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November 22, 2024
 

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REVIEW

Japan Times
WORLD / YEAR IN REVIEW 2013
Dec 25, 2013
A look back at the year's top 10 world news stories
Japan Times editors selected these world stories as the most important of 2013.
Japan Times
SPORTS / YEAR IN REVIEW 2013
Dec 25, 2013
A look back at the year's top 10 Japan sports stories
Japan Times editors selected these domestic sports stories as the most important of 2013.
Japan Times
SPORTS / YEAR IN REVIEW 2013
Dec 25, 2013
A look back at the year's top 10 world sports stories
Japan Times editors selected these international sports stories as the most important in 2013.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2013
Noah × Sela "Split EP"
Over the course of its six-year existence, Flau Records has carved out an identity as a record label offering intimate music. The actual sonic styles of the artists represented by the acts signed to the border-hopping imprint differ — some make proper songs, some just produce beats, and sometimes there...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2013
Momoiro Clover Z "5th Dimension"
There were some curious rumors flying around prior to the release of "5th Dimension," the second album by idol quintet Momoiro Clover Z, some of them intriguing ("It's going to be a concept album") and some worrying (longtime producer Kenichi "Hyadain" Maeyamada reportedly called it "tedious and uninteresting"...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2013
Kis-My-Ft2 "Good Ikuze!" (Avex Trax)
Odds are, Japan Times reader, that you do not like Kis-My-Ft2. Maybe you've been unable to escape the bleating "Wanna Beeee!!!" while out strolling in Shibuya, or maybe they lost you at, "From the people who brought you SMAP and Arashi!" So this review should be quick, right? A nice hatchet job with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2013
i-fls "Diary of Spectre" (self-release)
The first song I ever made — and I'm willing to wager many who graduated high school in the mid 2000s share this experience — was using Apple's GarageBand, a software application that lets people make music on their computers. "I made a killer techno track last night, dude," I overheard one classmate...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2013
Various Artists "Upwards and Onwards" (Ano(t)raks)
Fledgling online-only label Ano(t)raks takes a somewhat needless risk with their second compilation album, "Upwards and Onwards." Founded late last year, Ano(t)raks highlighted bedroom-made indie-pop, a style defined by simple guitar playing and equally basic lyrics about love. Indie-pop has been going...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013
'Yokomichi Yonosuke'
Plenty of Japanese directors make films about socially awkward or marginal guys: Given all the on-screen examples (as well as their many real-life inspirations), it seems that the onetime country of the samurai has become the land of the otaku and freeter (unemployed or underemployed), clasping to emotional...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013
Silver Linings Playbook
Sometimes life falls off its dreary grid and takes on the texture and flavor of strawberry chiffon cake. That's kind of what happens when watching "Silver Linings Playbook": The more this romantic comedy-drama about an ex-teacher with mental-health problems and the people around him progresses, the more...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013
'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
You're fed up with your family, your upbringing, your school, your social class. You don't fit in and are reminded of it. The rules and social norms that other people seem to follow so blindly seem to you phony, trite, suffocating. You develop an attitude, a bit of psychological armor, and step off the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2013
'Sado Tenpesuto'
Beginning with 2001's "Ichiban Utsukushi Natsu (Firefly Dreams)," a Yasujiro Ozu-esque drama about a friendship that develops between a rebellious teenage girl and an elderly former actress in the countryside, John Williams has been directing films in Japan with Japanese talent that do not proclaim...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013
'R-18 Bungakusho Vol. 1: Jijojibaku no Watashi'
Sex is universal, but kinks can be local. Japanese S&M, at least the varieties I've seen in films over the years, is less about black leather and fishnet stockings, more about candle wax and artfully elaborate knots designed to display the flesh of the (inevitably female) subject in enticing ways.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013
Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson is one of those directors who, love him or hate him, has been remarkably consistent. Each film, from "Rushmore" right on down, is an artfully constructed and totally hermetic world unto itself, with flawed or absent father-figures, a closet's worth of funky-yet-chic pop-culture knickknacks...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013
'Jack Reacher'
Every time I witness the presence of Tom Cruise in Tokyo, I imagine the possibilities of him moving here as a permanent resident. He loves sushi (apparently a frequent customer at Sukiyabashi Jiro). He knows the streets of Ginza. He's clearly work addicted. Unlike in the U.S. no one here will ever direct...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013
'Jiro Dreams of Sushi'
To describe "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" as a foodie film is akin to picking an English rose and calling it a flower. This documentary by New York-based David Gelb is at once a celebration of one of the world's most popular and coveted meals, and a firsthand observation of Japan's most famous sushi chef at...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 1, 2013
Le Verre Vole a Tokyo: Say bonjour to Tokyo's own taste of Paris
The red-framed doors and purple canopy that mark the front of Le Verre Vole a Tokyo are a cheerful sight at any time of year. In the chill dark dead of winter, their glow is even more welcoming, especially if you're arriving on foot.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2013
'Life of Pi'
Director Ang Lee's adaptation of author Yann Martel's Man Booker Prize-winning "Life of Pi" feels almost like two films sandwiched into one. In the core, you have the succulent special-effects-driven story of a young Indian survivor of a shipwreck who's adrift in a lifeboat with a man-eating Bengal tiger....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2013
“Mr. Children 2005-2010 ”
My Japan Times colleague Ian Martin nailed the state of Japanese pop music when he wrote that it was "clinging on to the hoary old remains of the past." The Oricon Chart's top albums of 2012 list was dominated by "Best Of" compilations, with the top two spots going to a pair released by rock band Mr....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2013
Shortcake Collage Tape "Spirited Summer"
Creating music meant to purposely evoke the past can be tricky. Recreate the sounds of a specific decade too closely and the music becomes too nostalgic, pining for a time the artist never even knew existed. On the other hand, approach bygone times too cynically — as the Internet-born microgenre "vaporwave"...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

Podcast

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

Longform

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

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