April 16, 2013
It is an iconic image that turned a nation against a war: A young girl, naked and badly burned, her injured arms held from her body, flees screaming and crying from her smoking village in South Vietnam toward the unseen camera.
April 16, 2013
OSAKA--As the oldest woman in the world at age 115, Misao Okawa is a fascinating interview for gerontology scholars trying to piece together the keys to longevity.
April 15, 2013
Actor Rentaro Mikuni, well known for his nuanced performances in such classics as "Kiga Kaikyo" (Hunger straits) and "The Burmese Harp," died on April 14 of acute respiratory failure. He was 90.
April 14, 2013
Noriko Otsu leafs through a photo album at her home in Kyoto and recalls her reluctant words of advice to a friend the last time they were together in Japan in the mid-1980s.
April 10, 2013
Katsunosuke Maeda, former president of Japanese chemical giant Toray Industries Inc. and former vice chairman of Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), died of pneumonia on April 7. He was 82.
April 05, 2013
As anyone who has moved to Japan knows, the start-up costs of renting accommodation can be draining. Next to that, finding a school to study the Japanese language can be daunting.
April 05, 2013
Just a year into her marriage and on her 22nd birthday, Nobue Iwata’s husband died of an illness. In his coffin, she placed a letter that said, "I will never marry again."
April 02, 2013
HONG KONG--Almost 2 million origami made by fans in memory of singer-actor Leslie Cheung are being displayed in Hong Kong at an exhibition marking the 10th anniversary of his death.
March 28, 2013
A much slimmer and somewhat haggard-looking Takafumi Horie appeared in public for the first time in 21 months on March 27 following his release on parole from prison in Nagano Prefecture.
March 27, 2013
In a rare media interview, "Dragon Ball" creator Akira Toriyama admitted he was at a loss to explain the tremendous global success of the battle-action manga series and its anime adaptations.
March 25, 2013
TAIPEI—A Japanese graduate student who is visually impaired, cannot speak and cannot move shared his experiences with a Taiwanese poet who has also lost her vision, speech and physical mobility.
March 23, 2013
Leather, fur and kimono-like draped fabric met in bold fusion on March 21 as designer Hiroko Koshino showed off skills honed through decades of rivalry with her two sisters, both also designers in a fashion family spanning several generations.
March 22, 2013
Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in October for producing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. There have been some dramatic changes in his life since then--he's started wearing a disguise to go jogging, for one. But when it comes to his dedication to helping patients, it's business as usual for the Kyoto University professor.
March 21, 2013
Wielding a box cutter, Yoshihiro Okada peels a mikan, removing the skin carefully to avoid an inadvertent tear. Soon, he transforms the peel of the Japanese mandarin orange into a small animal figure. A shrimp, a crab, or a reindeer--the stem end may become an eye or mouth. No part of the peel goes unused.
March 20, 2013
Ever since she was a young girl growing up in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, Ritsuko Kenmoku had a thirst for knowledge. She loved going to school.
March 18, 2013
LOS ANGELES--Japanese architect Toyo Ito, whose buildings have been praised for their fluid beauty and balance between the physical and virtual world, has won the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the prize's jury announced on March 17.
March 14, 2013
PHNOM PENH--Ieng Sary, who co-founded Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge movement in 1970s, was its public face abroad and decades later became one of its few leaders to be put on trial for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, died on March 14. He was 87.
March 13, 2013
HAKODATE, Hokkaido--After 20 years conducting trains in Tokyo, model builder Shingo Masui decided he'd rather make his own.
March 03, 2013
The world's most famous ukiyoe artist now has an Irish disciple.
February 27, 2013
OSAKA--A 114-year-old Japanese woman, the daughter of a kimono maker, was formally recognized on Feb. 27 as the world's oldest woman.