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Gearoid Reidy

Gearoid Reidy

The Japan Times

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Thanks, tourists. Views of Mount Fuji are now blocked.

The ukiyo-e artist Hokusai was famed for his "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji," woodblock prints deeply symbolic of Japan. But one famous view of the...

previous day 40

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Japan's unlikeliest cheerleader is an American ambassador

The United States ambassador to Tokyo is known for not mincing his words. What has surprised, however, is his target: folks back home. "I have a...

27.04.2024 60

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Kishida must wish he’d stayed in Washington

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s first remarks to the joint session of the U.S. Congress were perhaps also his most heartfelt. "I never get such nice...

21.04.2024 10

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

A humbled Yoon must future-proof Seoul’s alliances

South Korea’s parliamentary elections are not a referendum on the foreign policy of President Yoon Suk-yeol. Indeed, foreign policy barely ranks on...

15.04.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

The ‘3-Body Problem’ of adapting content across borders

(Mild spoilers for Netflix’s "3-Body Problem" follow.) Like many readers of Liu Cixin’s "Three-Body" series of novels, I was a bit taken aback by...

10.04.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Maglev train is back on track after Shizuoka governor's derailing

With its progressive zoning rules and "build, baby, build” attitude, Japan does not tend to have many "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) types. But the...

08.04.2024 10

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Ohtani swings and misses at PR, but he’s not Japan’s first

The Shohei Ohtani gambling scandal continues to get weirder. His news conference last week raised more questions than it answered, coming after the...

03.04.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Shohei Ohtani scandal raises the stakes on sports betting

There’s still much we don’t know about the betting scandal that has enveloped Shohei Ohtani, baseball’s golden boy and possibly the greatest to...

22.03.2024 10

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

As China’s EVs approach, Japan’s carmakers must step on the gas

Media reports that rival Japanese automakers Nissan Motor and Honda Motor are potentially entering into a partnership feel so unlikely it’s as if...

19.03.2024 30

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Japan asks when a stiff drink is a bit too stiff

When can you have too much of a good thing? That’s the question being asked by Japan’s alcohol industry, where two of the country’s four major...

10.03.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Looks like we're nearing peak PlayStation

It should have been a victorious few weeks for Sony Group’s PlayStation 5. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, arguably the console’s first must-have...

08.03.2024 30

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Everyone’s buying Japan shares. I only want to buy one.

In 1942, at the tender age of 11, Warren Buffett purchased the first of the many shares he would accumulate throughout his career. "What I bought was...

06.03.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Disney’s ‘Shogun’ has a lot to teach the West

One of the most famous tales ever set in Japan is back. Walt Disney is spending millions on a glossy new adaptation of the James Clavell saga...

28.02.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Congratulations Nikkei, now don’t screw it up

History might not repeat itself, but it rhymes. The last time Japanese stocks hit an all-time high, the yen was floating around 145 to 150 to the...

23.02.2024 10

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

¥3,800 ski-slope ramen is a glimpse of Japan’s future

Japan has been trying to create a "virtuous cycle” of price and wage increases for over a decade. But there are perhaps only a few places where it...

18.02.2024 30

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

The Taylor Swift and Messi moment shows Tokyo is back

There was a brief moment around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday where, as Taylor Swift played to 55,000 screaming fans in the first performance of her...

09.02.2024 50

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Trump is wrong to oppose Nippon Steel deal

For a man who once said that the only thing he liked about Japan was that the people bow instead of shaking hands, it should come as little surprise...

09.02.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

A Ukraine-born beauty queen and what it means to be Japanese

The Ukrainian-born winner of a Miss Japan contest has reawakened a long-simmering question on the archipelago: What does it mean to be Japanese?...

01.02.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Japan owes no apology for U.S. Navy officer’s treatment

On the surface, the U.S.-Japan security alliance might seem rosy: ever-closer defense ties, deeper cooperation and a shared vision for the...

24.01.2024 40

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Japan can guilt-trip its stocks past bubble-era highs

Thirty-eight thousand nine hundred fifteen point eight-seven. It’s a number seared into the mind of any long-term Japan stock-watcher: The Nikkei...

18.01.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Collapsed cakes and the price of perfection in Japan

Compared to the chaos that has engulfed Japan in the opening days of 2024, the final days of last year seem like a halcyon age. Before an earthquake...

16.01.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Fujitsu’s silence is making a tech scandal worse

Many in Japan were surprised to learn of the sudden surge of vitriol in the United Kingdom toward one of Tokyo’s corporate icons. Seemingly...

15.01.2024 30

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Warren Buffett brought Japan back. Will it last in 2024?

Before 2023 began, few saw the rise of interest in investing in Japan, long considered the land that optimistic stock bets go to die. But from spring...

05.01.2024 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Heed the warning of Japan’s New Year's Day earthquake

For a long moment, Japan feared the worst. After the magnitude 7.6 earthquake that struck on New Year’s Day, authorities announced the most serious...

03.01.2024 30

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

From Godzilla to Shohei: Japan's soft power had a big year

In a year in which Walt Disney struggled with expensive flops and audiences finally fell out of love with superhero movies, Japan scored a best-ever...

28.12.2023 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

No, seriously, this is one Japan scandal that’s important

Almost a half century ago, Japan’s biggest political scandal saw the prime minister convicted of taking bribes and a porn actor attempt to murder a...

21.12.2023 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Why should any city want to host a world expo?

The World Expo might have a quaint quality for many in the English-speaking world — recalling events such as the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville,...

15.12.2023 30

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Japan needs a 'jujitsu PM' to grapple with this scandal

Fumio Kishida is in trouble. The prime minister is dealing with the lowest approval ratings since his Liberal Democratic Party returned to power in...

11.12.2023 50

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

New 'Godzilla' flick deftly tackles postwar Japan in cinematic triumph

Along with his famed atomic breath, one of Godzilla’s powers is the ability to regenerate. The long-running movie series can revive itself, too. The...

06.12.2023 5

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

New 'Godzilla' flick deftly tackles postwar Japan in cinematic triumph

Along with his famed atomic breath, one of Godzilla’s powers is the ability to regenerate. The long-running movie series can revive itself, too. The...

06.12.2023 10

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Being a listed company in Japan is losing its luster

Some of Japan’s most notable companies are feeling somewhat listless about being listed. That might be the reason for the $5 billion take-private...

03.12.2023 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Japan seeks digital detox with return to ‘way of the sauna’

In Japan, saunas suddenly seem everywhere. On Instagram, influencers and actors appeared to visit them daily and the app was bombarding me with ads...

15.11.2023 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Zelda the movie shows Nintendo has learned its lesson

"It’s dangerous to go alone!” This might be the most famous line of any video game, uttered at the beginning of 1986’s The Legend of Zelda, as...

09.11.2023 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Kishida is so unpopular, he can't even give money away

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to give money back to the people. They’re saying "no thanks.” Kishida has seen his popularity plummet to...

07.11.2023 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Shibuya wants to cancel Halloween. That's a mistake.

Tokyo’s Shibuya was once the center of raucous Halloween celebrations. But revelers are about as welcome this year as a box of healthy raisins in an...

30.10.2023 20

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Octogenarian taxi drivers to the labor-crunch rescue

Would you trust an 80-year-old driver with your life on some of the developed world’s most complex streets? If you’re one of the millions visiting...

26.10.2023 5

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Octogenarian taxi drivers to the labor-crunch rescue

Would you trust an 80-year-old driver with your life on some of the developed world’s most complex streets? If you’re one of the millions visiting...

26.10.2023 10

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Japan's media has to account for its failures, too

The recent downfalls in Japan of the Unification Church and J-pop agency Johnny & Associates seem to be, on the face of it, victories for justice: Two...

16.10.2023 90

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

U.K. effort to imitate Japan's shinkansen falls short

Earlier this summer, U.K. Transport Secretary Mark Harper extolled the virtues of Japan’s bullet train network in a video that has aged even more...

11.10.2023 90

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Amid rising costs, why is Japan making beer cheaper?

Some 4,600 grocery items are becoming more expensive this month in Japan as the country’s food and beverage makers continue to pass on costs amid a...

06.10.2023 100

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

While Manhattan’s offices stay empty, Tokyo keeps building

Offices in many of the world’s major cities are struggling to find workers to occupy them. The trend of remote working, triggered by the pandemic,...

02.10.2023 90

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Microsoft buying Nintendo would have been a disaster

Microsoft’s video game head Phil Spencer might have been correct when he wrote, in a piece of corporate cringe straight out of HBO’s "Succession,"...

27.09.2023 60

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Is this the end for Japan’s iconic Studio Ghibli?

In the end, even the most iconic of Japanese artisans have to bow to demographics. The announcement that Studio Ghibli, the famed animation studio...

22.09.2023 80

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

As goes the Sogo department store, so goes Japan

Shopping might be the most capitalist of all activities. Little wonder, then, that where we shop reflects capitalism back to us, capturing the...

22.09.2023 90

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

The complex legacy of ‘Lost in Translation,’ 20 years on

It has been 20 years since an aging Bill Murray and a young Scarlett Johansson introduced Tokyo to a generation in Sofia Coppola’s "Lost in...

13.09.2023 90

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

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