Thumb up:
I also recommend The Economist.and it’s former editor in chief
Bill Emotts’ piece on Japan.

Ian Buruma,I trust him and thinks all of his piece on Japan are worth reading.He happens to be a few writer who can actually READ Japanese among with others(Chinese ,German ,French and his native Dutch).

Academic:John Dower and Richard Samuels.

Economist:Kenneth Courtis(Former vice president of Goldman Sachs Asia).R.Tuggart Murphy.

CSIS’s Pacific Forum has good round up on Japan’s foreign relation.

web magazine Japan Echo is also recommended.

So-So:
TIME,NewsWeek,Le Monde.Financial Times,Wall Street Journal,Japan Times.

Thumb down:
NYT,WaPo.IHT,Der SPIEGEL,Le Monde Diplomatique.The South China Morning Post.Straits Times.all of Korean media and Australian papers.

Never trust The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Asia Times.

The Guardian.The Independent,BBC.I hate’em.

Getting back to the post, I think the Economist had the most insightful summary in the English press:

Mr Ishihara’s triumph means Tokyo is certain to bid for the 2016 Olympic games, even though most Tokyoites oppose the plan. Polls suggest that many voters regard Mr Ishihara’s Olympic ambitions as an expensive ego-trip, but they still preferred him to the uncharismatic alternatives, many of whom oppose the bid. He has also promised to make Tokyo the “greenest city on earth”Â?, despite a precedent of some questionable environmental policy. A campaign to rid Tokyo’s parks of menacing crows, for example, resulted in a near doubling of their population.

Also, I can imagine that most newspaper articles on Japan from non-Japanese sources may rile people with a more finely-honed knowledge (for example, an infamous expat paper in Russia, the eXile, once ran a contest for “most foul hack journalist” with the price being a “horse-sperm custard pie in the face” – yes the whole thing was foul, but you can read it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20030625022811/http://www.exile.ru/113/lead.php ..), but surely there are some thoughtful journalists who cover issues in the country for the foreign media? If you can name some good mainstream media I’d appreciate it.

“Your real friends must be reader of such “quality”Â? newspapers as Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and willingly believe what are printed on them.”

Have you realy read what curzon has written about issues concerning East Asia? DO YOU REALY THINK THAT HE IS A BLIND FOLLOWER OF ASAHI SHINBUN?

ä½”¢Ã£”š”šÃ¨ÂªÂ­Ã£”š“ãÂ?§ãÂ?ªãÂ?”žÃ£Â?§æ”°Â¹Ã¥Ë†Â¤Ã£Â?—ãÂ?¦ã”š”¹Ã£Â?§ãÂ?—㔚”¡Ã£â‚¬”š

You have a realy nice suggestion which would perfectly apply to you as an example.

“Try to keep your eyes wide open, otherwise you will be nothing more than a kid taking part of 2ch matsuri.”

Read it loud twice and think of yourself.

By the way, did you missed junior highschools?

“I like to talk to real people “

Your real friends must be reader of such “quality” newspapers as Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and willingly believe what are printed on them.

“rather than attend a 2ch matsuri “

Matsuri is just a game, you know. There is a variety of people who use 2ch. If you think 2ch users are only kids, you will fail to get the truth.

Anyway, I have noticed that your way of seeing things is quite narrowminded. Try to keep your eyes wide open, otherwise you will be nothing more than a kid taking part of 2ch matsuri.

“but they don’t exactly provide a balanced view.”

So you must have a nicely balanced view. Please show it to us with a concrete evidence. Just a single evidence will do. Can you?

To Tomojiro–

“In Mainichi shinbun, I found an analyse “

Ah, you are a true reader of Mainichi, a Japanese version of New York Times. How nice!

You may know why Mainichi Shimbun has not gone bankrupt yet — from whom they get money to keep the press running. If you know, please let us know.

Curzo, Tomojiro, you must be junior highschoolers.
How cute!!

So I presume ranting on internet is going to increase steadly in the foreseeable future.

I think you are wrong about the supporters of Ishihara. In Mainichi shinbun, I found an analyse that showed that among middle aged women, Ishihara got the most support from this stratum (compared to other canditates), and generaly speaking it is rather the above middle age who are the core of his supporters.

Internet does not reflect general views of the Japanese society (or any given society), it is always skewed, biased, and voices who are more radical and ferocious are likely to be heared (at least in East Asia).

And you haven’t even taken issue with my assertion: many people are sick of Ishihara, but the opposition provided no alternative, so they voted for him anyway.

As for sources, ampontan, occidentalism, and yellowpeep are all good, but they don’t exactly provide a balanced view. Not even remotely.

In Japan today more than 70,000,000 people use internet daily.
You cannot know exactly what is really going on in Japanese language internet world.

The most active internet users are men and women of 20s ~ 50s.
You can suppose Ishihara is supported by the people of this age group, especially 20s.

None of his supporters believes he is impeccable, nevertheless, they supported him in the Sunday election. He seemed the best choice in the list of candidates.

Ishihara almost double-scored against Asano, his runnerup.
The Japanese major mass media (TVs, newspapers) — most of them are more or less manipulated by China and North/South Korea — were doing a negative campaign against Ishihara, not in an apparent way, though, but internet users knew that Ishihara would win again.

Curzon, you cannot get the right information unless you know what the Japanese are talking about in the internet world daily now.

An informative entry on “comfort women”.
You can search more at the top page of this blog.

http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/congress-backstabs-us-ally-times-lie-trashes-abe/

Another blog I recommend.

http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=531

http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=535

An informative blog authored by a Japanese.

http://zeroempty000.blogspot.com/search?q=comfort+women

Another blog by another Japanese.

http://yellowpeep.blogspot.com/2007/02/comfort-women-no-they-are-prostitutes.html

http://yellowpeep.blogspot.com/2007/03/comfort-women-no-they-are-prostitutes-2.html

BACKGROUND OF ‘COMFORT WOMEN’ ISSUE / Comfort station originated in govt-regulated ‘civilian prostitution’
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070331dy01.htm

BACKGROUND OF ‘COMFORT WOMEN’ ISSUE / Kono’s statement on ‘comfort women’ created misunderstanding
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070402dy01.htm