When Chie Takaiwa struck up the courage to reveal a family secret to her colleague some years ago, she was met by an unexpected response. The 37-year-old coffee stall worker's father hails from a riverbank ...

Don't go looking for titillation at your local convenience store. As reported last month, Japan's three largest convenience chain operators — 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson — are planning to halt sales of pornographic magazines ...

The Foreign Ministry ordered freelance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka to surrender his passport after he tried to leave Japan on Feb. 2 for Yemen, which is in the midst of a civil war. The ostensible ...

Albert Einstein once said that the "important thing is not to stop questioning." A similar aphorism applies to composer and classical musician Yoko Hamabe Wylegala, whose life has been defined since the age of ...

Japanese cuisine is well-known for its enthusiastic embrace of raw or barely cooked foods. Seafood in particular is frequently consumed when it's raw; sometimes it's so fresh, it's still moving on the plate. Throughout much ...