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 community in Fukuoka Prefecture that is known as a buraku, ...

There's a well-known anecdote about Masayoshi Son, the maverick billionaire founder and chief executive of SoftBank Group Corp. and the man behind the world's largest technology investment fund.

Riot police at the University of Tokyo haul off a man wearing a white helmet, cuffed hands clasped above his bowed head. His expression is a mixture of resignation and defiance, but the fine details are hard to discern, obscured by the dark shades ...

Cigarette smoke wafts across rows of whisky and shōchū bottles with dedicated name tags draped around the necks as an elderly man, microphone in hand, belts out a Showa Era enka tune playing on the karaoke machine. Another local steps through the heavy door, saluting ...

Brewer Yuji Shimada carefully holds the stem of a short wine glass and pours a clear, golden liquid from one of the taps mounted on the commercial refrigerator, the light fizz from natural carbonation creating a thin layer of foam reminiscent of beer head. "This ...

It's Japan's top-selling popsicle — yet still virtually unknown overseas. At ¥70, it's also one of the cheapest ice candies sold in convenience stores. Around 400 million of these frozen treats are consumed annually, which translates to the average Japanese buying three or four over ...

Five-year old Yua Funato was found unconscious at a Tokyo apartment in March, her feet severely frostbitten and her face and body covered with bruises that were inflicted by her 33-year-old stepfather. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital from pneumonia-induced sepsis caused ...

With the number of children shrinking, popular entertainment naturally began targeting the otaku population that didn't hesitate to open their wallets for material many considered juvenile.

Houseflies, the Soviet space program and manned missions to Mars — these aren't plot devices for a Cold War space thriller, but key terms to understand the history behind Fukuoka-based startup Musca Inc.'s project to provide a solution to some of the world's most ...

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 ...