GOT THE BLUES after all the gloom and doom about the economy in some recent posts? What’s the solution when the news on the financial pages seems so bleak? Comic relief! When the shtick is about Japan, however, the comedy is all too likely to...

IN THE ANGLOSPHERE, a barbed complaint is often heard from people who think they’ve been kept out of the information loop and dealt with as if they’re insignificant ciphers by their governments, employers, or social groups. “They treat me like a...

THE COMMON MISCONCEPTION that Koreans and Japanese have difficulty being civil to each other, much less associating on amicable terms, continues to be eroded by the facts, as I often point out here. There’s no better proof that ties are growing than...

THOUGH JAPAN is not a Christian country, the people know a good festival when they see one, and that’s why Christmas is celebrated in public spaces here as a winter festival of light. Two years ago, we had a series of posts called Nippon Noel...

TAKENAKA HEIZO, the privatization and economics guru during the administration of former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro, has been one of the favorite whipping boys of the Democratic Party of Japan, now in control of government. Mr. Takenaka is no...