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July 08, 2026
 

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Hisako Ueno
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako attend the New Year's Greetings ceremony with Crown Prince Akishino, Crown Princess Kiko and other Imperial Family members at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Jan. 1.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 14, 2026
Japan is running out of royals. Are more men the answer?
The Japanese legislature has moved forward with a proposal to allow the imperial family to adopt scores of distant male relatives.
U.S. President Donald Trump posted an apparently AI-generated video on his digital platform Truth Social last Saturday that included a short segment depicting himself dressed as the protagonist from the popular anime franchise "Naruto.”
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2026
Japan pushes back on Trump’s anime posts
President Donald Trump’s use of Japanese anime-style imagery on his social media account has not gone over well in Japan.
Punch, a Japanese macaque known for clinging to a stuffed orangutan, looks on at Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba Prefecture, in March.
JAPAN / Society
May 9, 2026
Punch, the lonely monkey, is growing up. He’s still a star.
Punch has handled the limelight better than most young stars. Since first hitting the headlines, he has slowly integrated into his troop and made friends.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and U.S. President Donald Trump during a dinner in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on Thursday
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 20, 2026
How Japan’s leader found her voice in Washington decades ago
Sanae Takaichi’s experience in Washington inspired her political career, she has said, showing it was possible for women to rise to high levels of power.
Joichi Ito in Tokyo in 2016. Ito resigned in 2019 from a prominent position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after revelations about his efforts to conceal millions of dollars he raised through connections to Jeffery Epstein.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2026
How a close associate of Epstein’s found career redemption in Japan
Joichi Ito resigned in 2019 from a prominent position at the MIT after revelations about his efforts to conceal millions of dollars he raised through connections to Epstein.
Smartphones help passengers pass the time on a train near Toyoake, an industrial suburb of Nagoya.
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2025
Can this city make residents put down their smartphones?
The ordinance, which was approved in a 12-7 vote by the city assembly last week, is largely symbolic, but there is heavy social pressure in Japan to follow official guidelines.
The factory of Asahi Tekko, which produces parts for Toyota vehicles, in Hekinan, Japan, on Aug. 18
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 28, 2025
The backbone of the global auto supply chain is at risk from Trump’s tariffs
Industry experts expect a devastating effect on the dense networks of auto parts suppliers that make everything from pistons to wiring.
Midori Kato has been voice acting the character Sazae Fuguta in the TV animation series "Sazae-san" since it started in 1969.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Dec 30, 2024
Still sounding young at 85, Midori Kato is the voice of old Japan
The voice actor is the last original member of the cast of “Sazae-san,” a cartoon series that premiered in 1969 and never quite joined the modern world.
The seaside town of Shika on the Noto Peninsula, where the local power provider, Hokuriku Electric, has been fighting for a decade to restart a nuclear power plant in the town’s center.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 2, 2024
Can quake-prone Japan ever embrace nuclear energy again?
The government, its makeup in flux after the LDP lost seats this week, will soon need to make decisions that will shape Japan’s future nuclear policy.
Japan has finally scrapped every regulation requiring the use of floppy disks for administrative purposes.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2024
Japan finally phases out floppy disks
One of the world’s most technologically advanced nations has held on to some of the most outmoded devices.
Akira Endo was born on Nov. 14, 1933, in Yurihonjo, a city in a mountainous area near the Sea of Japan.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 15, 2024
Akira Endo, scholar of statins that reduce heart disease, dies at 90
His research on fungi helped lay the groundwork for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease.
Sony employees simulate the physical sensations of pregnancy at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo in February. The simple power of numbers can begin to remake workplace cultures, but many Japanese women still struggle to balance their careers with domestic obligations.
JAPAN / Society
May 8, 2024
It took decades, but Japan’s working women are making progress
Employers have taken steps to change a male-dominated workplace culture. But women still struggle to balance their careers with domestic obligations.
Jin-Oh Hyun searches for wild king cherry trees and their relatives on Geoje Island, off the coast of South Korea, on March 22.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 30, 2024
Wanted in South Korea: imperialism-free cherry blossoms
Activists want to replace a variety of cherry tree associated with the Japanese colonial era with one they say is Korean. The science is messy.
Women with portable electric fans in the Yurakucho district of Tokyo on Sept. 12. In Japan, Cool Biz became especially popular with women, who tended to wear lighter clothes and often complained about the cold temperatures needed to make business suits comfortable for their male colleagues.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 24, 2023
Where did all the dark-suited Japanese businessmen go?
Under Cool Biz, salarymen and government workers don short-sleeved shirts in the summer as offices are kept above 28 degrees Celsius to save energy.
Flavorless (?) Candy spurred debate over what the "taste of nothingness" tastes like, if anything.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 10, 2023
Sucking on Japan’s flavorless candy for a ‘state of nothingness’
The candy was developed for people who wanted to moisten mouths that had gone dry from all-day mask wearing but without a sugar rush.
Kohei Saito, a philosophy professor at the University of Tokyo who appears regularly in Japanese media to discuss his ideas, at home in Tokyo on March 16.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 7, 2023
Can shrinking be good for Japan? A Marxist bestseller makes the case.
Saito has tapped into what he describes as a growing disillusionment in Japan with capitalism’s ability to solve the problems people see around them.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2023
A lonely cry for action as China locks up Japanese on spy charges
Hideji Suzuki says Japan failed him during his six years in a Chinese prison. China’s recent arrest of a Japanese citizen is again testing Tokyo’s resolve.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 4, 2023
A Tokyo esports school coaxes dropouts back to class
Parents are realizing that nontraditional schooling is better than none at all.
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2023
That mystery orb on a Japanese beach? It was just a buoy.
A giant metal ball that washed up on a Japanese beach this week drew suspicion from authorities and wonder from the public. But the truth was rather mundane.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Feb 10, 2023
What’s a Japanese mobster to do in retirement? Join a softball team
The members of the Ryuyukai have done nearly 100 years of hard time, now they’re just looking to stay out of trouble.
Japan needs caregivers. Young Indians are answering the call.
Young people in India's northeast are increasingly studying Japanese in hopes of building new lives and careers in Japan.
Prior to launch, Japan ‘strongly urged’ China to reconsider missile test in Pacific
A missile is fired from a Chinese Navy nuclear-powered submarine on Monday.
Suspected Asian fraud ring exec served fresh warrant in Japan
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and Osaka Prefectural Police have issued arrest warrants for three people, including a suspected fraud network leader, over alleged immigration and residency violations.
Japan might be giving the currency market the silent treatment
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has issued verbal warnings recently using the same language and the same tone, saying authorities “will take appropriate action at any time, as necessary.”
Japanese teen arrested for booting users off streaming service
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has arrested a 15-year-old boy for allegedly creating a malicious program and canceling subscription accounts on the Bandai Channel.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.
Japanese nail salons are tourists’ new obsession
Tourists in Japan have always been interested in quintessentially Japanese approaches to modern culture, and, increasingly, visits to nail salons have become the new hot thing.
Okinawa’s prized seaweed under threat as oceans warm
Local harvesters gather <i>mozuku</i> during low tide at Hyakuna Beach in the city of Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. As the planet warms, rising ocean temperatures are placing increasing pressure on the seaweed industry.
‘Defense,’ not ‘warfare,’ stressed as pacifist Japan beefs up capabilities
Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi attends an annual training session near Mount Fuji at Higashifuji Training Field in Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture, on June 7.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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