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JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 19, 2013

'GTAV' aggro-risks doubt

In the last week I've been drunk in a strip club, got shot at by gangsters and driven a sports car into the ocean — where, regretfully, my partner drowned. But that's nothing compared to a friend of mine who has robbed a convenience store at gunpoint and broken into a military air base — then stolen...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 16, 2013

Missing the light at 'Roppongi Crossing'

I've always thought that the "Roppongi Crossing" exhibitions try too hard. They take themselves too seriously and usually end up missing the point. Held every three years at the Mori Art Museum, the shows bring together heavily curated selections of contemporary art in an attempt to take the artistic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

Complex issues knitted into the fabric of art

It's difficult to say something new about the Holocaust in face of an immense body of work produced over seven decades. Consequently more outlandish forms of expression are often required to inspire a fresh reaction.
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2013

Relieving environmental malaise

Regarding naturalist C.W. Nicol's Oct. 6 article, "Canadian sojourn helps to shake off Japan malaise": Wouldn't it be grand if Nicol's son-in-law, Don McCubbing, could travel to Japan and get to work restoring some of those salmon streams that the construction ministry has bulldozed under in the name...
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Oct 8, 2013

Backlash against Miyazaki is generational

If you haven't lived in Japan, it's hard to appreciate just how beloved are anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki and his creative hub, Studio Ghibli.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 5, 2013

Sweet times on sugar-isle Kohama

In our minds, islands should be counter worlds, autarchies unsullied by continental concerns. We should arrive spellbound, leave anointed by their beauty.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Oct 4, 2013

Tim Minchin: 'I really don't like upsetting people'

Tim Minchin walks in dressed in a close-fitting navy suit with neatly buttoned waistcoat and whips off his trilby and puts it aside. His hair hangs below his shoulders, and his eyes, minus the black eyeliner he wears on stage, have a disarming warmth. You cannot help but feel a connection on the strength...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Oct 3, 2013

A modern twist to traditional snacks

Nowhere is the intersection of Japanese food culture and style more obvious than in the genteel, refined world of wagashi. For centuries, Japanese confectioners, especially those associated with Kyoto and the rituals of the tea ceremony, have produced sweets of astounding intricacy and beauty.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 3, 2013

Nara college gets crafty

Japanese arts and crafts often emphasize simple beauty. This weekend, Ohara Wafuku Gakuen College welcomes visitors to see this up close at its school market.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Oct 3, 2013

Hokkaido's best dishes to feature at Tokyo fest

Though typically noted for its natural beauty and some of the country's finest ski slopes, Hokkaido also boasts some of Japan's best cuisine.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2013

'E no Naka no Boku no Mura (Village of Dreams)'

Director: Yoichi Higashi
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 2, 2013

IT startup barters its way into niche

At around noon on a recent weekday, the Roppongi branch of Shamrock by Abbot Choice, a Tokyo-based Irish-style pub chain, had a bustling lunchtime crowd.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 28, 2013

Stroll through 1,000 years of history in one Nikko garden

Even before seeing the great sights of Nikko, the visitor cannot fail to be impressed by the luxuriance of the area's moss. Towering cryptomeria trees, allowing filtered light to penetrate ground cover, provide ideal incubation zones and levels of exposure and protection for the flourishing of moss in...
JAPAN / Media
Sep 28, 2013

Popular @Horse_ebooks web comic loses its comedic engine

Put enough monkeys in a room with a typewriter, the old theory goes, and they'll eventually hunt-and-peck some Shakespeare. But on Tuesday, the wired world learned that a couple of conceptual-art bards had been masking themselves as the equivalent of gibbons, sending seemingly random spam into the Twitterverse....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 28, 2013

New survey of art fosters discussion

It goes without saying that giving a book the title "100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age" is a hostage to fortune. We lack the necessary perspective when it comes to judging what it is about our time that is most important or representative culture-wise, for which reason the work of drawing up...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 27, 2013

FYI: Agricultural World Heritage status

After our 3,776-meter-tall friend Fuji-san won the coveted UNESCO World Heritage status this year, many people are wondering what site will win the status next? Only one Japanese site per year can be nominated for the award, and recent reports have said the government is considering a steel works, a...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 27, 2013

When worlds collide

My Japanese language skills mostly stink. And always have.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 27, 2013

Lord Byron to Russell Brand: timeless appeal of the bad boy

When the singer Katy Perry spoke recently about her relationship with British comedian Russell Brand, not so long after their whirlwind courtship and immediately after their whirlwind divorce, she refrained from putting the boot in, despite Brand having ended the short marriage by text.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 26, 2013

Suede plays it anew with 'Bloodsports' album

Ten years ago, Suede was in the process of fizzling out to a backdrop of apathy. For a band whose initial brilliance inadvertently help kick-start Britpop in the 1990s, it all seemed unedifying.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 17, 2013

After decades of growth, South Korea is now a land full of apartments

South Korea is a nation covered by apartments, so much so that from above, it resembles a coast-to-coast game of dominoes. Apartment buildings snake around mountains and form jarring clusters in the countryside. In cities, they align in grids that stretch for several kilometers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 14, 2013

A swim with turtles (maybe)

For snorkelers, there's perhaps nothing better than hanging out underwater with a hawksbill sea turtle. Safer than sharks, they are graceful and beautiful, ancient and wise. But sightings are rare. Of my hundreds of snorkeling adventures, I've only seen turtles, from a distance, in Palau and Koh Tao...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013

Bill Murray relishes FDR's 'human' side

Biographical movies can be a daunting task. Their subjects often have larger-than-life stories that are focal points for controversy. Actor Bill Murray says that what attracted him to the role of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in "Hyde Park on Hudson," was less of the former element and a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013

'The Wolverine'

While it never seems to be as high-profile as the "Iron Man" or "Spider-Man" franchises, the "X-Men" series is actually the longest-running Marvel Comics series on the big screen, and it's the one that opened the gates to Marvel's current dominance. For my money, "X-Men" remains the most interesting,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 11, 2013

'A Toast to the Drinking Glass: In History and Life'

As the title suggests, an everyday object becomes a spectacle of art and history for this exhibition, which explores the evolution of the drinking glass from primitive to modern times.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

'The Wolverine' draws from other Hollywood hits set in Japan

Director James Mangold has claimed Japanese film influences on his Marvel comic adaptation "The Wolverine," including Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film "Kumonosu-jo (The Throne of Blood)." But the film, in which Hugh Jackman's immortal Wolverine character comes to Japan, falls in love with a local beauty and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 2, 2013

Artist Hibino drums up Olympic bid support with five-colored 'mikoshi'

About 140 people parade through Tokyo's Ueno Park Saturday with handmade portable shrines as part of the events designed to support the city's to host the 2020 Olympics.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 30, 2013

How the West was lost — almost

"How was your trip to Las Vegas?" grins this friend who knows I never gamble. "Did you win a million bucks?"
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 29, 2013

Tokyo chef who likes a good breakdown

Kamose, a private cooking studio run by fermentation specialist Nobuaki Fushiki, is hidden among the backstreets of Tokyo's Gakugei Daigaku district. Fushiki's special dinner events, which feature an array of fermented ingredients, have a clandestine quality that brings to mind the speakeasies of the...

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?