The ghastly image of a goggle-eyed creature that triggered the so-called Momo Challenge — a viral social-media hoax terrifying children and parents alike — was born in a cluttered two-story studio on the outskirts of Tokyo. The creator of the girl-like monster, Keisuke Aiso, seemed ...

The former deputy editor of a popular Kodansha Ltd. comic magazine was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for killing his wife in 2016. The Tokyo District Court ruled that Pak Jong Hyon, 43, strangled his wife to death in a bedroom of their ...

The nation's antitrust watchdog will impose fines totaling nearly ¥60 billion ($536 million) on Maeda Road Construction Co. and seven other major road paving material companies for forming a cartel to raise the price of asphalt, sources said Wednesday. The Fair Trade Commission has started ...

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. announced another round of losses Wednesday on its foreign-bond holdings as part of a surprise writedown that will severely curtail full-year profit, as Japanese banks' quest to secure yield by investing overseas continues to create turbulence. Mizuho slashed its net income ...

Former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn was released on bail Wednesday, ending over three months of detention that elicited a global outcry over his treatment.

The former head of a school operator and his wife, who are at the heart of a cronyism scandal linked to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of fraud related to public subsidies for their schools, claiming their arrests were ...

An event marking the 60th year since the debut of iconic fashion doll Barbie kicked off at Tokyo Skytree on Wednesday, showcasing the doll's history and diversity. The event, named Barbie Loves Tokyo Skytree Runway, will run through May 6. At the tower's Tembo Galleria, a ...

The study, to be conducted by a team of researchers from Osaka University, will be the sixth time the government has authorized clinical studies using iPS cells.

North Korea appears to be rebuilding a key long-range rocket test site it promised to scrap, in a possible sign of its displeasure over the collapse of nuclear talks at the second summit between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, experts ...

Japan ranked 165th out of 193 countries for its percentage of female politicians holding seats in lower or single parliamentary chambers, a report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union shows.

Four teenage boys were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of assaulting a high school student boy last month, police said, after a video showing the boy being hit and kicked went viral on social media. The four boys, all 16 years old and living in the ...

East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, said Tuesday it will introduce a system that can send images directly and automatically to police from its video surveillance cameras at stations in the event of an emergency, as Tokyo strengthens anti-terrorism measures in advance of ...

A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official will visit Washington from Wednesday for high-level talks with U.S. and South Korean counterparts on North Korea's denuclearization, the ministry has said. The trilateral talks will involve discussion on a possible response to last week's second summit between U.S. ...

Leading Southeast Asian ride-hailing provider Grab raised about $1.5 billion from SoftBank Group Corp.'s Vision Fund, bankrolling its effort to expand into new services across the region. The funding brings the amount of money the company has collected from investors in the past year to ...

Bank of Japan board member Yutaka Harada said on Wednesday the central bank must ramp up stimulus without delay if risks to the economy threaten achievement of its inflation target. Harada, a vocal advocate of aggressive monetary easing, said the nation's economy was facing growing ...

Growing up in Canada, Alex Lipson never imagined he would one day become a taxi driver — especially not on the other side of the world in Tokyo. "I didn't have some childhood dream to be a taxi driver," said the 34-year-old, who joined cab ...

Toyota Motor Corp. has added its voice to warnings about potential Brexit fallout as the deadline for an agreement on the U.K.'s exit from the European Union looms less than four weeks away. Possible disruption to trade between the U.K. and the EU is Toyota's ...

Talks between U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's top government lawyer and European Union negotiators, intended to win concessions from the bloc on Brexit, ended with no agreement in Brussels on Tuesday. May has sent Attorney General Geoffrey Cox to seek changes to her deal in ...

The Golden Week holiday period, extended to 10 days this year due to events surrounding the Imperial succession, has left working parents who are unable to take the entire time off in limbo, as most nurseries and kindergartens will be closed. Many people working in ...

High-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters show that a religious school run by Jaish-e-Mohammad in northeastern Pakistan appears to be still standing days after India claimed its warplanes had hit the Islamist group's training camp on the site and killed a large number of ...

A U.S. B-52 bomber was sent near disputed islands in the South China Sea and another circumnavigated Japan, conducting joint military exercises with the Air Self-Defense Force, the U.S. Pacific Air Forces said Wednesday. Monday's mission in the contested South China Sea was the first ...

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is having a hard time meeting demand for its Cullinan sport utility vehicle, as the high-end British automaker's biggest-ever model has proved popular with its ultra-rich clientele. Production of the SUV, which starts at $325,000 before customization — and almost all Rolls-Royce ...

Facebook, Twitter and foreign investors need to do more to ensure they support human rights in Myanmar, the U.N. Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee said in a report published on Tuesday. Myanmar has been trying to woo investors and divert attention from the 730,000 Rohingya Muslims ...

Airlines are doing too little in the fight against global warming, a study funded by investors with $13 trillion in assets under management said on Tuesday. The fast-growing sector accounts for 2 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions and should do more to manage risks ...

South Korean intelligence agencies have detected signs that North Korea is restoring part of the Dongchang-ri missile launch site it tore down, Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday. Specifically, Yonhap said the closed-off country, under pressure for years to discontinue its nuclear program, is putting ...

Many of the labor practices prevalent in Japan are quite extraordinary in light of global standards.

Today's flippant talk about reparations illustrates a worsening pattern of behavior among congressional Democrats.

Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" are fictional rules, so why do we keep looking to them for guidance? The closest thing to real-world robot law we could have more seems likely to develop around the question of when autonomous military drones can make "kill" ...

When students Hikari Hida and Trica Euvrard discovered that their university had no support in place for victims of sexual violence they created Uprizine to help make a change.

Lionel is 2 years old and was rescued in Yamaguchi Prefecture, a place where they still lay wire snares to trap dogs.

"I believe people with almost any kind of physique can do contemporary dance. Yet though there are many courses for able-bodied people, there is almost nothing for people with disabilities," says Sho Shibata, executive producer of U.K.-based Stopgap Dance Company. Stopgap's debut Japan tour with ...

Actor Ken Watanabe was nominated Tuesday for the 2019 Laurence Olivier Awards in the category for best actor in a musical for his role in "The King and I." The other actors in the running are Marc Antolin of "Little Shop of Horrors," Kobna Holdbrook-Smith ...

Running scenes have been a staple since the start of the movies, but in the silent days the fleet-footed hero was usually trying to outrun the police. Now, competitive running in its various forms, from the ekiden relay to the marathon, has become a ...

There are films that take you places you rather wish they wouldn't. Within the first 10 minutes of "Siblings of the Cape," I was ready to stop watching, but something about Shinzo Katayama's scruffy, transgressive debut kept me hooked. While it's hard to give an ...

One of Japan's most beloved cat cartoon characters is headed for Hollywood. Sanrio announced on Wednesday that it will team up with New Line Cinema and FlynnPictureCo. to create an English-language Hello Kitty film for global audiences, with Warner Brothers as distributor. The iconic cat, first ...

Swimming sensation Rikako Ikee said Wednesday her battle against leukemia has been more difficult than she imagined. Three weeks after announcing she had been diagnosed with the disease, the 18-year-old, who holds multiple national records, shared her feelings with her more than 400,000 followers on ...

Japan manager Hajime Moriyasu said Wednesday it will be "difficult" to assemble the strongest possible squad for this summer's Copa America in Brazil, with overseas clubs under no obligation to make Japanese players available for the tournament. While the June 14 to July 7 Copa ...

A Japanese university football player, who was suspended last year for committing a dangerous tackle on an opponent, is set to make his competitive return in May, a source close to the matter said Wednesday. Nihon University linebacker Taisuke Miyagawa is scheduled to play for ...

Most sports writers have their own personal pantheon of inspirations. At the top of mine is Hunter S. Thompson. The legendary gonzo journalist was never a soccer person ("Hey Rube," his published collection of essays for ESPN.com, mentions the sport just once in passing), but ...

Ryan Cook's former Seattle Mariners teammates will have be forgiven if they don't immediately recognize him when they arrive in Japan later this month. It won't just be because Cook will have on Yomiuri Giants uniform. It'll be because the Giants, much like the New ...

Many Japanese basketball fans may have been nursing hangovers after Japan successfully qualified for the FIBA World Cup. But the players themselves haven't had much time to cherish their accomplishment. After a celebratory toast at Narita Airport following the Asian qualifiers, the member's of Japan's Akatsuki ...

Within the span of a few years, Japanese pitcher Shohei Ohtani has had a dramatic impact on the thinking of some major league clubs. Even after Ohtani hit 22 home runs in a two-way role for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in 2016, major league ...

Rui Hachimura was named the West Coast Conference 2018-2019 Player of the Year on Tuesday after helping lead Gonzaga University, currently the nation's No. 1 team, to its seventh straight regular-season title and 20th consecutive win. The 21-year-old junior was also named to the All-WCC ...