Japan Pulse

Domestic news outlets and social media users love a good scare. Ever since a horde of rowdy Saitama-types turned Shibuya into something akin to “The Purge” last year, many Tokyoites have viewed this year’s Halloween festivities with trepidation. Reports over the past few weeks in ...

Women in Japan have long been expected to handle the bulk of child care duties, whether it be feeding and bathing a child or dropping them off at day care in the morning and picking them up from the center later the same day. In ...

There has been plenty wrong with conversations on social media over the past decade and yet it’s hard to argue that online platforms are anything other than essential in an emergency. This was almost certainly the case when Typhoon Hagibis made landfall on mainland Japan ...

It’s not unusual for foreign residents in Japan to be asked for identification.  It can be problematic for police officers to make such requests because, while foreign residents are required by law to carry their residence cards with them at all times, certain conditions must ...

Family movie nights used to mean sitting around the television set waiting for a scheduled film and enduring annoying commercial breaks. Such nights tend to look a little different these days, with streaming services such as Netflix and on demand television dominating the market ...

Netizens have been anticipating the start of the Rugby World Cup in Japan for months now and not just because of the action on the field. While the online masses closely followed and reacted to the Japanese team’s opening match win over Russia — ...

For elementary school children in Japan, their weeks-long summer vacation isn't entirely a time for leisure. Instead, it's overshadowed by a stack of homework that features, among other things, an assignment known as jiyū kenkyū (independent project). As the name suggests, jiyū kenkyū is an ...

Choirs full of Swedish children typically don’t break into song at Narita Airport. That’s precisely what happened last Monday night, however, when a youth group called Nova Cantica found itself stranded at the transport hub and decided to pass the time by singing in ...

Thirty-five-year-old Koichi Kuwabara has been offering free hugs in cities around the world since 2011. His efforts certainly haven’t gone unnoticed on social media, with the first video he uploaded on YouTube since attracting more than 1 million views. He shot his inaugural YouTube video ...