The announcement is expected to further fuel concerns about games-related costs, as the new figure exceeds the ¥150 billion that the central government has promised to shoulder.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. has apologized after sharing on social media an image from inside its crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant together with a hashtag that means "fascination with factories." After the post attracted a lot of negative attention on the power company's ...

Television sets inexplicably turn on and off. Visitors who enter his room complain of sudden migraines. Rapping sounds keep him awake at night, and psychics warn he is being stalked by ghostly apparitions. In Tanishi Matsubara's tales of living in apartments with grim histories of ...

With the arrival of flu season, Osaka University Hospital on Tuesday introduced a unique way to keep the virus at bay, deploying a hand sanitizer dispenser in the shape of a famous Roman sculpture. Playing on the legend of the ancient marble "Bocca della Verita" ...

Sony Corp. upgraded its earnings outlook for a second straight quarter, thanks to a plethora of hit video-game titles that are boosting the PlayStation business. Operating profit for the current fiscal year through March will be ¥870 billion ($7.72 billion), up from the prior forecast ...

There were 1.64 openings for every job-seeker in the month, the highest level since January 1974 and up from 1.63 in August, according to the ministry.

A Cabinet minister apologized Tuesday for "causing trouble" after a weekly magazine reported that in 2007 he walked through a dormitory building for Diet members while drunk and naked, and rang the doorbell of a fellow lawmaker's room. "I'm aware of the article. I humbly ...

Educators at schools nationwide work more than 11 hours per day on average while senior school staff were found to have worked even longer.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet with a top North Korean official next week as they seek to arrange a second summit between the two countries' leaders, according to a South Korean report. The meeting would likely take place on the ...

Jumpei Yasuda, a journalist who returned to Japan last week after more than three years of captivity in Syria, on Monday gave further details of his time as a hostage, including how he believes another foreigner was also being held at the facility. The 44-year-old ...

He has vowed to drain the swamp, slash regulations and get tough with China. Evangelicals and gun-rights advocates love him. He has denounced the media as "fake news." Political foes? Lock 'em up. Brazil's new president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, is an ardent admirer — and shrewd ...

What's that whirring noise? It's Japan's machinery-makers at work, in contrast to investors' expectations. Results from Fanuc Corp. and Komatsu were a mixed bag Monday. Factory-automation giant Fanuc reported an 8.4 percent drop in fiscal first-half operating income and saw its shares rise, while construction-equipment-maker ...

Women who applied unsuccessfully to Tokyo Medical University are demanding it pay a total of ¥7.69 million ($68,600) in compensation for manipulating entrance exam results in favor of male applicants, their lawyers said Monday. The 24 applicants, who took the medical school's entrance exams in ...

A former Kobe city assemblyman who initially came under the spotlight for an affair with a singer-turned-lawmaker was found guilty Monday of defrauding his local assembly of public funds slated for use in political activities. The Kobe District Court sentenced Ken Hashimoto, 38, to 18 ...

Takahiro Shiraishi, a 28-year-old man charged in September with murdering and robbing nine people in his apartment last year, said in recent interviews with Jiji Press that he committed the crimes for money and sex. The victims were "objects of desire," Shiraishi said during the ...

Investigators are beginning the grim task of determining why a brand-new Boeing Co. 737 Max jet flown by Indonesia's Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board. Divers are searching for submerged wreckage of the plane, along ...

Britain said it would tax the revenue that online platforms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon make in the country to update a system that had not kept pace with changing digital business models. "It's clearly not sustainable, or fair, that digital platform businesses can ...

The Trump administration's unpredictability could be drawing Japan and China closer together.

U.S. freedom of navigation missions in the South China Sea are aimed at preventing Beijing from establishing a sphere of influence.

Every U.S. president deploys violence on a vast scale. How on Earth can they act surprised when ordinary citizens follow their example?

Twenty years ago, people packed theaters to watch a couple of Japanese teenagers view a strange videotape and soon after receive an ominous phone call with a cryptic message: "Seven days." Hideo Nakata's 1998 film "Ringu" (known as "The Ring" overseas) was just one of ...

Kichizaemon Raku, the eldest son of Kakunyu XIV, succeeded to the role as the 15th head of the revered Raku family of tea bowl craftsmen in 1981, a tradition founded in the Momoyama Period (1573-1603) by Tanaka Chojiro (d. 1592). His latest exhibition, "Raku ...

In 1925, the Japanese philosopher Muneyoshi Yanagi (1889-1961) coined the term "mingei" to refer to folk arts and crafts that involved high levels of skill but were made by unknown craftspeople.

The art performance group Hyslom comprises three contemporary artists — Itaru Kato, Fuminori Hoshino and Yuu Yoshida — and aims to explore two concepts: the lost connection between the Earth and the human body and the search for an unknown no-man's land that isn't ...

The symbolic use of fruit and vegetable imagery in East Asian paintings can be traced as far back as the Song Dynasty (960-1127) of ancient China, where it became a pictorial trend that spread across the Korean Peninsula to Japan.

The popular manga series "Attack on Titan" will get a Hollywood live-action film adaptation by Andy Muschietti, who directed the horror movie "It," publisher Kodansha Ltd. said on Tuesday. "Harry Potter" producer David Heyman will be producing the Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. film along with ...

Kengo Kawamata struck ahead of halftime as Jubilo Iwata broke a seven-game winless streak to beat Shonan Bellmare 1-0 on Tuesday. The clash at Yamaha Stadium, originally slated for Sept. 29, was the second league match between the pair this season to be rescheduled because ...

The SeaHorses Mikawa are on a roll. After an 0-5 start this season, longtime coach Kimikazu Suzuki's club now has a .500 winning percentage. The SeaHorses built a large lead and withstood a late rally by the Shiga Lakestars on Tuesday, winning 78-75. Isaac Butts had 17 ...

Naomi Osaka made her Centre Court debut in July at Wimbledon and looked every bit the part of a player who wasn't ready for prime time. "I wasn't nervous. I just think I was very overwhelmed," Osaka told reporters following her straight-sets defeat to Angelique ...

Japan secured a 2020 Tokyo Olympic berth in the men's gymnastics team event by finishing third at the world championships in Doha on Monday. Japan, led by three-time Olympic gold medalist Kohei Uchimura, scored a total of 253.744 points to finish behind China and Russia ...

Shoma Uno looked in midseason form as he rallied to victory at Skate Canada on Saturday in Laval, Quebec. The Olympic and world silver medalist was second after the short program, but came back to win the event for the second straight year with a ...