Pet Haku 2009, an exposition to showcase cats and dogs as well as pet-related goods and services, was held in Tokyo's Odaiba district in December and featured around 80 companies. Staff writer Eriko Arita was there with her camera, asking visitors how they met their pets, what their pet's personality was like and where they live.

Name: Pon

Age: 8

Our Planet

Tugboats assist a liquified natural gas tanker as it docks at a port in Yantai, China, in February. In 2021, China became the largest importer of LNG, and as of this year, China now has the most long-term LNG contracts.
China is eroding Japan's LNG dominance. How does that affect Japanese buyers?

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic