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Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya Foreign employees have become much more visible in Japan. But policies designed only for short-term stays may hurt the country in the global competition [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hisako Ueno The country is famous for its hospitality. But businesses have had enough of people screaming at workers or tormenting them on social media. The [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Noriko Hayashi The Book Bag That Binds Japanese Society In Japan, cultural expectations are repeatedly drilled into children at school and at home, with peer pressure [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya A ridiculous number of candidates contended to be governor of Tokyo and its surrounding prefecture. Many were not even trying to win. When voters [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya Producers of 'The Boyfriend' on Netflix hope it will encourage broader acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Japan, which still has not legalized same-sex [...]

Byline: Steven Erlanger and Motoko Rich Across Asia and Europe, the event stoked concerns about American stability, both domestically and on crucial foreign policy issues like Washington's commitment to alliances. [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya A lawsuit challenges the onerous requirements for getting sterilized, calling the regulations paternalistic and a violation of women's constitutional rights. When Hisui Tatsuta was [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya A surprise television hit, now on Netflix, has people talking about what Japan has lost with today's changed sensibilities. The younger generation has frequently [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya Kei Kobayashi, who earned three Michelin stars in France, has come home to build an empire. In cooking, timing is everything. So much so [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich, Hisako Ueno and Kiuko Notoya Employers have taken steps to change a male-dominated workplace culture. But women still struggle to balance their careers with domestic obligations. When [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich Her movies try to explain why Japan is the way it is, showing both the upsides and downsides of the country's commonplace practices. Her latest film focuses [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya While some viewers lamented the movie's exclusion of scenes from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, others said they recognized that it had another story to tell. [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich, Hisako Ueno and Kiuko Notoya The trend lines may be grim, but the Japanese aren't sweating them. The economy is now in recession after barely growing for [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and John Yoon Goo Hara's life was a struggle from the start. She ended it at 28, isolated and harassed online. The K-pop star looked utterly drained. [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich A 1980 adaptation of the best-selling novel cast it as the tale of a white hero in an exotic Japan. A new version tells a more kaleidoscopic [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya Some Japanese spectators are grumbling that foreign concertgoers visiting Tokyo don't share their rather restrained local approach to taking in a show. Taylor mania [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich Moscow may be trying to help Pyongyang with access to the international financial system in exchange for missiles and ammunition, U.S.-allied intelligence officials suggest. Russia has allowed [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich Tetsuko Kuroyanagi has been one of Japan's best-known entertainers for seven decades. At 90, she's still going strong. Pushing a walker through a television studio in central [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich, Hikari Hida and Chang W. Lee A shrinking, aging population poses an obstacle as the nation tries to counter security threats from China and North Korea. After [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida The impish persona and insouciant attitude of the Formula 1 driver Yuki Tsunoda have overturned stereotypes. The next step? Showing he can keep up [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and John Liu By exaggerating the risks from Japan's discharge of treated wastewater, Beijing hopes to cast Japan and its allies as conspirators in malfeasance, analysts say. [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida 'I don't want people to struggle like me,' said Shinjiro Atae, making an announcement that is extremely unusual in conservative Japan. At first, there [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida Japan says that by blending ammonia with coal in its boilers, it can make coal less damaging to the planet. But the technology faces [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida A group representing the Indigenous people has sued to regain the right, lost over a century ago, to freely fish for salmon in a [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida A case involving a graduate student and her art history professor illustrates the tangled state of sexual power dynamics in Japan. The prominent art [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida As a G7 summit nears in Hiroshima, Japan is under pressure to show greater support for equality. A national Shinto group has spread a [...]

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Byline: Motoko Rich There have been several major English translations of Murasaki Shikibu's 11th-century classic. Motoko Rich, The Times's Tokyo bureau chief, discusses how she approached them. For readers in [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich TOKYO - Perhaps it was the fact that my daughter was in her final year of high school while I was reading 'The Tale of Genji,' a [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Choe Sang-Hun Both sides face potential political snags, as well as a delicate balancing act in a region where the United States and China are competing [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida Yusuke Narita says he is mainly addressing a growing effort to revamp Japan's age-based hierarchies. Still, he has pushed the country's hottest button. His [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida Across East Asia, populations are graying faster than anywhere else in the world, and while younger generations shrink, older workers are often toiling well [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida The contests reflect a culture that often judges women by their appearance and slots them into rigid, gender-defined roles. Yuki Iozumi was fretting about [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida As it pushes to significantly increase defense spending and develop more of its own hardware, the country may nudge the balance of power in [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Ben Dooley The fallout from Shinzo Abe's death has taken a number of unexpected turns, casting a critical light on both his long-governing party and a [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich Kotaro Isaka dreamed that his novel would get the big-screen treatment. Now it's an action thriller starring Brad Pitt. Does the lack of major Asian stars matter? [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says he will pursue Shinzo Abe's goals, such as a stronger military. But he has also set himself apart from [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Ben Dooley The country has never mandated masks or vaccinations, but it's evaded the worst of Covid, thanks to a fear of public shaming and the [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich The premise for Chie Hayakawa's film, 'Plan 75,' is shocking: a government push to euthanize the elderly. In a rapidly aging society, some also wonder: Is the [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida KASHIWAZAKI, Japan - Growing up, Mika Kasahara saw the nuclear power plant that hugs the coast of her hometown simply as the place where [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich Growing calls for more military spending after Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrate Japan's recognition that it must bolster its own deterrent power, not just rely on its [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich, Hikari Hida and James Whitlow Delano Conservators vastly increased the numbers of red-crowned cranes, a symbol of loyalty and longevity in Japanese culture. That's just a start. [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida SADO ISLAND, Japan - About 40 miles off the northwestern coast of Japan, Akiyoshi Iwasaki is eager to share some history of the mountainous, [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich, Makiko Inoue and Shiho Fukada IZU, Japan - For three decades, Mitsuyasu Asada has proudly tended the same lush mountainside terraces where his father and grandfather grew [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida Niyo Katsura has won acclaim in rakugo, a classical form of Japanese storytelling, by doing anything onstage that a man can do. OSAKA, Japan [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Makiko Inoue Her more than 400 novels often drew on her own romantic affairs, and her translation of an 11th-century romantic Japanese classic sold millions of [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida Japan, which has been very cautious throughout the pandemic, is again barring all nonresident foreigners. There is an economic and human cost. TOKYO - [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Makiko Inoue Waste from adult diapers is growing by tens of thousands of tons a year in Japan. One town may have a solution: recycle it [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich and Hisako Ueno The governing Liberal Democrats won on Sunday, despite having chosen a prime minister, Fumio Kishida, who's known for his lack of charisma. TOKYO - [...]

Byline: Motoko Rich, Makiko Inoue and Hikari Hida CHIZU, Japan - The mountain village of Chizu explains a lot about how one party has kept a virtual lock on power [...]