety of international exchange opportunities, but their newest project, the Rotary World Peace Scholarship, is committed...
SOCCER / J. League
Aug 31, 2005

Ishikawa to stay with FC Tokyo

FC Tokyo said Tuesday midfielder Naohiro Ishikawa, who has drawn a transfer offer from Italian club Treviso, will remain with the J. League first-division side.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2005

It's spoilers vs. holdouts against change

Tuesday's start of campaigning for the Sept. 11 Lower House election marked the beginning of fierce battles not only among party leaders but also candidates under the spotlight.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 31, 2005

The nature of the mind

Shunmyo Masuno calls his works "expressions of my mind," and they have the power to stir up depths of emotion and even tap into the subconscious. They are not psychedelic paintings, however, nor are they virtual reality installations -- they are gardens. And the man who creates them is a Buddhist priest....
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2005

Drills put U.S. Navy on notice

HONOLULU -- Soon after Adm. Gary Roughhead took the helm as the new commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the Chinese and Russian armed forces gave him something to think about.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 28, 2005

Einstein's place of birth proves to be worth a little time

I hit the autobahn for Frankfurt with visions of doing 200 kph immune from prosecution -- and promptly found myself in a traffic jam.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 28, 2005

Postal reform gets stamp of approval from celeb politicians

Opponents of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's postal reform plans have a number of complaints, but the point they tend to harp on about, presumably because it's the only one the average citizen can appreciate, is the downsizing of post offices in far-flung regions.
Features
Aug 28, 2005

Unique memoirs saved by chance

It is one thing to witness history being made and quite another to stage-manage it. Such was the task entrusted to a 31-year-old U.S. Army colonel who was assigned by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to plan the Japanese surrender ceremony 60 years ago this coming week. It was, in short, Col. H. Bennett Whipple's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 28, 2005

The Double: "Loose in the Air"

Positioned somewhere between the noise rock of Black Dice and the more accessible psychedelia of Animal Logic, fellow Brooklynites The Double use distortion, analog effects and explosions of pure feeling to mess around with classic pop.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2005

Art show by visually impaired offers a hands-on experience

Seeing with their hands -- that is what young visually disabled artists did to create works for an ongoing exhibition at Gallery Tom.
LIFE / Language
Aug 25, 2005

How to avoid strife when writing essays

It is a classic dilemma for any Japanese student of English: with a deadline fast approaching, how to go about writing an essay when the target language is not the student's native tongue? Many assume it is easier to write an essay in their native language and then to translate it into English. In fact,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 24, 2005

The best from a bygone era

I was recently tempted to term the handsome old Bridgestone Museum as "the last of a dying breed." But that hardly seems appropriate any more, considering the Nihonbashi art space's ongoing evolution. Instead, the Bridgestone might be better described as "a survivor" -- and one of the best -- from a...
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2005

Low level of asbestos exposure proved fatal

Blue asbestos fibers identical to that lining the walls of a stationery shop were found in the lungs of its former manager, who died of an asbestos-linked illness after working there for more than 30 years, it was learned Monday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2005

Chiba man couldn't settle for just piece of pi

Akira Haraguchi says he was never a genius in school. But at 59, the Chiba man recited pi -- the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter -- from memory to 83,431 decimal places.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

Cartoon duo leads the way in a version of history that's no joke

The phrase "textbook row" has become a regular sighting in Japanese newspapers of late, as newly authorized history books for schools are accused, both at home and abroad, of "glossing over" the bloodier aspects of this country's warmongering, Imperialist past.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 21, 2005

It's the eccentrics whose appeal endures

KILLING RAIN, by Barry Eisler. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005, 337 pp., $24.95 (cloth). BANGKOK TATTOO, by John Burdett. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 304 pp., $24 (cloth). While perhaps not as well known as Sherlock Holmes or Agent 007, pulp magazines and later paperback books featuring the intrepid...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 21, 2005

All together now, as yesterday's no-no becomes the status quo

When I first arrived in Japan in the 1960s, I was friends with a Western sociologist who was genuinely frustrated. When he went around surveying public opinion, he said that he found Japanese people to be stubbornly reserved and conservative. Apparently, those who responded to his questions about social...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 20, 2005

Sindhura Gadde

When jewelry designer Kazuo Ogawa conceptualized "Wings of Love," he said, "In all cultures and civilizations, birds have always been significant in mythology and philosophy, literature and poetry, dance and music, art and crafts, fashion and jewelry." The third annual "Wings of Love" charity event,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 20, 2005

Lessons learned over the rainbow

Late August marks the anniversary of my arrival in Japan, this time totaling 28 years. So the question would seem to be, "What have you learned, Dorothy, in your long stay over the rainbow?"
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2005

Police wary as Yamaguchi-gumi prepares to fete sixth don

OSAKA -- With the late July emergence of Kenichi Shinoda -- also known as Shinobu Tsukasa -- as Yamaguchi-gumi's sixth don, Japan's largest and most notorious mob syndicate now has a boss with a violent past but a reputation as an organized leader and diplomat with strong connections to rival gangs,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 19, 2005

Tourists are now the big catch for reborn Otaru

To think of a big city in Hokkaido is invariably to think of the place that fondly plants a prominent white, red or black star on the labels of the beers it brews. But back in the early part of the last century, the spot in Hokkaido that was top dog in terms of population and economic clout was not Sapporo,...

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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