Taro Kono's appointment as the new foreign minister is raising eyebrows. Though he hasn't shown any indication that he will buck Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's agenda, Kono is considered a leftish maverick within the Liberal Democratic Party, especially with regard to its nuclear energy ...

Family members of those who died in the worst single-plane accident ever gather on the mountain in Gunma where JAL Flight 123 crashed 32 years ago, killing 520.

Human beings are born amoral. Infants know no rules, and obey none. They learn a few at home, then go to school and learn more. Everyone agrees rules are necessary. On what the rules should be there is less agreement; less still on ...

An annual ninja test from Shiga Prefecture will be held at a Tokyo temple for the first time this October, putting the town of Koka, home to a famous clan of the shadowy feudal warriors, in the tourism spotlight. Zojoji Temple, the temple of the ...

Andrew Mitola had never heard of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. until he met recruiters for the bank during his junior year of college. Now the New Jersey native is among the first to join Japan's biggest lender under an overseas graduate hiring program it ...

Japan's tobacco tax revenue is likely to drop by more than ¥50 billion ($460 million) this year as more smokers switch to heated tobaccos containing less tobacco leaves, according to an estimate compiled Friday by Kyodo News and a research institute. The fall is sure ...

The nightmarish horrors of India's partition by the British 70 years ago on Aug. 15, 1947, cast a long shadow into the 21st century.

Consumers, retailers and businesses nationwide throw away millions of tons of food each year, with waste ultimately affecting profit levels and keeping officials up at night. Food loss can happen at any stage in the production process, whether it be harvesting, processing, retailing or consumption. It's ...

For Misaki Morino, Vienna lives up to both its names: The City of Music and The City of Dreams.

Cormorant fisher in Kyoto discusses her new challenges.

The Gion Matsuri came to a close at the end of July, but there's still time to enjoy one of the dishes most closely associated with that famous festival. Hamo, called dagger-tooth pike eel in English, has long been one of the Kansai region's ...

It all began with bread crusts — lots and lots of bread crusts. Tatsuya Sakamaki, owner of bread manufacturer Bongout in the Saitama city of Kawaguchi, was troubled by the bags of crusts that would accumulate from the 50 loaves of white sandwich bread he ...

Most visitors to Kyoto rarely venture west of the Katsura River. On the face of it, the western tract of the city of Kyoto pales in comparison to Higashiyama in the east, which feels as though it could crumble under the weight of world ...

Kissaten Nasu is three separate but conjoined entities: As the name of the restaurant implies, it's a kissaten, a traditional cafe. But it's also a curry shop and a jazz cafe, and the master might just be one of the most dapper and suave ...

Harajuku has gone gaga over food designed for Instagram. Walk down Takeshita Street and you'll probably see people snapping shots of giant, rainbow-colored cotton candy and the like. The latest entrant into this realm is Coisof, an ice cream store located on a side street ...

"Mother, when are you ever going to die?" Inheritance From Mother, by Minae Mizumura.447 pages OTHER PRESS, Fiction. The question is shocking indeed. But Mitsuki Hirayama, a teacher and translator of French and the heroine of Minae Mizumura's new novel, "Inheritance from Mother," dreams of the day ...

Japan's passion for the modern coexists with aesthetic proclivities that favor antiquity and refinement. Wabi Sabi: The Art of Impermanence, by Andrew Juniper.176 pages TUTTLE, Nonfiction. One expression of the appreciation for age and beauty is the much-cherished effect known as wabi-sabi, the subject of Andrew Juniper's ...

Novels in which naive Western sojourners in Japan become drawn into a maelstrom of violence are numerous enough to deserve a genre of their own. The most memorable include "Ransom," by Jay McInerny (1985); "Whore Banquets" by Matthew Kneale (1987); "The Bang Devils" by ...

Pop star Taylor Swift on Friday won an important ruling in the trial stemming from her allegation that she was groped by a Colorado disc jockey, with the judge dismissing the DJ's rival claim accusing the singer of wrongfully getting him fired. The ruling by ...

Japan won its second game of the FIBA Asia Cup Saturday, beating Hong Kong 92-59 to secure a place in a quarterfinal qualifier by finishing second in its group. Never troubled by a Hong Kong team that ended the preliminary phase with an 0-3 record ...

Kodai Senga went seven innings to win a pitchers' duel with Naoyuki Uwasawa as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks beat the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters 1-0 to remain on top of the Pacific League on Saturday. Senga (10-2) struck out nine, walked two and surrendered five ...

Sara Takanashi and Yuki Ito finished second and third, respectively, at the first summer Grand Prix competition of the season on Friday. Takanashi started off with a jump of 89.0 meters and tried to make up for it with a 90.0 for a score of ...

The Hanshin Tigers' pitchers need to step up. The past several days have been hard on the Tigers, with the team watching its top two pitchers go down with injuries in a span of five days. Now it's up to the rest of the rotation ...

American Brittney Reese claimed her fourth world long jump title on Friday after a tense, tight contest in which only 6 cm separated the top four competitors. Darya Klishina, competing as a neutral athlete after the Russian federation was banned over state-sponsored doping, took silver ...

Duke University men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski's "fist" analogy to describe how a team gets stronger when it plays as a group is well-known. Antonio Lang, who played for Coach K at Duke, certainly knows the analogy is correct as he and his fellow Blue ...