Has Japan's largest newspaper, the Yomiuri, been co-opted into a personal weapon of the Chairman?

Former Yomiuri Giants General Manager Hidetoshi Kiyotake hold a press conference Friday, November 25th , at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan to discuss legal action against the Yomiuri Shimbun group for “illegally” and “unjustly” firing him last week.  He publicly criticized group Chairman Tsuneo Watanabe for meddling in the team’s hiring affairs. Legendary investigative journalist and fired General Manager of the Yomiuri Giants discusses... Read More

OLYMPUS: a closer look with an excerpt from THE GUARDIAN

In April this year, Michael Woodford became president of Olympus, a Japanese optical and medical equipment maker with a God-like reputation to match its name – until recently. Last July, a small Japanese magazine called Facta published an article on Olympus’s spectacular money-losing investments. Another magazine,Zaiten, followed up with an expose on Olympus’s failed investment branch, ITX. This prompted Woodford to begin examining the company’s records.... Read More

Mitsuko Delivers: random acts of kindness and some laughs

by Amy Seaman Just from reading a brief one-sentence summary about Yuya Ishii’s newest film, Mitsuko Delivers, it’s clear that this isn’t just another PARCO-sponsored, corny Japanese love story with a generic plot made tolerable only by the famous names attached to it. (That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with watching idols and musicians pretend they are average people who have trouble with their love lives, but sometimes a deviation from the norm is good.) When... Read More