January 26, 2013
LOS ANGELES--Legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and three of his compatriots will be honored by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) next month for their lifetime of work on movies that organizers said have "given us all a taste of the sublime."
January 24, 2013
MIYAKEJIMA, Tokyo--Cafe 691 Okikurashoten sits atop a hill, with the wide expanse of the brilliant blue-green sea below, and the leaves of sago palm trees swaying gently in the breeze.
January 23, 2013
A mysterious howling marked the start of Hiroshi Yagi’s 40-year search for an animal that has not been seen in Japan for more than a century.
January 21, 2013
Toyo Shibata, who was well into her 90s when her first collection of poems became a best-seller, died of old age at a nursing home in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, on Jan. 20. She was 101.
January 21, 2013
With his handsome face and unrivaled strength, the legendary yokozuna Taiho was a natural hero for the early years of sumo broadcasts on TVs across the nation.
January 19, 2013
Former sumo grand champion Taiho, whose 32 championships are the most in the history of Japan's ancient sport, has died at age 72.
January 16, 2013
Nagisa Oshima, a Japanese director internationally acclaimed for his films “Empire of Passion”' and “In the Realm of the Senses,” has died of pneumonia. He was 80.
January 13, 2013
A Japanese official says a woman in his town near Tokyo who became the world's oldest living female just last month has died at 115.
January 11, 2013
At 87, philosopher Takeshi Umehara hopes to breathe new life into the age-old Noh musical drama theater, by interjecting modern language and storylines that should appeal to a wide variety of audiences.
January 08, 2013
Renowned postwar photographer Shomei Tomatsu died of pneumonia in a hospital in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, on Dec. 14. He was 82.
January 05, 2013
On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, 9-year-old Tetsuo Imamichi was at his home in Hiroshima looking after his two little brothers. In the skies above the city, a U.S. B-29 silently cruised at an altitude of 9,885 meters (32,333 feet) before releasing its payload.
January 03, 2013
NEW YORK--Beate Sirota Gordon, a member of Japan's occupation authorities who included a clause in the Constitution providing equal rights for women, died on Dec. 30. She was 89.
January 02, 2013
A book of teachings by a 96-year-old Canadian nun in Japan has been flying from shelves at bookstores here, with readers expressing thanks for her Christian and self-help advice, such as, "Always smile."
January 01, 2013
On any given day, 76-year-old marathon runner Yoko Nakano can be found training alongside the lower Tama River near where she lives.
December 25, 2012
Keiji Nakazawa, a manga artist whose famed "Barefoot Gen" described his own experiences of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, died of lung cancer at a hospital in the city on Dec. 19. He was 73.
December 19, 2012
A former infantryman who witnessed the horrors of World War II stood in the Dec. 16 Lower House election to defend Japan's pacifist Constitution.
December 16, 2012
HONOLULU--Mazie Hirono, the first Japanese-born individual to be elected to a U.S. Senate seat, still remembers when she first arrived in the country—all but destitute.
December 16, 2012
Donald Keene, the highly admired Japanologist, returned to Japan in September 2011 to live out his twilight years in the country that provided the backdrop to his life.
December 05, 2012
Nakamura Kanzaburo, one of the leading lights of the Kabuki stage, died Dec. 5 at a Tokyo hospital. He was 57.
November 28, 2012
With one foot on the ladder, Morio Nakajima reached out to paint the outline of Mount Fuji that will be visible from the separate baths set up for men and women.