“People around us tell us that we’re like meoto-manzai (stand up comedians). We’re always surrounded by laughter,” says Atsuko Nonogaki Planeta, 43. “We’re talking all the time. I never get bored,” Paolo Planeta, from Genoa, Italy, adds. Paolo, 37, and Atsuko met in Tokyo ...

Japanese companies need to improve their communication with the foreign media when attempting to expand their presence in overseas markets, says a Tokyo-based expert in corporate public relations. The overseas media coverage of Japan’s nuclear crisis — sometimes criticized here as exaggerated or sensational ...

The 52nd floor of the Roppongi Hills complex in downtown Tokyo was filled Saturday night with a high-spirited, energetic atmosphere as people gathered for a charity event to raise donations for survivors of the quake- and tsunami-ravaged Tohoku region. More than 200 people gathered ...

When the earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast on March 11, Robert Campbell, an Irish-American scholar of Edo Period to early Meiji Era literature, was in Tokyo. Not having ever been to the most severely affected areas of Tohoku, he said the whole picture ...

“My No. 1 hobby even now is still ‘learning,’ ” says Peter Frankl, 58, who has been juggling two professions for over 30 years. Speaking with his eyes lit up like a little boy, the mathematician and street juggler says that through learning, he ...

When Mel Ushikubo, 35, saw the name of her future husband, Kohei, on the Internet, she immediately wanted to see him in person, as that was the name of a character in one of her favorite anime. “I was an anime freak, and saw ...

Latvian Ambassador Peteris Vaivars, 48, has been an avid marathon runner since he was posted to Japan five years ago. He has participated in the Tokyo Marathon for four consecutive years since the inaugural event in 2007 and is preparing for the fifth marathon ...

On their first date, Eiko Tiernan was told by her future husband, Laurier, that he has Marfan syndrome, a congenital hereditary disease that affects about 1 in 5,000 people. At first, she did not know how to react, as she knew nothing about the ...

Once you get out of Nishi-Kasai Station on the Tozai subway line, it’s likely that you will bump into at least half a dozen Indians in the first five minutes on the street. Nishi-Kasai in Edogawa Ward is known as “Little India,” home to ...

“Goseicho arigato gozaimashita” (thank you for listening), a regular way of ending a speech, echoed in the meeting room after each foreign speaker gave their presentations and received a big round of applause from the audience. Diplomats from 13 countries — including two ambassadors ...

A U.S.-based nonprofit organization that has helped “social entrepreneurs” around the world opened a Japanese office this month, its first branch in East Asia, with the goal of creating a similar community in a country where the concept itself is little understood. Ashoka: Innovators ...