Baby showers, a mainly American tradition of holding special parties for expectant mothers to celebrate the imminent arrival of their babies, are gradually gaining popularity in Japan. Tokyo Baby Cafe, a cafe near Tokyo’s Omotesando boulevard with an indoor playroom for babies and toddlers, ...

Kazushi Suganuma from Nagoya is helping young people through his own experience as a “hikikomori,” a term referring to some young people’s withdrawal from society. Suganuma, 35, and his brother, Isao, 33, have established a support association that operates a coffee shop to help ...

Having vowed to “revolutionize the rocket world,” aerospace engineer Yasuhiro Morita saw his promise fulfilled with the recent takeoff of Japan’s new solid-fuel rocket Epsilon, utilizing an innovative mobile launch control system. Morita felt a rush of exhilaration on Sept. 14 while watching the ...

In a society where cleanliness is revered, a series of pictures showing unhygienic pranks involving food industry workers and customers has triggered a media storm after going viral on social-networking services. The posts reflect a broader trend among young Japanese Internet users for sharing ...

A fisheries federation asks South Korea to lift an import ban imposed because of radiation-contaminated water reaching the sea at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

A 30-year-old infertile woman gave birth after surgeons removed her ovaries and re-implanted tissue they treated in a lab, in an experimental technique that could help women in their early 40s who have trouble getting pregnant because of their age, Japanese researchers find.

Noted Japanese writer Toyoko Yamasaki, whose novels helped raise public awareness of social issues, died of heart failure Sunday morning. She was 88. Yamasaki, whose real name was Toyoko Sugimoto, had begun writing a serial novel about the Maritime Self-Defense Force for Shukan Shincho ...