TELL climb of Tokyo Tower aims to start dialogue on suicide prevention
While the Tokyo English Life Line was established in 1973 to help the city's international community, TELL's services have come to benefit people across the entire country. Perhaps surprisingly, Japanese speakers have also turned to the hotline as they feel it's easier to open up ...
Tokyo Medical University scandal is a throwback to when discrimination against women was the norm
Listening to the excuses being given for discrimination today, it's almost as if 1985's Equal Opportunity Act never happened.
An Antipodean friendship fortified in Japanese floodwaters the color of 'Australian beer'
After his own rescue, one Kiwi resident of flooded Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, returned to the rising waters to look for his Aussie friend's stranded family.
The Kanpo: Where everything in Japan goes to happen (officially)
Read all about it in the government's daily gazette, from laws and notices of naughtiness to deaths and even poetry.
60 years after Sadako Sasaki's death, the story behind Hiroshima's paper cranes is still unfolding
Young A-bomb victim's message resonates globally thanks largely to her classmates, who turned the origami bird into an icon of peace.
Japan's courts don't share Mio Sugita's views on supporting LGBT people, precedents show
The country's courts are drawing a line in the sand over discrimination against LGBT people, even as far-right LDP lawmaker Mio Sugita slams support for 'unproductive' members of society.
What about we stop it with the 'whataboutism'?
These are troubling times for human rights activists. For 27 years I’ve been writing about civil, political and human rights for non-Japanese (NJ) and other minorities in Japan. And I’ve never been more confused. Not least because the United States, the putative paragon of human ...
'Akira' inspires generations of foreign animators
Enthusiasts pour their souls into labors of love honoring Otomo's classic anime film and manga series.
Fukuoka's 'guest teachers' of English outstay their welcome
Job insecurity, excessive secrecy and legal curbs on dispatch teachers come under the spotlight as 120 teachers lose their classes.
Japan on just 10 judges a day costs a pretty penny
With over 1,000 courts but less than 4,000 judges, somehow 3.5 million cases get cleared every year.
Two Japan Supreme Court cases clarify when discrimination against fixed-term workers is OK
June 1, 2018, saw two verdicts from two similar cases handed down by the Supreme Court, both based on the 2012 amendment to the Labor Contract Law.
Bill Hersey, man about Tokyo, 1930-2018: some tributes
Writer's kindness was legend, and his photos and columns told the story of a Tokyo social scene's rebirth after war and Occupation.
