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August 15, 2024
 

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MEDIA MIX

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 30, 2009
War over whaling takes to Japan's airwaves
In early August, director Louis Psihoyos told The Toronto Star that his documentary, "The Cove," had been submitted to the Tokyo International Film Festival and rejected. In the article he quoted an unnamed TIFF "director" who said that the festival receives funding from the Japanese government, which...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 23, 2009
Sling some mud and have some election fun
Nothing I've read exemplifies the misdirection of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's campaign for the Aug. 19 Lower House elections better than a letter that appeared in last Tuesday's Asahi Shimbun from a reader who said he had to look up sekinin-ryoku after seeing it used in various LDP ads.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 16, 2009
Sakai's twin personalities were falling apart before bust
The advice column in the Aug. 1 Asahi Shimbun ran a letter from a 30-year-old woman who despaired over her obsession with male idols, wondering if it was the reason she didn't have a boyfriend. The guest adviser was University of Tokyo Professor Chizuko Ueno, who told her to relax. She'd survived 30...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 9, 2009
Enter a fantasy world of Zen-like bedroom gymnastics
A few weeks ago, BBC News ran a report on how love hotels were one of the few business sectors in Japan doing well in the current recession. The report stressed the unique trappings of these hotels and actually raised more questions than it answered about their socioeconomic significance.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 2, 2009
No brains when it comes down to transplants
The bill to revise the Organ Transplant Law, which cleared the Upper House on July 13 and thus gained full Diet passage, is a rare example of bipartisan agreement. Known as Plan A, the new law has three significant features: It recognizes brain death as legal death, allows the harvesting of organs from...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 26, 2009
Japan's maglev on track for financial crash
About 40 people are crowded onto the observation deck of the Yamanashi Linear Test Line Center, holding their cameras at the ready and waiting for the world's fastest train — an experimental maglev model that's called a "linear motor car" (LMC) — to make its appearance.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 19, 2009
Questions over degree of child abuse remain in Japan
Last April, a 34-year-old woman and her 38-year-old live-in boyfriend were arrested for allegedly burying the corpse of the woman's 9-year-old daughter in a Nara graveyard. Osaka police believe that the child had been a victim of abuse at the hands of the boyfriend. School authorities had earlier suspected...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 12, 2009
'Campaign' star no longer life of the party
Takafumi Horie, the former CEO of Livedoor Inc., has nothing to do with the documentary "Campaign," which had a special public screening at the Rise X theater in Shibuya the morning of June 30. However, the subject of the movie, politics, is close to his heart, so he agreed to discuss it with the film's...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 5, 2009
Flashing the cash while the majority suffer
There haven't been many silver linings to the dark cloud of the recession that descended more than a year ago. One is the media's general loss of interest in ostentatious displays of stuff that most of us could never afford anyway. Nowadays, it's easier to boost TV ratings with features about places...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 28, 2009
The only bonus you'll get this summer is the sun
One of the cleverest ideas developed by the Japanese business world is the distribution of semiannual "bonuses" to employees. Usually, a bonus is tied to a company's good fortune or an employee's performance. Japanese workers have always deemed them to be part of their salaries and tend to plan their...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 21, 2009
My son, I give you power over the people
Last Monday, TBS's noontime show "Hiruobi" was covering Kim Jong Un, the son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and presumed successor. One commentator on the show, an editor for an entertainment magazine, wondered what the citizens of North Korea really thought of this dynastic system. "In Japan right...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 14, 2009
A trifle late, but the media master murder-case coverage
After the Supreme Court upheld Masumi Hayashi's death sentence in April, the Wakayama Curry Murder Case became history. As far as the media is concerned, there is nothing left to talk about until her sentence is carried out, even though serious doubts remain about the prosecution's evidence, which was...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 7, 2009
Our columnist's 'drug runs' are happily over
Whenever I visit the United States, friends ask me to pick up things for them, usually over-the-counter (OTC) drugs that are cheaper in the States than they are in Japan. I always return with this booty as nervous as if I were carrying a brick of hash, having once been told by a colleague how customs...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 31, 2009
A slight unmasking of Japan's flu 'pandemic'
While traveling through Scandinavia two weeks ago, I had scant opportunity to monitor Japan's anxiety over the sudden increase in confirmed cases of H1N1 flu that led to closings of schools in the Kansai region. Europe seemed barely concerned about the new flu and when I caught BBC World in hotel rooms...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 24, 2009
The art of eco: Eco this, eco that, eco is such a steal
As Kermit the Frog once said, "It isn't easy being green." Take this new "eco points" plan that goes into effect once the latest supplemental budget is formally passed. Consumers who buy refrigerators, air conditioners and TVs designated as having energy saving qualities will receive points that can...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 17, 2009
Oh! To have a married life
Last week, during an NHK discussion about the future prospects of people who are presently 35 years old, an announcer casually dropped a statistic that said 82 percent of all 35-year-olds in Japan make ¥2 million or less a year. These are the people who are now supposed to be the core purchasers of...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 10, 2009
A death from human kindness
On April 21, the body of former pop singer Yukiko Shimizu was found in a cemetery in Oyamacho, Shizuoka Prefecture, in front of her father's grave. Police assume that she committed suicide on the spot by inhaling hydrogen sulfide fumes and had probably also tried to kill her 80-year-old mother, who was...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 3, 2009
SMAP star Kusanagi causes naked rage among media
Between the time the media first heard the news that SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi had been arrested for public indecency and his press conference the next day, there was a frisson of titillating anticipation over what the scandal might reveal and how Kusanagi would emerge from it. Even now, speculation...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 26, 2009
Media silence on first lady's school visit shows Japan's education gap
Earlier this month, while her husband, the president of the United States, met with other world leaders at the G20 summit, Michelle Obama visited a school for "disadvantaged" girls in North London and was moved to tears by the students' hard work and talent. In an emotional speech, she hailed the young...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 19, 2009
Chiba's governor may soon be whisked away to his home planet
In the latest installment of Suntory's series of TV commericals for Boss canned coffee, the extraterrestrial Tommy Lee Jones, who has been sent to Earth to study the human race, runs for governor of an unnamed prefecture and wins by a landslide. The excitement is short-lived, though, as his inappropriate...
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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