Shingo Katori commanded the adoration of millions of fans across Asia as a member of SMAP, one of Japan's most successful boy bands. After decades as a ubiquitous TV presence, he finally decided in November it was time to get an Instagram account. A small ...

Asatsu-DK Inc.'s chief executive officer said he is determined to sever an alliance with top stockholder WPP PLC, seven months after the world's largest advertising agency called on share owners to vote him out. CEO and President Shinichi Ueno said in an interview that the ...

Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. will ramp up sales of its top-selling Super Dry beer in Europe with local production aided by faster integration of last year's $11 billion purchase of brands from Anheuser-Busch InBev NV. Japan's largest brewer will produce Super Dry in Padua, Italy, ...

McDonald's Japan took a series of hits starting in 2014 that threatened to crack its golden arches: a supplier was selling expired chicken, a human tooth was found in french fries and a child was injured by a plastic shard in a sundae. Sales plummeted ...

Selling everyday items to bargain hunters has made the founder of Japan's biggest discount store a billionaire. Hirotake Yano, founder and president of closely held Daiso Sangyo Corp., the self-described "Japanese shopping wonderland," was one of the country's first vendors to adopt a single-price model ...

A childhood New Year's holiday spent playing cards with his family planted the seeds of a gambling compulsion that ravaged decades of one man's life. Now 67, the former salesman from western Japan fell into debt time and time again as his addiction drew ...

Embarrassed by the recall of thousands of kitchenware pots after they appeared to leach lead when heated, discount-furniture king Akio Nitori took an unusual step. He hired a team of auto industry engineers to revamp the quality assurance and testing division. Ten years later, every ...

Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama are emerging as likely candidates for casino resorts under the government's new bidding framework, triggering criticism from smaller cities that say it undermines Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's goal of reviving rural areas. Most global casino operators have indicated an interest in ...

Konami Holdings Corp., which supplies slot machines to some of the world's biggest casinos, will participate in Japan's gaming industry if the regulations are as strict as those in Las Vegas. Satoshi Sakamoto, a senior executive director at Konami, said an industry with a good ...

Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing Co. is betting that speed, both in supplying its stores with the latest fashion and getting custom-made products to shoppers, will allow it to overtake apparel powerhouse Zara. Fast Retailing plans to shorten the time it takes from design to delivery ...