hmmn

I haven’t seen this reported yet in any of the English-language Japanese media but this story has piqued my interest. On July 21st, during an evening news story about the notorious Imperial Japanese Army unit “Unit 731″, Japanese broadcaster TBS inadvertently (or not) briefly included an image of current Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, who [...]

Is it just me or has anyone else on this side of the world noticed an uptick in the anti-Korea rhetoric? I’m not talking about the public’s reactions towards North Korean’s recent missile tests or the attendant saber-rattling by the Japanese government. Rather this is more along the lines of increased blog “chatter” about the [...]

This past week there were two big meat-related stories of big importance in Japan, and elsewhere, related to whaling and the resumption of US beef imports. As someone who doesn’t eat beef nor whale meat, it would seem that neither of these stories would hold much interest to me, but of course there’s a lot [...]

There’s a humorous puff-piece story in The New York Times online about Anthony Bianchi, a former New Yorker from Brooklyn who is now a naturalized Japanese citizen, and who is running for a seat on the Inuyama (Aichi prefecture) City Council. Bianchi, a 44-year old English teacher and diehard New York Yankee fan, appears to [...]

No, this isn’t one of the signs I see when I take my dog walks, nor did I even take this photo. I lifted it from the Mainichi Daily News website, the English online presence of the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shinbun. The MDN is using the photo to accompany their headline story, “Only 30 percent [...]

Bringing back the advertising theme, the above poster is an ad for Japan’s New Komeito political party, found just around the corner from the house. The copy at the top of the ad reads majime ni hataraku hito ga mukuwareru shakai o, the exact nuance of which escapes me but perhaps something along the lines [...]