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October 25, 2025
 

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History
Legal scholar Shigeto Hozumi conducted some 250 lecture sessions for Empress Nagako, posthumously known as Empress Kojun, between 1924 and 1950.
JAPAN / History
Late Empress Kojun received lectures on World War II from experts, records show
In a lecture in February 1942, after Japan went to war with the United States, one scholar explained to Empress Kojun speeches delivered to parliament by the then prime minister.
JAPAN / History
Official records of late Empress Kojun's life include her experiences in World War II
The empress spent Aug. 15, 1945, when Emperor Showa declared Japan's surrender in World War II, inside a bunker facility that had served as her home, the records state.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Japan Times 2000: Japanese professor wins Nobel Prize in chemistry
Hideki Shirakawa received the Nobel Prize in October 2000 along with two American scientists for their revolutionary work on conductive polymers.
Hisao Ito, a former resident of Tinian in the Mariana Islands, points to himself in a family photo taken when he was a child.
JAPAN / History
Sep 24, 2025
World War II survivor bears witness to family tragedy in Tinian mass suicide
Eighty-one years after the mass suicide, the memory of his father killing two of his sisters remains lodged in the survivor's mind, yet he holds no grudge against his father.
In the “Kojiki,” the origins of the Japanese archipelago are attributed to the coupling of Izanagi and Izanami, two kami from the Plain of High Heaven.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Sep 20, 2025
Humanity's tales of creation, cataclysm and kami
By Michael Hoffman
Cultures the world over have invented their own distinctive creation myths since antiquity. In Japan, the “Kojiki” offers insight into premodern perspectives on the nation.
Yasuhiko Ito speaks of his experience as an internee under the Soviet Union after World War II, in the city of Fukuoka in April, prior to his death in May at the age of 100.
JAPAN / History
Sep 17, 2025
Former Japanese internee in Ukraine pained by Russian invasion
After World War II, Yasuhiko Ito was taken as a disarmed soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army by the former Soviet Union to Ukraine for forced labor.
Prime Minister Yoshio Mori declared in September 2000 that Japan must “grab the historic opportunity of the IT revolution."
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Sep 6, 2025
Japan Times 2000: Prime minister pitches ‘e-Japan’ as way of life
Japan must “grab the historic opportunity of the IT revolution,” Prime Minister Yoshio Mori declared as the final Diet session of the century opened in September 2000.
U.S. military personnel stand guard in front of the New Grand Hotel where Gen. Douglas MacArthur stayed circa September 1945 in Yokohama.
JAPAN / History / Perspectives
Sep 1, 2025
How the Allied Occupation changed Japan: A love story
By Michael MacArthur Bosack
A wartime GI and a Japanese civilian fell in love during the Occupation, embodying the peace built after Japan’s surrender.
Japan's World War II surrender documents went on display at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in Washington on Thursday.
JAPAN / History
Aug 29, 2025
Instrument of Japan's World War II surrender on display in U.S.
It will be on display until Oct. 1 as part of a special exhibition to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.
Police round up war orphans in an underpass in Ueno, Tokyo, in a file photo taken in February 1948.
JAPAN / History
Aug 28, 2025
Never again, says woman orphaned by Tokyo air raid during World War II
Yoriko Suzuki, who died at the age of 87 in June, lamented about how her life and those of many others were turned upside down by the war.

New ‘immigration minister’ post signals Takaichi Cabinet’s priorities
Kimi Onoda, economic security minister and minister for harmonious coexistence with foreign nationals, arrives at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Rare female yakuza walks path to redemption in Japan
Retired yakuza Mako Nishimura sorts fallen leaves during a clean-up activity at the Gifu Gokoku shrine in Gifu Prefecture on Sept. 28.
Takaichi to put defense push in spotlight in bid to satiate Trump demands
Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force personnel march during the joint multinational exercise Garuda Shield 2025 at the Baturaja combat training center in Lampung, Indonesia, last month.
Takaichi focuses on economic and security concerns in first policy speech
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers her first policy speech in the Lower House in Tokyo on Friday.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.
The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
The newly formed LDP-JIP coalition may not be as solid as it seems
Ruling Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi and Japan Innovation Party leader Hirofumi Yoshimura sign a policy agreement between the two parties at the Diet in Tokyo on Monday.
AI-optimized cybercrime increasingly targeting Japan
A recent cyberattack on brewer Asahi Group Holdings resulted in the company suspending shipments.
K-pop idol Chanyeol does J-pop his own way on ‘Hibi’
South Korean singer Chanyeol made his Japanese-language solo debut with the EP “Hibi,” which features six tracks inspired by his love of Japanese music.
In pictures: The day Japan’s glass ceiling finally cracked
Takaichi, surrounded by LDP influencers
London exhibition perhaps sumo's most successful trip abroad
With the recent sumo jaunt to London being essentially a goodwill exercise, <i>rikishi</i> were far more outgoing and relaxed than normal.

Podcast

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

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.
By Thu-Huong Ha and Mike Fu

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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